08/22 Links Pt2: Stop blaming Israel and wake up: The black flag of jihad is the REAL threat

From Ian:

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Douglas Murray: Stop blaming Israel and wake up: The black flag of jihad is the REAL threat to the world

Jews are attacked here in Britain, they are blockaded into a synagogue in Paris and the chant ‘Death to the Jews’ is heard in Germany for the first time in 70 years.
But too few people seem to want to notice this or admit what it means. They think this is just about Israel, or just about Jewish people. It isn’t. It is about all of us.
The decision last month by the Israeli government to respond to Hamas rocket-fire from Gaza is the response any government would choose if rockets were fired at its citizens. The Israeli government has the right - as does any government - to stop the bombarding of its people.
However, in recent weeks it has become plain that much of the world expects a different response from Israel. They expect Israel not to fight for the safety, security and survival of their people, but to lie down in front of the Islamic extremist enemy.

JPost Editorial: Treating terror

The beheading of American photojournalist James Foley, apparently by a British member of the Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq, is yet another shocking example of the danger posed to Western countries by their own citizens who have joined the forces of jihad.
It follows several recent chilling incidents involving Western jihadis, including Twitter photos published by an Australian fighting for Islamic State holding the severed heads of two Syrian soldiers.
Estimates of the number of Western “jihad tourists” in Syria and Iraq reach as high as 3,000. Others have traveled to Yemen to join al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab. They have been involved in countless atrocities including beheadings, executions and suicide missions.
As former British foreign secretary William Hague noted in a February statement to the House of Commons, some of them “may return ideologically hardened and with experience in weapons and explosives.”
Three months later, Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-yearold Frenchman of Algerian origin, returned from a stint in Syria, where he is believed to have fought with Islamic State – in its previous incarnation, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – and shot dead four people, including two Israelis, at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
It was the first instance of a “blowback” attack by a jihadi returning from Syria.

Israel's UN Envoy: Radical Extremism Affects Us All

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, warned on Thursday that terrorism has doubled its power.
Speaking at a Security Council Debate on the subject of conflict prevention, Prosor said that radical extremism affected the entire world and not just Israel. He called for a “war against radical ideology”.
“Radical extremism has touched every part of the world from Buenos Aires to Burgas and from Bangkok to Burkina Faso,” said Prosor.
“Oppression and extremism are not bound by borders. Nowhere is this threat more obvious than in the Middle East.

Full Speech: Prosor at the Security Council Debate- Conflict Prevention 21/8/14




Jewish school vandalized in Denmark

A Jewish school in Copenhagen had its windows smashed and anti-Jewish graffiti referring to the conflict in Gaza spray-painted on its walls, the school said on Friday.
“We know that a political message has been written on the walls but we don’t know who is responsible,” Jan Hansen, headmaster of Carolineskolen, told AFP.
Messages daubed on the school walls included “No peace in Gaza” and “No peace to you Zionist pigs.”
“There have been parents who didn’t want to send their children to school today and there have been some children who were sad and a bit afraid who we had to send home,” Hansen said.
Founded in 1805, the school, which includes a nursery, describes itself as the world’s second oldest still functioning Jewish school.

Is the UN responsible for war crimes?

What do you call a humanitarian organization that uses school textbooks that teach jihad against Israel and some of whose institutions have been taken over de facto by Hamas? What is the proper description for the Gaza branch of UNRWA, whose teaching staff has been infiltrated by terrorists and operatives of terrorist groups, and whose institutions served as launching sites for rockets and mortar shells that were fired at the State of Israel? What exactly is this refugee relief agency that the U.N. established decades ago, which maintains the refugee problem and provides the Gazans with "education and welfare," but openly avoids rehabilitating them? Well, that depends on whom you ask.

