Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Douglas Murray: Who are the Victims and Who Are the Victimizers?
One year after the bombs went off at the Boston marathon, Brandeis authorities were so intent on avoiding the issues those bombs had raised, that they would rather point the finger at a critic of the radical ideology than do anything to criticize the ideology.Mike Lumish: Spreading Hatred Toward Jews on Daily Kos
Is not the Palestinian leadership a viable negotiating partner with whom peace is just about to be achieved? How do you protest if the protesters are Muslims? Who are the victims and who are the victimizers? After all, "victims" cannot victimize, can they?
When we see a global bigotry and hatred such as this, we should identify it as such and demand, in the name of all that is decent, that it stop.
Progressive-left disdain for the Jewish people takes the form of disdain for the Jewish State. Disdain for the Jewish State takes the form of perpetually condemning it as a racist, imperialist, colonialist, militarist, apartheid, racist state. It’s the Big Lie and if you say it over and over and over again eventually people will come to believe it.Kansas Hate Crime Didn’t Emerge From a Vacuum
Let’s take a gander at an example from the hard-left Daily Kos website, shall we?
One of the more vile individuals that posts in that venue goes under the moniker Eternal Hope… although I know of one wag who likes to refer to her as Eternal Dope.
Now that the Kansas atrocity underlines that Jews do, in fact, face serious risks, Blumenthal has shifted tack, writing on the anti-Semitic website Mondoweiss on the alleged similarities between Frazier Cross’s Nazi ideology and Zionism. Elsewhere on the same website, which receives part of its funding from conservative businessman Ron Unz, another contributor, Annie Robbins, wondered aloud whether Kansas was an Israeli conspiracy.
Why does any of this matter? Left-wing anti-Zionists are increasingly regarded as acceptable company in the intellectual mainstream. Blumenthal has, for example, recently addressed the New America Foundation, a leading liberal think-tank in Washington, DC, which was apparently unperturbed by his flock of Nazi admirers, or by the fact that he was the subject of a flattering profile on Press TV, the official mouthpiece of the Iranian regime.
Earth Day BDS Fail. Sodastream giveaway on the Ellen Show
Its enough to make the BDS holes see...green.All in the Family: BDS Protests Zabars; Carole Zabar Promotes BDS
The fabulous (and fabulously popular)talk show host Ellen DeGeneres gave away Sodastream home carbonation units to her studio audience in honor of Earth day.
It was an informed and sensitive choice. After all, the average American family will save over 2,000 bottles and cans every year by switching to SodaStream.
Richard Allen, founder of JCC Watch, reminds us that for many years in her position as a director of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, Zabar has been”hosting and promoting groups that call for a boycott of SodaStream, Ahava Cosmetic products and other Israeli companies.”Huff Po Op-Ed: Hirsi Ali Isn't a Women's Rights Activist
Allen says he believes that Zabar used to be listed as a major contributor of Partners for a Progressive Israel, one of the organizations best known for pushing the SodaStream boycott. She certainly partnered with that group in her role as founder of the “Other Israeli Film Festival,” the one that not only seeks to showcase Arabs in Israel, but frequently promotes the worst slanders against the Jewish State.
Nathan Lean, author of The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims, claimed in the Huffington Post that Ayaan Hirsi is “Neither a critic of Islam, nor a champion of women’s rights.”Brandeis U Pressured by 'Radical Islamist Leader'
His article was publicized and echoed by CAIR National:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Neither a Critic of Islam, Nor a Champion of Women's Rights #DisHonorDiaries... http://t.co/l5Hq1Yq6x2
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) April 19, 2014
CAIR National has previously refused to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and has stood by accused terrorists and terror supporters.
After attacking the media’s characterization of Hirsi Ali as simply a "critic" of Islam, Lean stated that Hirsi Ali is not a women’s rights activist:
Lean also claims that “Speaking for Muslim women (or any group) is not the same thing as advocating on their behalf.”
Jacobs and Feoktistov highlighted troubling videos featuring [Suhaib] Webb which Americans for Peace and Tolerance have uncovered:Northeastern Univ allows probationary reinstatement of anti-Israel group
"If you watch the videos of his sermons, you might conclude that Webb is homophobic, anti-Semitic and a misogynist, a man who claims that uncovered women are “bad people.” His mosque’s website once had instructions for men on how to beat their wives."
