Sunday, May 11, 2014
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Boko Haram and the Kidnapped Schoolgirls
I am often told that the average Muslim wholeheartedly rejects the use of violence and terror, does not share the radicals' belief that a degenerate and corrupt Western culture needs to be replaced with an Islamic one, and abhors the denigration of women's most basic rights. Well, it is time for those peace-loving Muslims to do more, much more, to resist those in their midst who engage in this type of proselytizing before they proceed to the phase of holy war.The Rock and Roll Boycott of Israel
It is also time for Western liberals to wake up. If they choose to regard Boko Haram as an aberration, they do so at their peril. The kidnapping of these schoolgirls is not an isolated tragedy; their fate reflects a new wave of jihadism that extends far beyond Nigeria and poses a mortal threat to the rights of women and girls. If my pointing this out offends some people more than the odious acts of Boko Haram, then so be it.
Efforts at a cultural boycott of Israel begin with attempts to pressure artists to avoid performing in Israel or to cancel appearances once they are scheduled. There is of course a significant difference between statements by artists that they will not play Israel as a matter of principle, and the cancellation of a scheduled performance. While the former is often nothing more than an empty statement, the latter resonates loudly with Israelis.
Despite these efforts, the musical boycott of Israel appears to have failed. The biggest names in the world of music continue to frequent Israel, including Alicia Keys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rihanna, Madonna, Depeche Mode, Moby, the Pet Shop Boys, Aerosmith, Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Barbra Streisand, and many others. Israeli music fans recently received another vote of confidence with the announcement that the Rolling Stones are scheduled to play in Israel in June 2014.
The list goes on. Once one scratches the surface of any given concert cancellation, one quickly comes to the conclusion that ideology, conscience, and support for the Palestinians have very little to do with it. The true factors leading to a cancellation are usually online bullying, threats of damaging an artist’s sales, disrupting concerts, sabotage letters, deceit, and explicit death threats. Further boycott tactics include picketing concerts and shows by Israeli artists abroad, and attempts to disrupt performances via shouting, sign-raising, and general misconduct.
More often than not, it becomes evident that the so-called “success’’ the boycott movement has enjoyed never happened. Just because a pro-boycott site claims that an artist or band has boycotted Israel doesn’t necessarily mean that this is true. For example, several boycott websites have explained that “Jon Bon Jovi was asked not to play in Israel. Thus far, boycott efforts have been successful.” According to this logic, anyone who has not been to Israel is automatically a boycott supporter. In an interview with the BBC’s Jo Whiley, rocker Jon Bon Jovi reveals Israel is the one place in the world he would like to play that he hasn’t yet.
On the Margins of the Holocaust: 70 Years On, High Time to Honor the “Absentees for Freedom”
Today, as we again mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, it is high time to recall one small, neglected episode in that immense struggle. This year, Yom HaShoah fell on April 28. The holiday is dedicated, as the full name tells us, to the remembrance of the heroes as well as the martyrs of the Holocaust. Seventy years ago on April 28, 1944, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency opened its “Daily News Bulletin” with the following:Who Invented Israel Apartheid Week? The Soviet Union Did
"POLISH GOVERNMENT WILL CLARIFY ITS ATTITUDE ON COURT-MARTIAL OF JEWISH SOLDIERS
LONDON, April 27. (JTA) — Polish sources today indicated that the Polish Government-in-Exile will “within the next few days” issue a statement making clear its attitude with regard to the anti-Jewish atmosphere in the Polish Army as well as the verdicts imposed by a Polish court-martial on 21 Jewish soldiers who left their units because of anti-Semitism and attempted to join the British forces."
For me, these men have always been among the unsung heroes of the Holocaust era. Admittedly, my interest in the topic is more than historical: as I recounted last year, my father became the leader of these “deserters”—or what their leading advocate, Independent left-wing MP Tom Driberg preferred to call “refugees” from antisemitism: “Absentees for Freedom”.