An open response to Archbishop Tutu’s oped in Haaaretz

At last, the TRUTH is belatedly supported by indisputable evidence even by Hamas leaders that the large number of casualties is a result of intentionally placing rockets and ammunition in private homes, hospitals, mosques and even in schools (including UNRWA schools). A Hamas training manual actually discusses the benefits for Hamas when civilian homes are destroyed. It says that this increases the hatred of the citizens towards Israel and increases their support of Hamas. Moreover it has been reliably disclosed that many of the casualties were caused by Hamas mortars and rockets.
Can we ignore the intention to kill as many civilians as possible behind the firing of thousands of rockets from populated areas into population centers in Israel? Is Israel culpable because it spent money and initiative in creating the Iron Dome whereas Hamas spent equal amounts building sophisticated tunnels from which it was planned that terrorists would emerge in large numbers in a surprise attack on civilians killing as many as possible and kidnapping hostages?
And in response to the complaint that unlike Israel, Gaza has no bomb shelters, we must ask why the air conditioned tunnels are not made available as shelters for the populace? And why have the media ignored the fact that, as in operation Cast Lead, Israel established a field hospital on the border with Gaza to help wounded Palestinians. Unfortunately few patients arrived because Hamas prevents them from doing so.

Hamas is wearing itself out

Hamas assumed that Israelis are exhausted and that Israel's leadership wants quiet at any cost. Hamas' leaders, therefore, believed they had nothing to lose by continuing to shoot, and that they would eventually be able to bring Israel to its knees and exact an exorbitant price for stopping the conflict. This tactic failed.
Israel declined to dance to the beat of Hamas' drum and responded to the renewal of rocket attacks with force and precision that caught its leaders off guard. The assassination of the three senior Hamas military commanders on Thursday came on the heels of the attempted assassination of the group's military commander Mohammed Deif, and teaches us that Hamas is ultimately wearing itself out.

The Myth of the Palestinian Underdog

In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that without the support Hamas receives from Turkey and Qatar, it could never have built the war machine that enabled it to start this summer’s war, and thus the death and destruction the world is now decrying in Gaza would never have happened.
Since both America and the European Union have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, one might expect this flagrant support for Hamas to prompt sanctions on Qatar and Turkey as state sponsors of terrorism. But Qatar is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and richest country, as well as home to the main U.S. air force base in the Middle East, while Turkey is a NATO member and major emerging economy. So in fact, far from sanctioning Qatar and Turkey, both America and Europe consider them key partners. In short, it’s simply easier for the West to condemn Israel’s response to Hamas attacks and pressure it to accede to Hamas demands than it would be to condemn and penalize Turkish and Qatari support for Hamas.

Like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, Hamas Is Fair Game

As is the case with ISIS, there is no compromising with Hamas. Just as the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Syria will not be bribed or cajoled into giving up their goal of imposing their religiously inspired nightmare vision on the world, neither will Hamas be satisfied with anything less than the eradication of Israel and the genocide of its Jewish population.
As with ISIS, there is no “political solution” to a conflict with Hamas, only a military one. So long as Hamas is allowed to remain in power in Gaza, there is no hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Like Osama bin Laden and those who seek to kill Americans today, Hamas operatives are fair game for targeted assassinations. While the aim of Israeli Defense Force strikes on Hamas targets may not be any more perfect than those of their American counterparts elsewhere, they provide the only answer to an ideology that can’t be appeased.

Gaza is no ghetto

Talk about shoot to kill: I received a press release this week – mid-rocket attacks – proudly announcing the successful conclusion of filming of a docu-drama called What Does Anne Frank Mean Today? – including on-location work in Gaza.
I’m loath to give the movie more publicity but I’ll let the press release speak for itself. (Spoiler alert: The answer to the title’s question in my opinion is “very little.” It seems there is no limit to how low one can sink in cheapening Anne Frank’s name and memory in the name of art.) The film is by Croatian director Jakov Sedlar with screenplay by his son and co-director, Dominik, and is being produced by Holocaust survivor Branko Lustig (who won an Oscar for his work as producer of Schindler’s List) and Stephen Ollendorff. The musical score is by Daniel Barenboim.
...
Back to the Anne Frank movie, because it’s now playing on my mind, the press release informs us: “It was August 4, 1944, when Anne Frank and her family were discovered by the Nazis while hiding in a secret annex in Amsterdam.”
Truth be told, if the truth still means anything, the Frank family weren’t “discovered by the Nazis.” They were betrayed, most likely by their non-Jewish Dutch neighbors, although that’s the part of the story that is not often emphasized.
Anne Frank died because she was a Jew. Period.
Israel is being attacked because it is the Jewish state.
That’s it.
Rewriting history – adapting it to a new narrative – doesn’t change it; it only means it will be repeated in a new form.

