Wednesday, April 09, 2014
Dershowitz SLAMS J Street
In a recently published video, Alan Dershowitz explains the issues he sees with J Street. The clip was recorded at the world premiere of the new film, The J Street Challenge.
Some highlights:
-In reference to Iran: "J Street is weakening both the United States' and Israel's position."
-"J Street cannot call itself a pro-Israel group when it takes positions that do not reflect any few of Israeli leaders."
-"J Street speaks out of both sides of it's mouth"
-"I analogize (J Street) to Jews for Jesus. They (Jews for Jesus) fool students, into thinking it is a Jewish organization and J Street fools students into thinking it is a pro-Israel organization."
HuffPo (CA)Jewish and Arab Refugees Must be Compared
A few weeks ago the Al-Jazeera Arabic channel carried a report on starving Palestinian refugees in a Syrian camp. In a sequence that must have slipped the editor's notice, an elderly man moaned in desperation to the camera: "Take us to the Jews. They will feed us!"American Muslims for Palestine's Telling Choice of Heroes
In that unguarded moment, two things were revealed: first -- Palestinian refugees are being deprived of a humanitarian solution to their plight. Second -- Arabs know full well that Israelis look after their own -- and not only their own -- but try and help others.
Nowhere is the contrast more stark than in the treatment of the two sets of refugees which arose out of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. A fair proportion of the 711,000 Arab refugees were left to languish -- and now starve -- in refugee camps as a longstanding reproach to Israel. Some 850,000 Jewish refugees were ultimately absorbed and given full citizens' rights in Israel and the West. (h/t Yerushalimey)
In the American civil rights movement, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were among those who set the moral tone. They were champions of non-violence who believed in civil disobedience to generate change by casting light on unjust laws.
If Saturday's fundraising dinner for the group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is any indication, role models for their cause include an unrepentant killer, a woman directly responsible for two people's deaths in a grocery store bombing. Prosecutors say she is in America only because she kept that crime a secret from immigration officials.
In addition to its praise for Rasmieh Odeh, the dinner at a banquet hall outside of Chicago offered further insight into AMP's radical ideology. Other speakers included a man identified as a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Jordan who previously led a Hamas-propaganda arm in America and a man listed as a member of the Palestine Committee, the Muslim Brotherhood's umbrella organization of American-based Hamas-support groups.
Brandeis RESCINDS Honorary Degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali
According to an official statement from Brandeis University, the university has elected to withdraw a planned honorary degree for human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
"Following a discussion today between President Frederick Lawrence and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ms. Hirsi Ali’s name has been withdrawn as an honorary degree recipient at this year's commencement. She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world. That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values. For all concerned, we regret that we were not aware of these statements earlier." (h/t MtTB)
Brandeis Students Petition Against Human Rights Activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Previous recipients of Brandeis honorary degrees include:Brandeis MSA Speaks Out Against Hirsi Ali
Tony Kushner (“I can unambivalently say that I think that it’s a terrible historical problem that modern Israel came into existence.”)
Bernard Lewis ("Classical anti-Semitism is an essential part of Arab intellectual life at the present time-almost as much as happened in Nazi Germany.")
Adrienne Rich (From 2009: "With initial hesitation but finally strong conviction, I endorsed the Call for a U.S. Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel.")
Desmond M. Tutu (Via Ynet: "Tutu has demonized the “Jewish lobby” as too “powerful” and “scary," resorting to a vile myth rooted in anti-Jewish stereotype, whereby the Jews control Washington. According to Tutu’s horrific and false accusation against the Jewish people, Israel is a sadistically colonialist entity, a blind persecutor of children, and a mad builder of apartheid walls.")