The ugliest example of this genre was published in 1963—note that date, because it’s four years before Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and eastern Jerusalem following the Six-Day War—entitled “Judaism Without Embellishment.” The author was a man named Trofim Kichko. If the book brought anything to mind, it was the Nazi tabloid rag Der Sturmer, whose viciously anti-Semitic cartoons where echoed in Kichko’s book. Around the caricatures of hook-nosed Jews counting their fortunes in synagogues, Kichko came up with such gems as, “Jehovah delivered all the wealth of the non-Jews to the use of the Jews” and “Speculation in matzah, pigs, thievery, deception, debauchery—these are the real characteristics of many synagogue leaders.”Why James O'Brien (like many other liberal commentators) IS an antisemite
Kichko combined this classic anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. He defined Zionists as the “ideological parasites” of “Jewish capitalists” and flayed the Zionist movement—in much the same manner as today’s intellectually fashionable anti-Zionists—as a particularly brutal form of colonialism. This last theme resurfaced in many of the Soviet publications that followed Kichko’s book. In 1975, the Soviets began pushing another libelous tract by Valeri Skurlatov, entitled “Zionism and Apartheid.” In that work, Skurlatov screeched, “Racial biological doctrines, according to which people are divided into ‘chosen people’ and goyim, have been turned into official ideology and state policy in Israel and South Africa, where the ‘inferior’ are forcibly separated from the ‘superior.’ That is what apartheid is.”
This post is not really just about James O'Brien who is a presenter on radio station LBC and who often describes himself as a 'typical bleeding heart liberal'. The problem is that, like almost every other 'bleeding heart liberal', he feels that one of the worst accusations you can make against him is that he is an antisemite. So earlier this week he was ridiculing the fact that a listener had accused him of being an antisemite after he fiercely criticized Israel (something he does very frequently). He said this was ludicrous because many people in Israel criticised the country's government for similar things, so that's like calling them antisemites also.Why Middle East Peace Initiatives Fail
And what makes O'Brien's defence even more hypocritical is that he accuses everybody who highlights the horrors of Islamic terrorism or Sharia law of being an 'Islamaphobe'.
So not only does Abbas seem uninterested in statehood, but there is no one pressing him to pursue it! I can only speculate why Abbas is uninterested in statehood, but his current position is enviable.D.C. Bus Ad: ‘Stop U.S. Aid to Palestinian Terrorism’
Abbas is perceived by the world as indispensable for peace. Even Israel prefers him to Hamas. He’s been able to use foreign aid to build a nice nest egg for his family. And with no progress on the peace front he gets to watch his enemy, Israel, get beaten up diplomatically. So why would he want his situation to change?
Unintentionally, the peace processors have done everything they can to discourage the PA from making peace with Israel. And it’s worked.
Pro-Israel bus ads that declare, “Stop U.S. aid to Palestinian terrorism” will continue to run along Washington, D.C., buses through June, according to Stand With Us, the group sponsoring the ad campaign.11 arrested after Afula protest turns violent
The ads were launched last month to counter a deluge of anti-Israel ads along the Washington D.C. Metro and ran along the popular Cherry Blossom route.
The ads come as Congress debates whether it will cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinians in the wake of the collapse of the peace process and the Palestinian government’s bid to form a unity government with the terror group Hamas.
An estimated 2,500 people gathered in the city Saturday night to call for the government to hand down more severe sentences to murderers, including those who killed Shelley Dadon, and to stop the early release of terrorists.Ex-Mossad chief calls Newsweek spy story ‘delusional’
Dadon, 19, was found dead in her car in the nearby town of Migdal Haemek earlier in the month.
Memorial candles were lit for Dadon and signs bearing the words “Shelly’s blood is my blood” were held aloft at the march.