Andrew Bolt: Save the children should not mean help the terrorists

By adding the words “end the blockade” - as in the blockade of weapons - Save the Children confirms its new campaign actually supports the war strategy of the Hamas terrorist group which controls Gaza and openly says it wants Jews dead.
“End the blockade” is in fact the key demand Hamas makes in exchange for ending its rocket attacks on Israel - for now:
Hamas has said it will not relent until the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on the Gaza Strip is lifted. Both countries view Hamas as a security threat and are reluctant to make sweeping concessions without guarantees weapons will not enter Gaza.
The blockade is primarily to stop Hamas from bringing in bigger weapons. So why has Save the Children sided with the terrorists?

Daniel Pipes: Is CAIR Lying about a Rally for Hamas?

I doubt the veracity of this denial for several reasons.
- CAIR's mendacity is so widespread that I have an entire bibliography of my writings exposing the reasons not to trust it.
- The flier, of which I have a copy, twice states that Sofian Zakkout organized the rally. Zakkout is so close to CAIR, he's effectively a staff volunteer: he coordinates with it, is quoted by it, seeks help from it, and is listed as a contact by it. (For more on Zakkout, see Avel's exposé.) A year earlier, he listed CAIR's Florida branch on another rally flier. It beggars the imagination that he would list CAIR without authorization.
- The Facebook page still lists CAIR as a sponsor, two weeks after CAIR's statement of denial.
- Perhaps CAIR seeks to conceal the truth through semantics. Both the national organization (on the Facebook page) and the Florida chapter (on the flier) are listed as sponsors. The July 29 statement only denies permission from the latter, not the former. It is more than credible that CAIR national gave its permission to be listed as a sponsor while CAIR's Florida chapter did not.
Given these facts, I disbelieve CAIR's statement.
I do believe it sponsored the vile event in Miami; that its denial of that sponsorship is false; and that the despicable words at the Miami rally revealed the true face of CAIR.

CAIR Cited As Expert On Peace And Religion In Proposed Texas Textbook

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the radical group that was found to be an unindicted co-conspirator with Hamas, is utilized as an authority on Islam, peace and religion in a proposed Texas schoolbook, according to a review of the book conducted by Verity Educate.
The book, a social studies textbook from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that is currently up for adoption in Texas and is titled, Contemporary World Studies: People, Places, and Societies, Texas ed., 2016, claims there is no justification for terrorism or extremism in Islam, citing CAIR. It is believed to be intended for 6th grade geography/social studies.

Campus Groups 'Outraged' About Assault of Jewish Student; University Investigating

Daniel Vessal, a CAMERA on Campus fellow and a member of the Jewish fraternity AEPi, told TruthRevolt that he was punched in the face by an individual standing at a booth designated for Students for Justice in Palestine at "Templefest." Two witnesses confirmed his story and told TruthRevolt that individuals around the table called Vessal a “kike,” a “Zionist” and a “baby killer” while he lay injured on the ground.
SJP denied the charges in a convoluted press release and accused Vessal of provoking the attack. The group did acknowledge that an unnamed individual did strike Vessal, and acknowledged that the individual was associating with SJP members, while denying that the individual was an SJP member.
Temple University administration was quick to respond to the alleged incident of anti-Semitic violence.
“Temple University is investigating a report of an attack against a student late Wednesday afternoon. The attack is alleged to have included physical violence and anti-Semitic statements and religious slurs,” Ray Betzner, Associate Vice President for Executive Communications told TruthRevolt.

