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Tuesday, April 08, 2014

04/08 Links Pt2: UNHRC: When Palestinian Men Beat Their Wives, It’s Israel’s Fault

From Ian:

UN: When Palestinian Men Beat Their Wives, It’s Israel’s Fault
In her recent report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay revives the bizarre charge, made by one of her colleagues in 2005, that when Palestinian men beat their wives, it’s Israel’s fault:
By Navi Pillay regurgitating Erturk’s 2005 canard, the UN is once again telling Palestinian men that they have no moral agency, and bear little or no responsibility for their inhumane actions against women.
What the UN is doing, once again, is to displace moral responsibility and prime agency. Palestinian men are not primarily to blame for their violence against women, says the UN. Israel is.
Australia opposition chief: ‘Some’ settlement activity illegal
The question of the legality of Israeli settlements is once again stirring debate in Australia, after the head of the opposition and Labor Party chairman Bill Shorten said that “some settlement activity in the West Bank is illegal,” leading even members of his own party to protest that he should have left off the word “some.”
The Jewish community, however, welcomed Shorten’s stance, suggesting that the government in Canberra is growing increasingly aware of Palestinian efforts to “deliberately distort the realities of the settlement question for political purposes.”
Shorten’s comments came about four months after the country’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, caused a controversy when she indicated in a Times of Israel interview that settlements might not be illegal under international law.
Anti-Zionist MK Hanin Zoabi's Relative: A Proud Zionist Arab
Muhammad Zoabi, 16, an Arab Muslim from Nazareth, is causing anger in Muslim circles, and considerable joy in Jewish ones, by stating in a unique interview that he is a Zionist and loves the state of Israel.
"I really believe that I'm a lucky Arab and a lucky human being and a lucky Middle Eastern[er] that I was born in this little tiny piece of land!”, he stated. Pointing to the Golan Heights from the window of his interviewer's home, in the Israeli community of Massad, he noted how bad life is beyond the border, for Syrians.
Muhammad's enthusiastic Zionism is made all the more intriguing by the fact that he is related to notorious anti-Zionist MK Hanin Zoabi, of the Arab-nationalist Balad party.



The Grand Mufti’s Nazi connection
It’s no coincidence that just a few months after Nazi Germany surrendered, on November 2, 1945, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, many synagogues were burned down in Egypt and dozens of Jews were killed on the streets of Cairo.
And it was also no coincidence that on that same day, hundreds of Jews in Libya were killed, nine synagogues were desecrated, and hundreds of Jewish homes and shops were looted and burned down. There is no doubt that these attacks on Egyptian and Libyan Jews, which took place exactly on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, were the result of the mufti’s machinations and his influence on leaders of the Arab world. These events were the direct consequence of propaganda the mufti had been circulating for years. Generations of Muslims, including the Salameh family, were being raised on such beliefs. The mufti’s actions had prepared the ground for attacks on Jews in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
A plan to compensate Jews who escaped from Arab countries due to harassment and persecution is currently being discussed in the Knesset and in coordination with the US government. It’s important that Israeli politicians not only understand the historical background that led up to the displacement of Jews from Arab counties, but also the direct connection between their fate and what the Palestinians call the Nakba.

Idrisi is quoted as saying, “Chills go through my body even today as I recall what I heard back then from police officials and mufti supporters [when General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was about to enter Egypt as part of the 1942 El Alamein campaign].
Haj Amin Husseini was preparing to enter Jerusalem at the head of the Muslim Arab Legion squadron he’d created for the army of the Third Reich. The mufti’s grand plan was to build huge Auschwitz- like crematoria near Nablus, to which Jews from Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and North Africa would be sent and then be gassed, just like the Jews were by the SS in Europe.” (h/t
Elder of Lobby)
Terror Victim Calls Out Arafat Grave Visit & CJP Response
Victims of terror are speaking out against the itinerary of the Harvard Israel Trek 2014. Stephen M. Flatow, father of 20-year-old Alisa who was murdered in a 1995 bus bombing while she was a student in Israel, published a challenging Op-Ed via JNS.org:
"The controversy over the Harvard University students who recently posed, smiling, at Yasser Arafat’s grave sent a shot of pain through every one of us who has lost a loved one in the terrorist attacks that Arafat and his allies have waged over the years.