Leaders of the Brandeis University Muslim Student Association penned an Op-Ed in The Justice to describe their issues with the university's decision to give human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree:Bill Maher: The confident blasphemist
Israel may be the one principle that stirs Maher’s Jewish soul — that is, if he believed in souls — as his defense of it has the tremor of passion that stems from the gut.A Paid Operative Behind Campus Divestment
“Israel is held to a standard that no one else in the world is asked to hold,” Maher said on this March day, picking up where he’d left off. Now ready to rabble-rouse, he took aim at the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “You know, the idea that they would cast Israel in the role of the oppressor?” Maher said with his signature incredulity. Then added, “Of course, some Israeli policies are oppressive. But where is that coming from? That’s coming from the fact that people are lobbing rockets into their territory. I mean, what would America do if somebody was lobbing rockets from Toronto? We’d f------ nuke ’em. We’re ready to nuke Crimea, and we don’t even give a s--- about it! People don’t even know where it is! It’s insane.” (h/t Predictor92)
On Tuesday, April 1st, Students for Justice in Palestine presented the Loyola student government with an anti-Israel divestment resolution. But what they neglected to mention was that they didn’t write the legislation themselves. It turned out that the real author was Dalit Baum, a major leader in the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Baum is not a student or faculty member of Loyola or any North American university. She is a paid operative working to co-opt student governments into following the BDS Movement’s malicious, anti-Israel agenda. And if she is writing resolutions for one school, it is likely that she is writing them for others as well.ALERT: Sneak Passover Anti-Israel Divestment attack at Cornell
Many in the pro-Israel community suspected that professional BDS activists were behind anti-Israel campaigns on college campuses. Divestment initiatives are often orchestrated at a level that most students would not be able to achieve on their own. And now we have definitive proof that this is not purely grassroots, student-led activism, but rather an industry in which paid operatives play a crucial role. It should be noted that Dalit Baum, the operative in question, actively promotes the “right of return,” which, in the words of President Barack Obama, would, “extinguish Israel as a Jewish state”. This is something that all campus organizations absolutely must be made aware of before they make a decision on whether or not to support anti-Israel divestment campaigns.
In a move reminiscent of the exploitation of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday in 1973 to launch an attack on Israel, Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine has launched a last minute, sneak Divestment Resolution which is to come up for initial discussion on less than 48 hours notice this Thursday afternoon, April 10, at 4:30 p.m.Maryland budget slams Israel boycotts, offers no penalties
The notice was just posted on the Cornell Assembly website, although I heard rumors earlier today it might be coming.
Maryland lawmakers included language in the new state budget condemning academic boycotts of Israel but scrapped any penalties that were included in a bill under consideration.J Street U Students Support Student in Favor of Divesting From Israel in Bid for Student Government President
Wording in the 2015 fiscal year spending plan, which was adopted Sunday, includes a statement of strong support for Israel along with condemnation of the American Studies Association’s boycott of the Jewish state, but no separate law or financial penalties.
J Street U students on the campus of UC Berkeley have begun publicly supporting the campaign for student government president of Naweed Mohabbat, an advocate of divestment from Israel.Hillel Director Attacks StandWithUs
Following an event featuring the Israel-bashing group, Breaking the Silence, Jacqueline Ulin Levey, executive director of St. Louis Hillel at Washington University, attacked the pro-Israel organization StandWithUs and defended the event in the St. Louis Jewish Light:Dubai Company To Build Ferris Wheel in Jerusalem?
A company registered in Dubai and run by a Lebanese businessman is reportedly interested in setting a giant ferris wheel in Jerusalem's Independence Park, as a temporary attraction for Independence Day, celebrated on May 6 this year.Anti-Israel Agitprop in The Australian
The company, represented in Israel by an Israeli businessman, presented the proposal to the Jerusalem Municipality, in response to a publication by the Municipality calling for companies to propose tourist attractions in the park for a limited time period.
It is noted that the company, located in the Persian Gulf, has experience building large facilities worldwide, with past projects in Hong Kong, Thailand, France, Cyprus and Lebanon.