Alleged Attacker Identified in Violent Assault on Temple Univ. Jewish Student

The alleged attacker in the assault of Jewish student Daniel Vessal on the campus of Temple University has been identified exclusively to TruthRevolt and photo evidence shows that the suspect had attended a Students for Justice in Palestine event in the past.
Abdel Aziz R. Jalil has been identified as the alleged attacker by a source with knowledge of the situation and confirmed by Josh Josephs and Alex Winokur, who witnessed the assault.
A cursory view of Jalil's page reveals that he is likely a fan a "Palestine solidarity" which more often than not in the cases of SJP and groups like the Answer Coalition leads to unrelenting demonization of Israel.
Multiple requests for comment from Jalil, members of Students for Justice in Palestine and Temple University faculty went unanswered.
UPDATE: Jalil has deleted his Facebook account.

Losing Patience With Students For Justice In Palestine's Anti-Semitism

What many of these minority groups fail to recognize, however, is that the “Palestine” that SJP defends is not only anti-Semitic, but also misogynistic, homophobic, racist, anti-Christian, and fascist. SJP defends a place where women are subject to honor killings, where members of the LGBTQ community face persecution, torture, and death, and where Jews are not allowed to live, build homes, and purchase land. SJP does not discuss these injustices, nor do they care when Hamas murders opponents and drags them through the street. In SJP’s mind, none of this matters, because “Israel is the oppressor.” Such deception, manipulation, and lies have led to the collegiate community tolerating SJP.
The pro-Israel community has had enough with SJP’s Jew-hatred. Zionist college students cannot allow this organization to continue bullying the Jewish community under such socially unjust premises. What they stand for bastardizes those who truly fought for freedom and those who actually fight oppression. To continue defending a fascist entity while demonizing the only country in the Middle East where Arab citizens are free to express themselves however they please only highlights the true nature of SJP’s hypocrisy.
Pro-Israel students should refuse to be subjected to SJP’s bullying, which seeks to ensure our silence. We will spread the truth about the group’s malicious purposes. We will tell the story of who is causing problems for Palestinian-Arab self-determination. We will no longer be controlled by fear. SJP’s days of harassing the Zionist community are numbered.

The Intifada Comes to Brooklyn

The 297 plaintiffs in Linde v. Arab Bank are U.S. citizens and foreign nationals who were injured or lost family members to terrorist attacks from 2000 to 2004 in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The defendant is Arab Bank, which is based in Amman, Jordan. It has more than 600 branches in 30 countries and -- according to the plaintiffs -- processed payments to Hamas during the deadly Second Intifada. These payments, which ranged from $5,300 to the family of a suicide bomber to $1,300 for an injury, totaled $35 million, according to the plaintiffs' lawyers.
The trial, which is expected to last four to six weeks, will establish liability only. If the plaintiffs win, it will be followed by a separate trial with a new jury to determine damages.
The case originally included thousands of other plaintiffs who were not U.S. citizens. That the long-awaited trial should begin now hovers between the ordained and the absurd: Jury selection began on Aug. 11 -- along with the shaky cease-fire between Israeli forces and Hamas in Gaza. Opening arguments began on Aug. 14, just days before the belligerents went back to firing rockets at one another. (h/t messy1a)

The New York Times’ Favorite Rabbis

In the midst of the Gaza war New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren lauded Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, founder of her liberal Reform synagogue in Jerusalem. Including a Muslim excerpt in the traditional Jewish prayer for peace, he advocates “a nuanced position that recognizes the suffering on both sides.” She had no reason to know that she was part of a venerable tradition: ever since 1929 Times reporters have relied upon rabbis chosen to bolster their liberal critiques of Zionism and Israel.
Eighty-five years ago this month Haj Amin-al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, proclaimed that Jews intended to “usurp” the Western Wall and desecrate Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount. His vicious incitement provoked violent Arab riots throughout Palestine. Covering the upheaval for The New York Times was Joseph M. Levy, its newly designated “Palestine Correspondent.” Living in Palestine since his infancy, and fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, he was fascinated by archeology, convinced that recent discoveries made the biblical account “more vivid and intelligible than ever.”
But the Arab riots transformed Levy. Not only the first Times reporter based in Jerusalem, and the first Jew, he became the first in a line of Times correspondents to seek rabbinical support for their criticism of Zionism and the Jewish State.