Webb has publicly announced his close ties to CAIR National and attacked Hirsi Ali and secularism at a recent conference:
In early March, Northeastern University temporarily suspended Students for Justice in Palestine after SJP did a “dorm storming” in which it slid anti-Israeli mock eviction notices under 600 dorm room doors in the middle of the night. SJP already was on probation, and the dorm storming resulted in temporary suspension.Israeli Sues Obama Administration for Discrimination
SJP then launched a protest march at which students chanted anti-Israel slogans, including Long Live the Intifada (the bloody Palestinian attacks that killed thousands).
More importantly, SJP’s allies ran a publicity campaign claiming SJP was the victim of speech suppression and censorship. The campaign garnered local Boston media support, even though the charge of censorship was specious. SJP had no right to invade the student dormitory much less student bedrooms.
An Israeli man is suing the Obama administration after Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx denied his complaint against Kuwait Airways for refusing to allow him to purchase a New York-London air ticket. The suit, filed Mar. 31 at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, alleges that the "Secretary has officially endorsed Kuwait Airway’s policy boycotting Israeli nationals" and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.France withholds funds to association in east Jerusalem
Eldad Gatt, an Israeli citizen who resides in Jerusalem, had written to Secretary Foxx to complain about two airlines, Saudi Arabian ("Saudia") and Kuwait Airways, neither of which permit Israelis to purchase tickets. Like many other Arab countries, both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait deny entry to Israelis. However, U.S. law prohibits both domestic and foreign airlines from discriminating against passengers on the basis of national origin.
French parliamentarian Meyer Habib has been racked with anger for the past several days. Although the French government approved his initiative to offer a financial grant to an Israeli association in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, he was informed recently that the money, about 3,000 euros ($4,100), has been withheld because the organization sits just beyond the Green Line.Jewish Chronicle publishes already discredited anti-Israel propaganda story
In December 2013, Habib -- who was selected about a year ago to represent French citizens living in Middle Eastern countries -- received the French government's permission to grant a financial contribution to the association Daat Menachem, which provides assistance to French-Israeli students studying in Jerusalem. French parliamentarians may offer financial contributions as part of their authority.
Habib said the decision unfairly distinguished among Jerusalem residents.
Two weeks ago the New York Times and Reuters published an anti-Israel propaganda article about restrictions imposed on a marathon runner from Gaza. The story had been pushed by the anti-Zionist NGO "Gisha", whose activities and funding you can read about here. On 11 April the excellent Elder of Ziyon exposed the lies and bias in the story.BBC News produces article about man held up for half an hour
Yet on 18 April the Jewish Chronicle (which could not find room in its 60 pages to mention the Palestinian terrorist attack that took place on Passover Eve three days earlier) managed to find space for Gisha's spokesman Leora Garton to repeat the same propaganda and lies that had already been discredited a week earlier.
In fact, as the Washington Post informs us, Mr Serry’s arrival at the ceremony was delayed for thirty minutes due to necessary security measures of the type seen anywhere in the world when a large crowd arrives in one place at the same time – and all the more essential in a city which has been the target of numerous terror attacks over the years.The Economist Gets its “Settlers” Wrong
“Serry spokeswoman Elpida Rouka said that the envoy and his party were trapped for about 30 minutes but that eventually the police retreated and the group, along with “an anxious crowd of worshipers,” was able to enter.”
Contradicting its own earlier assertion that Serry was ‘prevented’ from reaching the ceremony, the BBC report also later uses the words ‘delay’ and ‘held up’:
The Economist needs to check its facts.Soccer player fined over $25,000 for supporting anti-Semitic gesture
1. Highway 35, on which this terrorist attack took place, is not “restricted to settlers.” Palestinian vehicles are allowed to use this highway within the West Bank.
2. Baruch Mizrahi was a resident of Modi’in, an Israeli city within the Green Line and not a “settler” as The Economist maintains.
A request for a correction has been sent to The Economist.
UPDATE Following our email, The Economist has published a correction.
A soccer player from the Ivory Coast for Britain’s Hull City team has been fined for posting a message of support for Nicolas Anelka’s quenelle gesture on social media.Holocaust whistleblower Jan Karski honored by Georgetown
The Football Association on Tuesday fined player Yannick Sagbo more than $25,000 for the action following an Independent Regulatory Commission Hearing, where he admitted a breach of the soccer league’s Rule E3, under which players are prohibited from making comments that are “abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper.” An aggravated breach of E3 includes comments that include “a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief.”