Browning’s opinion piece is certainly not an objective, academic critique of where things have gone wrong. It is, instead, a thinly veiled attack on Israel as evidenced by anti-Israel propaganda and falsehoods. According to Browning:An Open Letter to the Staff of the Financial Times
In 1948, the state of Israel was founded upon the mass displacement of Palestinians, whose homes were either destroyed or taken over by Jewish migrants. Today a minority of Palestinians still live in Israel, subject to a host of restrictions on their employment, housing and education, while the majority live as refugees in the rest of the Middle East.As for the absurd claim that Palestinian citizens of Israel are subject to “a host of restrictions on their employment, housing and education,” this is simply a lie. While it would be foolish not to recognize that much can be done to close economic and social gaps between Israeli Arabs and Jews, there are no Israeli state policies restricting the rights of Israeli Arabs to employment, housing and education. The sole legal distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli army. In fact, Israeli Arabs enjoy rights and a standard of living far beyond those of their brethren in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab states.
Your correspondent David Gardner may live in Beirut, but he dwells in a very different world than mine. In his defamatory article on the Israel-Palestionian peace talks (‘US plays the crooked lawyer in an Israeli-Palestinian drama,’, April 4), he parades a host of assertions that no sane observer of the situation would accept as factually correct. But he makes things worse by his egregious complaint that Benjamin Netanyahu is blocking the way to peace by refusing to release a fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners currently serving life sentences for committing brutal murders of innocent civilians, namely Jewish men, women, and children.Palestinian Marathon: Media Runs the Errors
Israel has most definitely not been kicked out of world soccer’s governing body although there are currently calls for Israel’s expulsion from international competitions. Most likely this error is simply one that occurred during the editing process.Russian bill could make Holocaust denial illegal
The claim that two Palestinian footballers were reportedly shot in the feet at an Israeli checkpoint, is, however, utterly false. The lies have been comprehensively debunked on the Elder of Ziyon blog and should no longer be deemed credible by the mainstream media.
Russian lawmakers approved a bill that would make Holocaust denial illegal.Amid protest, building of WWII statue begins in Budapest
The lower house of the Russian Parliament, or Duma, passed the measure Friday on its first reading, the Voice of Russia reported Monday, making it illegal to deny the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal and punishing the “rehabilitation of Nazism.”
The Freedom Square monument, due to be completed in May, will pay tribute to “all Hungarian victims with the erection of the monument commemorating the tragic German occupation and the memorial year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust,” according to the Hungarian Government Information Center.French National Front mayor evicts Dreyfus-inspired group
The Jewish community has argued that the memorial removes any responsibility from the Hungarian government of that time for the death of Hungarian Jews.
Steeve Briois, who was elected last month to run the town of Henin-Beaumont, ordered the Human Rights League, or LDH, to clear out of its workspace last week, LDH President Pierre Tartakowsky told JTA.Anne Frank tree to be planted on US Capitol lawn
The LDH, which was established in 1898 to protest the wrongful and racially motivated conviction for espionage of the French Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, for years had occupied office space provided free to it and other civil society groups by the municipality, Tartakowsky said.
A sapling grown from the tree that Holocaust victim Anne Frank wrote about while in hiding will be planted this month on the US Capitol grounds, congressional leaders announced Tuesday.Israeli company develops 'radiation belt' for nuclear emergencies
“The Anne Frank memorial tree is an offspring of the horse chestnut tree that was featured in Anne’s diary writings,” House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote in a letter to members of Congress.
Called the "StemRad 360 Gamma" belt, it shields the body from the effects of gamma radiation.Israel's economy will grow 3.5% in 2015, says IMF
"It may look simplistic on the outside but the structure inside is three dimensional and very unique. The idea here was to create a product that on the one hand protects but on the other hand is not over burdened weight."
Oren Milstein is co-founder of Stemrad, the company behind the belt. He won't give much away about its key technology, but says it's partially comprised of lead and has been designed to protect the pelvic area, where most of the the body's renewable bone marrow is concentrated.
The Israeli economy will grow by 3.5 percent in 2015, up from 3.2% in 2014 and 3.4% in 2013, the International Monetary Fund said in its World Economic Outlook mid-year report.Happy Passover From The Technion
The IMF outlook is more optimistic than that of the Bank of Israel, which is predicting growth of 3% in 2015, or 2.8% without production from the Tamar natural gas reserve.