A former head of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, on Sunday brushed off as “delusional” a Newsweek article alleging an Israeli spy hid in the vents of a Jerusalem hotel during a visit by then-US vice president Al Gore 16 years ago.IDF declares Syrian border area a closed military zone as fighting nears Israeli Golan
“We did not spy on [Gore] or any other American targets in Israel or abroad,” Danny Yatom, who was chief of the Mossad at the time, said in an interview on Army Radio. “I think that there are much more advanced methods that everybody who’s seen movies and read books on the subject knows to say to himself that these methods of agents crawling through the ventilation ducts to get to the room of the vice president of the United States — these descriptions are delusional.”
The decision came amid fears that the fighting from the Syrian civil war is coming closer to Israel's border fence with Syria.Israel warns its citizens in India of possible al-Qaida terror attacks
In recent days, fighting between Syrian army soldiers and rebels has intensified, and according to estimates by military sources, decisive battles are taking place close to the border. The IDF fears that some of the fire will spill over and harm, among others, Israeli farmers working fields near the border.
The Golan Regional Council added that it was getting updates from the army on the matter, but the daily routine of local residents had not changed in light of the situation assessment as of Sunday morning.
Israel warned Indian intelligence forces that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and Ansar al-Sharia may target Israeli citizens.Group Films Muslims Dumping Trash on Temple Mount
The alert came ahead of Jewish holidays and festivals in May and June, and suggested that there is a possibility that Israeli tourists may be attacked at hotels, Chabad centers, synagogues, restaurants, community centers and other places of Jewish congregation.
Muslims claim to consider the Temple Mount a holy site – but they have been caught doing some very unholy things there. From soccer games to picnics to vandalism, Muslims have historically shown little respect for the site.Israel is the head of a snake, being cut off by Fatah-Hamas "reconciliation" in official PA daily cartoon
But a Jewish group that ascended the Mount in recent days observed what may be the most egregious example of Temple Mount desecration yet – the dumping of trash right on the mount, just meters from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which Muslims claim as their third-holiest site.
The group observed a dump truck about to release its contents, and called police over to intervene. Instead of stopping the truck driver, police filmed the Jewish group, and demanded that they identify themselves. The Jewish group demanded to know the identity of the dumpers, who they said were committing a crime – but to no avail.
A cartoon in the official PA daily presents the reconciliation and unity between Fatah and Hamas as a means to destroy Israelis/Jews.Palestinian unity gov’t to be formed before deadline, official says
Israel is depicted as the head of a snake or worm, wearing a Jewish skull cap with a Star of David on it. The head may be intended to be a caricature of Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman. Palestinian reconciliation is presented as an axe. Its blade is a hand with two fingers forming the sign of victory. The victory sign functions as a pair of scissors, cutting off the head of the snake - Israel. The text on the axe says: "Reconciliation." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 8, 2014]
Fawzi Abu Eita told the Ma’an news agency that the unity government will be established even before the five-week deadline agreed on by the two major Palestinian factions, the PLO (the organization that makes up the interim administrative body, the Palestinian Authority, formed after the 1993 Oslo Accords) and Hamas, which rule over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, respectively.Report: Human Rights Violations Increasing in Palestinian Territories
Nearly two weeks have passed since the two factions agreed to bury the hatchet on April 23, in a historic deal that ended the seven-year rift between them.
A recent report from a Palestinian human rights group shows a sharp rise in human rights violations in areas under Palestinian control. A report published yesterday by the Ramallah-based Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), “offers a hint at the kind of scrutiny the Palestinian Authority might face after joining United Nations agencies and treaties this year.”Palestinian Islamic Jihad Demonstrates Anti-Tank, Anti-Aircraft Capabilities
The report documents “497 allegations of torture and ill treatment” in 2013, as opposed to 294 cases in 2012.
WhatsApp Ban Shows Iran’s True Colors
The real meaning of the episode, however, is clear: As Iran has demonstrated many times, it is a dictatorship that uses anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism in order to create bogeymen and control its populace. Its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, most recently during a speech in late March. Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah continue to rain rockets on Israel.Irwin Cotler: Will the world ignore Iran’s execution binge?
Nothing has changed.