But it must have been particularly awful for Dr. Alan Bauer, a Harvard-educated scientist, to see students from his own school smiling and enjoying their visit to the tombstone of the man responsible for the vicious attack that left Bauer and his 7-year-old son permanently maimed."
Brandeis Students Petition Against Human Rights Activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Brandeis University students have launched a Change.org petition in an attempt to prevent the university from giving an Honorary Degree to human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her biography on the American Enterprise Institute details her life story:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken defender of women's rights in Islamic societies, was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992 and served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006. In parliament, she worked on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society and defending the rights of women in Dutch Muslim society. In 2004, together with director Theo van Gogh, she made Submission, a film about the oppression of women in conservative Islamic cultures. The airing of the film on Dutch television resulted in the assassination of Mr. van Gogh by an Islamic extremist. At AEI, Ms. Hirsi Ali researches the relationship between the West and Islam, women's rights in Islam, violence against women propagated by religious and cultural arguments, and Islam in Europe.
BDS: A War of Attrition Against Israelis
Derfner’s Long Game is really a war of attrition against the Israeli people. That message was reinforced this week by another critic of Israel, Harriet Sherwood, who used to cover Israel for the Guardian.
"Israel frequently proclaims itself to be the only true democracy in the Middle East. Should its citizens demand an end to policies that have brought them economic pain, isolation and global opprobrium, their government will surely be forced to take notice."
At least Derfner and Sherwood are honest about the BDS and how it seeks “economic pain” for the people of Israel. In any other context, the left would deride this approach as collective punishment. But not when the BDS has the noble goal of “ending the occupation.” And for that, any means necessary are acceptable.
In Bethlehem, the Wrong Kind of Christian Festival
The irony was apparently lost on organizers of “Christ at the Checkpoint”: holding an anti-Israel Christian-American conference in a city whose Christian population has been eviscerated by the Palestinian Authority.
Over the past several decades, some of the most steadfast backers of Israel have been Christians, particularly in the United States. But opponents of Israel are well aware of this and, not content with working against the Jewish state in other institutions, they have changed their tactics accordingly, working overtime to poison the wellspring of belief. Evangelical support for Israel is under attack.
The biannual Christ at the Checkpoint Conference (CATC) in Bethlehem has been a rallying point for this campaign. When I attended the 2014 conference, I discovered that things have only gotten worse. In fact, the event demonstrated just how savvy and successful Palestinian anti-Israel Christian activists have become. Over the last four years, the leaders and participants of Christ at the Checkpoint have grown to be increasingly astute regarding American Evangelicals and how to persuade them of their anti-Israel narrative.
Permalink to Guardian book review includes throw-away line about Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’
Without revisiting the quote by the former U.S. presidential candidate, it’s important to note the causal manner in which Yassin-Kassab charges Israel with “ethnic cleansing” – an accusation, as we’ve noted previously, that has absolutely no basis in reality, and can be easily refuted by a few population statistics.
So, while the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza has increased over 700 percent since Israel’s establishment, the Jewish population in the Arab Middle East has decreased by 99 percent – dry data which demonstrates that though Arab governments have quite ‘successfully’ ethnically cleansed their Jewish citizens, Zionists remain the most ‘incompetent’ ethnic cleansers on the planet.
Joseph Dana of +972 -Not a real journalist
Journalist Joseph Dana, known in the Twitterverse as @IbnEzra, has been found guilty of interfering with the security forces in the course of carrying out their duties for throwing rocks during a demonstration at Nebi Salah in October 2010.
On October 24, 2010, there as a demonstration of 'Palestinians,' 'internationals' and Israelis in Nebi Saleh in Samaria. One of the policemen saw Dana and someone named Yuval Oron throwing stones at the security forces. The two were arrested half an hour later for activity designed to prevent the police from fulfilling their legal duties, for participating in an illegal demonstration in a manner that disturbed the peace and instilled fear in the public.
