Saturday, September 06, 2014
Remembering the Munich 11
Forty-two years ago today, the Olympic games took place in Munich, Germany. The games were meant to mark the change an an era; the transformation of Germany from the birthplace of Nazism, hatred and intolerance to a place of international unity and cooperation. Until it wasn’t.EU Considers Pulling the Plug on Aid to Palestine
The 1972 Olympic games in Munich, were tainted by a Massacre which went on to define the history of the Olympic games, the history of the Jewish people, and the history of the human race until the end of time.
On September 5th, two weeks into the games, while the athletes were asleep, 8 members of the Palestinian terror group Black September broke into the dormitory in which the Israeli athletes and coaches were staying. In taking hostages, the terrorists killed Moshe Weinberg and Yossef Romano, leaving them with 9 hostages, or 9 potential “bargaining chips” with which they hoped to negotiate, with Israel, the freedom of convicted Palestinian terrorists.
European frustrations with the lack of progress towards a two state solution between Israel and the Palestinian territories have prompted comments from officials that EU aid to Palestine could diminish substantially within the next three to four years.Suspect in Brussels Jewish Museum shooting was IS member who tortured prisoners in Syria
"It is clear that our policy is not sustainable in the medium-term without some form of political breakthrough and money alone has not succeeded in producing that," an EU official told EurActiv. "It was meant to accompany a political process, but that’s not really happening."
The move would be a major blow to the Palestinian Authority, as the EU is currently its biggest donor, contributing some €500 million per year. A number of Palestinian functionaries in Ramallah are paid from EU funds.
The Commission has recently completed an in depth review of aid spending in the Palestinian Territories between 2008 and 2013, interviewing some 150 stakeholders in Brussels, Israel, Palestine and Washington. Numerous documents were also scoured by the team.
Prior to the fatal attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May 2014, the main suspect in the shooting, Mehdi Nemmouche, was an ISIS member in Syria where he tortured both Syrian and foreign captives, the French newspaper Le Point reported on SaturdaySouth Africa Denies Dalai Lama Visa Again
The Le Point report is based on the testimony of its journalist, Nicholas Henin who was released from IS custody in April of this year.
"When he [Nemmouche] was not singing, he was torturing. He was a member of a small group of French nationals whose arrival used to terrify about fifty Syrian prisoners in cells near ours," Henin said, adding, "I myself had been interrogated... the torture went all night long, until the dawn prayer."
"For one month and a half, we were chained up together."
Henin was among four French journalists held hostage in Syria since June of 2013 and was found by Turkish soldiers on its border with Syria in April.
The Le Point journalist, Pierre Torres, Edouard Elias and Didier Francois were found in April in Sanliurfa province in Turkey blindfolded with their hands bound.
Between July and December 2013, Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French citizen, was in charge of Western hostages then held in a former hospital in Aleppo that was converted into a prison, Le Point reported.
In the attack in Brussels an Israeli couple a French woman, and a Belgian man were shot dead.
South Africa has denied a visa to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, for the third time in five years, one of his representatives said on Thursday, intensifying speculation about the extent of Beijing's sway over Pretoria.
The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India and is at loggerheads with China over Tibet, had been hoping to join a Nobel peace conference in Cape Town next month but withdrew his visa application after being told it would be unsuccessful.
"We have informally received contact His Holiness won't get his visa," Nangsa Chodon, the Dalai Lama's South Africa-based representative, told Reuters.
Gaza War Casts Light on IDF’s Secretive Maglan Special Forces Unit
Trained to fight deep behind enemy lines, the Israeli army’s Maglan (“Ibis”) special forces unit recently offered a dramatic, painful, close-up glimpse of their missions during the 50-day-long Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.Israel preparing for ‘very violent’ war against Hezbollah, TV report says
A video profile on the unit aired by Israel’s Channel 2 in August opens with IDF engineers blowing up part of a tunnel near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. The tunnel’s entrance was within a building that had housed a UNRWA clinic that Hamas terrorists had rigged with 80 kilograms of explosives.
On July 30, 1st.-Sgt. Matan Gottlieb, 21, from Rishon LeZion, 1st.-Sgt. Omar Chai, 21, from Savion, and 1st.-Sgt. Guy Algranati, 20, of Tel Aviv, were killed and 15 soldiers were wounded, when the booby-trapped facility blew up.
There’s a saying: “the sand remembers.” But the Maglan unit’s fighters, and their unit commander, Lt.-Col. Yuval, will also remember that day.
Just 10 days after a ceasefire ended a 50-day Israel-Hamas conflict, the Israeli army is “making plans and training” for “a very violent war” against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, an Israeli TV report said Friday night, without specifying when this war might break out.Israelis worry with Syrian al-Qaeda on doorstep
The report, for which the army gave Israel’s Channel 2 access to several of its positions along the border with Lebanon, featured an IDF brigade commander warning that such a conflict “will be a whole different story” from the Israel-Hamas conflict in which over 2,000 Gazans (half of them gunmen according to Israel) and 72 Israelis were killed. “We will have to use considerable force” to quickly prevail over the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, “to act more decisively, more drastically,” said Colonel Dan Goldfus, commander of the 769th Hiram Infantry Brigade.