President Rouhani can tweet all he wants and smile in front of Western cameras, but his charm offensive cannot disguise the extremism, bigotry, cruelty, and repressiveness of the Iranian regime. Rouhani promised a change, including more openness. Yet on his watch, censorship of the Internet has been strengthened, not relaxed. Rouhani tries to present himself as a responsible statesman with whom the West can do business. Yet his regime still traffics in hatred.
According to organizations such as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and Iran Human Rights, both of which track execution – and extrapolating from their data – there have been over 250 executions carried out in the first four months 2014.Charles C.W. Cooke's Shameful Screed on Holocaust Denial
Indeed, there were 10 executions reported in the first five days of May alone.
Ironically enough, it was Mohammad-Javad Larijani – head of the Iranian judiciary’s Human Rights Council – who unwittingly highlighted these heinous crimes by declaring that the international community should be “grateful” to Iran for the “great service to humanity” that it provides in carrying out these executions. However, Larijani lamented that “instead of celebrating Iran, international organizations see the increased number of executions caused by Iran’s assertive confrontation with drugs as a vehicle for human rights attacks on the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
With much disgust, I discovered that National Review Online has officially mainstreamed Holocaust denial. By publishing Charles C.W. Cooke’s blog that pronounces that it “is a damn shame” that a California school district caved to pressure and withdrew an assignment requiring students to argue that the Holocaust did not occur, NRO is supporting the dissemination of an unbelievably offensive ideology that was formerly only espoused by psychotic tyrants such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Swiss museum named ‘sole heir’ of priceless Nazi art trove
Unlike the vast majority of respected opinions on the subject, Cooke bases his abhorrent position on claims that “There really is no better way of teaching critical thinking” than allowing debate on whether or not the Holocaust in fact occurred. Seriously?! As a practicing attorney for 26 years who developed critical thinking skills throughout my education, I feel confident in asserting that Holocaust denial has absolutely no place in the development of that skill set. And it certainly has no place in any classroom that desires to teach anything other than perverted ideologies and anti-Semitism -– period.
The Kunstmuseum Bern, in the Swiss capital, said it was “surprised and delighted” at the appointment, of which it was informed by Cornelius Gurlitt’s lawyer, Christoph Edel.Qualcomm to buy Israeli chip maker for $300 million
“At the same time, we do not wish to conceal the fact that this magnificent bequest brings with it a considerable burden of responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particular of a legal and ethical nature,” it said in a statement.
Qualcomm, a leading mobile device chip manufacturer, is set to buy Wilocity, an Israeli start-up, for approximately $300 million, according to Wilocity sources quoted in the media. The deal is likely to be announced in the coming days, the sources said, with employees already informed several weeks ago that Qualcomm planned to buy the company. Neither Qualcomm nor Wilocity would comment publicly.Delek Drilling, Avner Oil raise $2 billion for Leviathan field
Qualcomm worked with Wilocity for several years to develop WiGig chipsets for devices, such as phones, tablets and laptops. WiGig (Wireless Gigabit), the brand name given to the more advanced 802.11ad standard by the WiFi Alliance, offers data transfer speeds of up to 7 gigabits per second. Most devices use the 802.11n standard, which transfers data at a speed of between 1 and 1.3 Gbps. WiGig runs on the less crowded 5 GHz band, instead of the 2.4 GHz band that 802.11n devices use.
Israel's Delek Drilling and Avner Oil have raised $2 billion in an international bond offering to help fund the development of the huge Leviathan natural gas field off the coast of Israel.Lana Del Rey coming to Israel
An announcement by the firms said demand of $13.5 billion was the largest ever for an Israeli enterprise and it was over-subscribed by 650 percent.
"This shows unprecedented confidence by European, U.S. and Israeli financial markets in the vision of Delek Drilling, Avner and Delek Group," Avner Chairman Gideon Tadmor said.
American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey will be coming to Israel this summer for her first ever concert in the country, according to her official reps.
According to rumors, her performance will take place at the Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv on August 20, 2014.
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