Dana's excuse? He claimed that he was a journalist. He's not.
To Joseph Dana- if you are actively participating in an action, you are neither neutral nor objective, and any "reporting" you do needs to be seen through the lens of your bias. You are a propagandist, plain and simple Will +972 or Mondoweiss continue to publish Dana's reports? I have no doubt that they will- because to the anti-Israel cru, this has never been about presenting truth- its about promoting a one sided and twisted agenda
At last, Britain is investigating the Muslim Brotherhood
The UK government has announced a long-overdue investigation into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK. I am delighted. Why Britain should continue to act as an Argentina-like sanctuary for Islamic fascists I have never understood. I hope the investigation will be deep and wide-ranging.
But of course if the government really wants to go into this properly it could do no better than to start at its own doorstep. Last week the inept and unelectable Baroness Warsi announced the formation of a new Foreign Office Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Given that Warsi has previously and repeatedly claimed that tackling ‘Islamophobia’ is one of the UK government’s ‘priorities‘ I think we can probably all guess where this ‘Advisory group’ will be heading. And it won’t be dealing with the Christians being slaughtered by Islamists across the Middle East and North Africa. Or Jews being targeted by Palestinian terrorists who still receive salaries for their crimes from the UK taxpayer.
Update: Warsi's "Equality" Group is packed with Muslims and/or Israel haters
Following on from my earlier article I have done some checks on all the members of Warsi's "Freedom of Religion or Belief" Group. It turns out that Tariq Ramadan, the Muslim Brotherhood poster boy and antisemite who in 2006 was banned from the US because of his links to terrorism is by no means an exceptional choice. Of the 15 members of the group (including Warsi) NINE are either focused solely on Islamic interests and/or have a very clear anti-Israel bias.
'Extremist’ working as psychiatrist for NHS
Critics have said his role as a NHS psychiatrist, paid for by the taxpayer, conflicts with his extreme views on women’s right, alcohol, and same-sex relationships.
In his capacity as media adviser Dr Waheed has previously advocated the setting up of an Islamic caliphate and claimed that Muslims in Britain are routinely treated as “terrorists” discriminated against by the courts, police and media.
Dr Waheed has also called on supporters of HT to undertake 'jihad’ against Israel, telling followers at a rally at London’s Marble Arch, in 2009, that there could be “no peace or negotiations with the illegitimate entity of Israel.”
Moroccan group publishes names tied to ‘Zionist infiltration’
The Moroccan Observatory against Normalization with Israel published the list last week in its annual report for 2013, the news site Hespress.com reported.
Among the people named was Andre Azoulay, a Moroccan Jew and adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco; Driss El Yazami, chairman of the National Human Rights Council; businessman Gabriel Banon; and Ibrahim el Fassi Fihri, founder of the Amadeus student exchange program.
They were listed for visiting Israel or working to further cooperation with it, according to the report, which named some of the individuals listed as “symbols of the Zionist infiltration into Morocco.”
Hungary’s ‘neo-Nazi’ Jobbik gains with image shift
Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party, describing itself as the EU’s “most successful radical nationalist party,” was celebrating gains in weekend elections on Monday after a campaign that sought to curb its nastiest rhetoric.
Ahead of European elections next month that are also expected to see strong results for anti-immigration, anti-EU parties, Jobbik increased its support base across many parts of Hungary to come third with 20.5 percent of the national vote.
European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor said the “neo-Nazi” Jobbik’s performance was a “dark day” for Hungary that gives Europe’s far-right a “strong tailwind” ahead of May’s vote.
“It is the duty of both European leaders and voters to ensure that a strong message is delivered by supporters of democracy throughout Europe to show these racists and xenophobes that hate has no place on our continent,” he said.
Hungarian Jews’ Holocaust memorial challenges official event
Many activists say they would have preferred the government do nothing rather than offend the memories of Holocaust survivors with some of its recent activities, such as appointing historian Maria Schmidt to head a $22 million Holocaust museum now under construction.
Schmidt has said Nazism was no worse than Soviet communism, prompting both Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial museum, and Mazsihisz, the umbrella group of Hungarian Jewry, to decline to cooperate with her museum.