Jan Karski, a World War II Polish resistance fighter who risked his life to bring firsthand reports of the Holocaust to the Allies, is being remembered and celebrated at Georgetown University in Washington, DC this year, the 100th anniversary of his birth.Wiesenthal Center: Newly Sainted Popes Are Heroes to the Jewish People
The university, where Karski, who died in 2000, was a professor for four decades, has scheduled a number of special events in his honor, including a full-day centenary tribute on April 24. Karski was previously recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations and awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama
Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center at the weekend said it joined with Catholics around the world in acknowledging the remarkable contributions of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II canonized on Easter Sunday.Temple Mount Under TransJordanian Guns - and a Synagogue
In a statement, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the Wiesenthal Center’s Director of Interfaith Affairs, said, “Jews will always remember Pope John XXIII as the animating force behind the Vatican II Council that changed the way Catholics looked at other faiths, especially Judaism. The Nostra Aetate document that ensued from it pulled the plug on centuries of theological anti-Semitism and put relationships between Christians and Jews on a new footing of mutual respect.”
As informed by my good friend Lenny Ben-David of Picture-a-Day, British Pathe newsreels are up.IDE wins Global Water Awards’ Desalination Plant of the Year for Sorek
In this one, you can see TransJordian troops and irregulars invading Mandate Palestine.
What caught my interest was the stationing of troops on the northern side of the Temple Mount: the courtyard: and the Dome of the Rock and then I noticed off to the south-west, in the Jewish Quarter above, the "Tiferet Yisrael (Nissan Bek) Synagogue" complete
IDE Technologies today announced it was named as the Global Water Awards category winner of the Desalination Plant of the Year, Sorek, constructed in partnership with Hutchison Water International Holdings, the company announced in a press release. Sorek is the world’s largest and most advanced seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant. This award recognizes the plant as the most impressive technical and ecologically sustainable achievement in the industry. IDE also received a distinction award in the category of Desalination Company of the Year – IDE earned the winning title in 2011.Turcas in talks to buy Leviathan gas
The Global Water Awards honor achievements in the global water industry in categories including Desalination Company of the Year, Desalination Plant of the Year, and Desalination Deal of the Year, which IDE won with its partners in 2013 for the Carlsbad Project, the largest seawater desalination plant in the western hemisphere
Turcas Petrol AS (Istanbul: TRCAS) has notified the Istanbul Stock Exchange that its gas subsidiary has initiated negotiations together with Enerjisa and its German partner E.On EN (XETRA: EOAN) to buy natural gas from Israel's Leviathan field, for domestic customers.Elbit Systems wins $123m European contract
In late March, "Globes" reported that Turkish and multinationals had submitted more than ten bids to buy 7-10 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas a year from Leviathan, amounts that could generate $25-35 billion revenue, assuming a 15-year gas supply contract at $6.50 per million British Thermal Units (mmBTU), a higher price for natural gas than in Israel's domestic market. Turcas's notice was the first official statement of such negotiations.
The company will supply airborne defense electronic systems over four years.New IDF comedy wows NY’s Tribeca Film Festival
Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT) has won a $123 million contract from a European country for the supply of airborne defense electronic systems. The contract will be carried out over four years.
It’s “M*A*S*H” meets “Girls”! No, it’s “Catch-22″ meets “Broad City!” No, it’s… its own original thing?Israel's Secret Arab Weapon
One of the most discussed and praised movies at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival is “Zero Motivation,” a modestly-budgeted comic take on boredom and postponed dreams among young women in the Israeli Defense Forces. With her first feature-length project, writer-director Talya Lavie blows the lid off of stuffing envelopes, shredding paper, serving coffee and on-base dating hassles while soldiers waste time with “Minesweeper” and “FreeCell.”
Hezbollah rockets, terrorist infilitrations and kidnappings are just a few of the threats emanating from Israel’s northern border. In order to combat these threats, the IDF deploys elite Bedouin tracking units, writes the IDF Website.IDF Stories: The Bedouin Tracking Unit
These soldiers are able to apply their special skills to expose and prevent smuggling and infiltration attempts from Lebanon. Despite advances in technology, the IDF continues to maintain Bedouin tracker units because the skills that they possess are unique. Overall, the Bedouin soldiers are invaluable and essential to the protection of Israel.