On Kidney Transplants, Too, an Israel Obsession at The New York Times

The New York Times has long had an obsession with singling out Israel for blame, a phenomenon documented in CAMERA's six-month study of the newspaper's reporting and other analyses. On Sunday, Aug. 17, with a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas still in place and apparently lacking any breaking news events that could be blamed on Israel, the newspaper nonetheless chose to devote the most prominent part of its front page, as well three additional pages in their entirety, to an investigation of Israel's role in the global organ trade.
The front page was dominated by a large color photograph of an Israeli who had travelled to Costa Rica for a transplant, and the related story, which ran across three columns above the fold. The nearly 5,500-word article about "Israel's irrepressible underground kidney market" continued on the inside of the international news section and, along with a 1,600-word companion piece, overshadowed all else in the newspaper's primary section. The feature was longer than all other articles in that section, including breaking news stories about the spread of the Ebola virus and the riots in Ferguson, Missouri.
The editorial judgment to showcase this story as the leading and largest feature of the day left many readers scratching their heads. After all, a much more timely article about Iraqi minorities held captive, forced to convert to Islam or otherwise be killed, was relegated to page 19, the last page of the paper's international section. It seemed puzzling that an article about the organ trade was deemed so much more newsworthy than the immediate threats of genocide against Iraq's Yazidi minority.
While the article did at times refer to the organ trade in general, there could be no question that the focus of the piece was on Israelis behaving badly.

Canada: Ontario University Students Join Boycott Against Israel

The Ontario branch of the Canadian Federation of Students, representing more than 300,000 university students in the province, has unanimously passed a motion to boycott Israel, The Canadian Press reported on Thursday.
Executive member Anna Goldfinch said the motion to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (or BDS) Movement received no opposition at its annual general meeting last weekend.
According to The Canadian Press, Goldfinch said that the resolution - put forward by student union of the Ryerson University in Toronto - “endorses a number of solidarity tactics that have been called for by Palestinian civil society.”
Ryerson Student Union president Rajean Hoilett was quoted as having said he is calling for university and colleges in Ontario to not “remain complicit” through investments and ties with academic institutions that support or profit from what he termed “Israeli war crimes.”

In UK, supermarkets the frontline to check out BDS

Some supermarkets already elect not to stock products from settlements. Britain’s fourth-largest supermarket chain, Morrisons, told The Times of Israel that “we don’t source any goods from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank.” This is not a political decision however, a spokesperson for the supermarket said, but a business decision as their previous suppliers in the West Bank failed a standard audit.
Tesco – which is Britain’s largest supermarket chain with a 28.6% share of the market – informed The Times of Israel that “like all major UK retailers, we sell some products that are sourced from Israel. We do this in line with the government position on trade with Israel, and we mark all products clearly with the country of origin, so customers can make informed choices about what to buy.”
Indeed, it is the current advice of the Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs that fruits and vegetables grown in the West Bank be labeled as such.
“The Government considers that traders would be misleading consumers, and would therefore almost be certainly committing an offence, if they were to declare produce from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (including from the West Bank) as ‘Produce of Israel,’” the guidelines state.

Arab states look to single out Israel at UN nuclear meeting

As war rages in Gaza, Arab states will likely try to heighten diplomatic pressure on Israel over its assumed nuclear arsenal at next month's annual meeting of the UN nuclear agency's 160 member states, diplomats said on Friday.
An Arab initiative to single out the Jewish state for criticism was defeated in voting last year. But Western diplomats opposed to the Arab move said the unresolved Gaza conflict may influence any wavering countries at this year's debate, although there was no direct link between the issues.
"It is all about getting out the undecided vote. And it will be all about Israel widely and not about the actual nuclear issue," one Vienna-based diplomat said. "I would expect ongoing conflict to lead many (Arabs and any others critical of Israel) to want to lash out in any forum available."