In January, the government appointed another controversial historian, Sandor Szakaly, to head the newly established Veritas Historical Research Institute. Szakaly said in an interview that month that the 1941 deportation and subsequent murder of tens of thousands of Jews was an “action of the immigration authorities against illegal aliens.”
“Clearly this government is not qualified to commemorate the Holocaust,” said Karl Pfeifer, a prominent Jewish journalist who was raised in Budapest and now resides in Vienna.
The unlikely site of world’s fastest growing Jewish community
The epicenter of the Holocaust, the city where Hitler signed the death warrants of 6 million Jews, seems an unlikely candidate for the world’s fastest growing Jewish community.
But despite this stigma of Nazism, Berlin’s dynamic, prosperous present and its rich, pre-World War II Jewish past initially attracted an influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union. The community has kept growing with the arrival of thousands of Israelis and smaller numbers of often young immigrants from Australia, France, the United States and elsewhere.
And this upsurge in the Jewish population — believed to be more than 40,000 — has also spurred tourism to an array of monuments, synagogues, museums and workaday places related to Jewish history and present life in Germany’s capital.
Israeli-born antenna pioneer dies at 76
Dr. Oded Bendov, an expert on TV antenna design and the chief architect of the broadcast antennas atop Mt. Sutro in San Francisco, and the Empire State Building and World Trade Center in New York, died April 2 of complications from prostate cancer. He was 76.
Bendov was the inventor of and prime mover behind the television industry’s transition to circularly polarized TV antennas, a technology that was recognized with an Emmy Technical Achievement Award in 1984. The work also won Bendov the Television Engineering Achievement Award from the National Association of Broadcasters in 1985.
Your favorite TV show was probably conceived in Israel
It took a team of 150 Dutch builders and craftspeople just 10 days to recreate Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s palace in Israel. The set is part of the $30 million production of FX’s new drama, “Tyrant,” now filming in Kfar Saba 20 minutes from Tel Aviv.
The big-budget “Tyrant” is part of a new trend of filming shows on location in Israel. The first was last year’s “Dig” filmed by NBCUniversal in Jerusalem.
“Tyrant” is even grander. In addition to the set, the 12-acre Kfar Saba compound includes two studios, dining tents and dressing rooms. The municipality will receive about $145,000 in rent and property tax, as well as educational and cultural events for residents courtesy of the production company.
U.S. Getting Popular Israeli Game Show ‘Boom!’
Move over Homeland and In Treatment—there’s a new Israeli television import in town. Coming to your television screen in the near future is Boom!, which the Hollywood Reporter describes as “a quiz show in which contestants struggle against the clock to defuse replica bombs by answering trivia questions.” So like Cash Cab, but with bombs?
It’s a somewhat off-putting—and hugely unsubtle—concept, but it’s also very much a show that lays bare the machinery of a competition show. It’s so spare and unadorned that it’s almost the ultimate game show. Still, it’s possible American audiences like their quiz shows more glammed up, with sequined women holding shiny briefcases, or with celebrities, or pop song lyrics. Or they might just really like Jeopardy. Boom!, with its use of bomb imagery and casual reliance on the threat of imminent violence seems somehow… different.
Elbit Systems Wins $100 Million Latin American Deal
Elbit Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ and TASE: ESLT) announced today that it was awarded a contract in the Latin American region, in an amount of approximately $100 million, for the supply of a Homeland Security (HLS) solution.
Under the contract, to be performed over an approximately one-year period, Elbit Systems will supply also a new innovative intelligence gathering system, considered to be a groundbreaking operational solution.
Israeli company develops a way to charge a smartphone in 30 Seconds [Video]
One of the most troubling issues for mobile users is the short battery life. Many users find themselves having to walk around with chargers, spare batteries and countless other solutions to make sure their phones are charged or can be charged anywhere and at any time.
Thanks to technology developed by StoreDot, in the future users will not experience the fear that comes from seeing a battery reach the red line, since it will be possible to charge it in a few seconds and resume normal use. The Israeli technology was inspired by natural processes, low cost and with an emphasis on the environment.
StoreDot Flash-Battery Demo