Shin Bet to Israeli Gymnastics Team: We Can’t Protect You in Turkey (VIDEO)

Officials at Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency have warned Israeli gymnasts that attending an upcoming international meet in Izmir, Turkey could be too dangerous for them, Israeli Army radio said Thursday.
The security officials said “it would be very difficult” to protect the sports entourage, and, as a result, the Israeli Gymnastics Federation said it was doubtful they would make the trip, fearing for the athletes’ safety.
“We must not give in to terror, and we must look out for our interests,” Federation chief Ofir Paz told Army radio on Wednesday.

Israeli arrested after crossing into Lebanon

The Lebanese army has arrested an Arab-Israeli civilian who cut through barbed wire to cross the border into Lebanon, a security official said on Thursday.
“Ibrahim Zaydat entered Lebanon on Wednesday afternoon after cutting through a small section of barbed wire at the southeastern border, and was arrested by the army,” the official told AFP.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said it still was not clear why Zaydat had entered Lebanon.
UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have asked for him to be released at the request of the Israeli military command, the source said.

UN puts Syria death toll at over 191,000

The death toll from three years of Syria’s civil war has risen to more than 191,000 people, the United Nations reported Friday.
The figure, covering the period from March 2011 to April 2014, is the first issued by the UN’s human rights office since July 2013, when it documented more than 100,000 killed.
The high death toll is a reflection of the brutality of Syria’s conflict, which has transformed into a complex, multi-layered war where various factions fight against each other.
It also reflects the recent surge in deadly attacks by the al-Qaeda-breakaway Islamic State group targeting rival militant groups, mainstream Western-backed Syrian rebels and Kurdish militiamen in northern Syria as it seeks to eliminate opponents and consolidate its hold on territory and resources.

U.K Hizb ut-Tahrir Spokesman Taji Mustafa Calls for Muslim Armies to Rise against Their Governments

It Takes a Woman to Help the US Fight ISIS (Video)

All-female Kurdish units including hundreds of women were part of forces backed by American bombing raids in the takeover of the Mosul Dam from Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists, who captured it two weeks ago.
If you control the Mosul damn, you can threaten just about everybody — a very substantial part of Iraq — with flooding, with lack of electricity, with lack of water,” Daniel Pipes told CNN after ISIS commandeered what has often been called “the most dangerous dam in the world.”
Kurdish women have said that their presence in the fighting scares ISIS terrorists, who not want to go through the agony of being killed by a woman, running their chances in the after-life.
“The jihadists don’t like fighting women, because if they’re killed by a female, they think they won’t go to heaven,” said one Kurdish woman fighter.

Obama Decides that ISIS Does not Speak for Islam

A 9/11/13 Pew Survey revealed that a “median of 57% across the 11 Muslim publics surveyed hold an unfavorable view” of Al Qaeda. That is a polite way of saying that 43 percent of Muslim dis not state an unfavorable view of the terrorist network.
A Gallup poll in 2008 stated that 36.6 percent of the world’s approximately 1.8 Muslims partially, totally, or in some way justified the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
In numbers, that means approximately 600,000,000 Muslims are roaming the world with radical Islamic views.
Not all of them, and perhaps a small minority of them, are ISIS enthusiasts. Many more are big on Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hezbollah the Army of Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring Hamas.
If the definition of ISIS radicalism is beheading and establishing an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East, these groups are not far apart, unless Obama preaches that their ideology is no less bankrupt than suicide bombers who blow up women and children, and Hamas executions who shoot people in the head and the back, drag their bodies in the street and cart off body parts of Israel soldiers as souvenirs or booty for ransom.

Netanyahu Insists Military Force Needed to Stop Nuclear Iran

Netanyahu wants more room on the table for the military option to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“A diplomatic solution is better than a military option but a military option is necessary for diplomacy to succeed” to prevent Iran from obtaining access to a nuclear weapon, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a Washington think tank.
Netanyahu spoke to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
He added that he agreed with President Barack Obama’s preference for a diplomatic solution but that it will not work without a “credible military threat,” according to AFP.
Although a “threat” is not direct military force, it is difficult to infer that the Prime Minister meant anything other than the use of force since the radical Muslim world’s understanding of the word is inability or fear of using force.

Bruno Mars Includes Israel on Wish List of Places to Perform

American singer Bruno Mars recently revealed on Twitter that Israel is among the countries in which he would like to perform.
Asked by a Twitter fan “what’s one place you haven’t performed at but want to??” Mars listed Israel, along with Africa, Russia and Cuba.
A number of artists scheduled to perform in Israel over the summer have recently cancelled their shows due to the Jewish state’s current conflict with terror group Hamas in Gaza. Lana Del Rey, Cee-Lo Green, Neil Young and band Crazy Horse, the Backstreet Boys, Brian Jonestown Massacre and even Cirque Du Soleil have all postponed or pulled out of their performances.

Whey good news for diabetics

A new study by Israeli and Swedish researchers has found that a plain whey protein drink one half hour before breakfast could help diabetics, or those on the verge of diabetes, prevent blood-sugar spikes and better manage the disease.
Researchers Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz and Dr. Julio Wainstein at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon; Prof. Oren Froy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Prof. Bo Ahrén of Lund University and their colleagues studied a group of people who consumed whey protein before eating a high-glucose meal.
When compared to a control group that did not ingest the whey, the results were astonishing, according to a summary of the research published in July in the journal Diabetologia of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Woman's Cancer Drives Daughter to Research Breakthrough

Dr. Svetlana Bunimovich, lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Ariel, will present research done using mathematical models, to improve the treatment of bladder cancer, at a conference to be held at Ariel University next week (August 24-29). The conference will be opened by Senior Harvard Researcher Prof. Tamar Averbuch.
Dr. Bunimovich will present research done using mathematical models to improve treatment of bladder cancer. Using differential equations as a modelling base Dr. Bunimovich discovered that the efficiency of treatment with Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) – an attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) – can be greatly improved. The improvements mean that it will be possible not only to cut the cost of treatment but also to significantly improve the quality of life experience by patients.
Dr. Bunimovich, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, immigrated from to Israel from Minsk and began studying applied mathematics and biology when her mother was diagnosed with bladder cancer. She quickly found that there were flaws in the treatment and management of bladder cancer. When her claims were ignored she decided to study the issue and completed a PhD in mathematical biology and medicine.

Israel nears gas sales to Egypt despite Mideast unrest

In the midst of some of the worst Middle East tensions in a decade, one-time enemies Egypt and Israel are negotiating deals that may mean the sale of $60 billion in Israeli natural gas to liquefaction plants in Egypt.
The talks come as Israel resumes air strikes on Gaza after Hamas, which the U.S. and the European Union classify as a terrorist group, fired rockets following a breakdown in Egypt’s efforts to broker a cease-fire. The move is all the more improbable because Egypt -- little more than a year ago -- was under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had begun to steer the country away from viewing Israel as a trading partner.

Rabbinate Declares E-mail Spam Not Kosher (satire)

“Just as the Torah mandates that implements that have absorbed the flavor or forbidden substances be rid of those flavors using the heating process that caused the absorption, so must e-mail accounts that have been used to handle spam be purged,” said Rabbi Lau, who represents the Ashkenazi, or European, Jewish tradition. Non-kosher food boiled in a pot causes subsequent food cooked in that pot to be similarly forbidden, unless the pot has been boiled to remove the residual flavor. Utensils used with little or no moisture, by contrast, must be heated to white-hot before the absorbed flavors are considered gone.
“The procedure for purging a system of internet spam parallels that of actual Spam™,” said Rabbi Yosef, of the Sephardic communities, whose ancestors came largely from the Muslim world. “If, for example, spam has been burned onto a disk, the disk must undergo a complementary burning to remove the spam.” He said that he and the Rabbinical court would soon issue an addendum to the ruling, to clarify the necessary level of flaming on online forums that would render a web-enabled device permissible for further use.

Stand with Us: #HummusNotHamas at Israel's border with Gaza