The report said Hezbollah has an estimated 100,000 rockets — 10 times as many as were in the Hamas arsenal — and that its 5,000 long-range missiles, located in Beirut and other areas deep inside Lebanon, are capable of carrying large warheads (of up to 1 ton and more), with precision guidance systems, covering all of Israel.
For the first time in the Syrian civil war, al-Qaeda fighters are hunkered down on Israel’s doorstep, and Israelis in the lush, hilly Golan Heights who have long considered Syrian President Bashar Assad their bitter foe are now worried about something more ominous — that they could become the militants’ next target.UN Security Council condemns ‘heinous’ Sotloff murder
The push into the Golan by the Nusra Front, as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria is known, comes just two weeks after Israel ended a 50-day war against Hamas on its southern border with the Gaza Strip, giving the conflict-weary nation another cause for concern.
Israelis in the Golan — a long-disputed territory that marks the frontier between the two countries — have grown accustomed to hearing the sound of distant battles between rival forces in Syria’s civil war.
The UN Security Council on Saturday strongly condemned the “heinous and cowardly” murder of American journalist Steven Sotloff by Islamists and declared that the Islamic State must be defeated.Israel winning the social media war … in China
Sotloff, 31, was beheaded by terrorists from the extremist jihadist group in a video released Tuesday, two weeks after the similar video of US journalist James Foley’s killing was posted online.
“The members of the Security Council stressed again that ISIL [a previous name used for the group, which stands for the Islamic State i the Levant] must be defeated and that the intolerance, violence and hatred it espouses must be stamped out,” said a unanimous statement from the 15-member council.
I guess it is not really surprising that Israel is doing well in Chinese social media.Hamas urges West Bank uprising, vows to rebuild tunnels
Israel and China have signed a series of new trade agreements in recent months, including academic cooperation, as we detailed in Israel-China tech deal another blow to BDS.
Those expanding trade connections, based in large part on Chinese desire for Israeli technology and know-how, have continued uninterrupted during the Gaza hostilities:
"China is now Israel’s second- largest trading partner, with exports of US$2.88 billion and imports of US$7.99 billion last year. Chinese companies are eyeing several high-profile investment deals in Israel.
These include tendering for construction of a railway linking Eilat on the Red Sea and Ashdod on the Mediterranean, and purchasing a more than US$1 billion controlling stake in Tnuva, Israel’s dairy giant."
Al-Zahar said nations – he did not give specifics – which had previously regarded his organization as a terrorist group had now undergone a change of heart.Swarthmore College Events Shed Light On J Street’s Co-Sponsorships With Pro-BDS Groups
The Hamas leader also called for an armed uprising in the West Bank. He said the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with Israel was a crime and urged its forces to change direction and fight against Israel.
“If the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank had a quarter of the tools that the resistance in Gaza holds, Israel would be wiped out in a day,” he said.
Al-Zahar repeated the organization’s claim that it had been victorious in the Gaza war, saying the group would “build new tunnels” into Israel to replace those destroyed by the Israeli army.
“Victory has many fathers while defeat has only one father named [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” he said.
The self-labeled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby J Street states that it opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, but its campus arm has sometimes come under scrutiny for partnering with anti-Israel organizations. In response to the latest such test case, at Swarthmore College in eastern Pennsylvania, J Street is clarifying that it in fact does “not have any problem” co-sponsoring programs with pro-BDS groups.BBC R4 promotes unchallenged anti-Israel propaganda and warped histories of Jerusalem
The Swarthmore chapter of Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine (SPJP), an offshoot of the well-known anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), co-hosted a discussion on Sept. 4 discussing the recent Gaza conflict with J Street U.
That historical illiteracy unfortunately continues throughout the programme with Taylor promoting a variety of bizarre and inaccurate interpretations of historic, political and legal issues as we will soon see.Amb. Power, UN Express Doubt That Syria Destroyed All Its Chemical Weapons
Taylor’s guests are Rabbi Barry Marcus of the Central Synagogue in London and Rafeef Ziadah who is introduced only as a “Palestinian performance poet and human rights activist”. Listeners are not informed that Ziadah is a leading anti-Israel campaigner whose day job at ‘War on Want’ is titled “Senior Campaigns Officer (Militarism and Security)“. Neither are they informed that she is a prominent BDS activist who sits on the steering committee of PACBI and campaigns for the dismantling of the Jewish state. So much – once again – for the supposed BBC commitment to “summarizing the standpoint” of interviewees as part of its editorial guidelines on impartiality.
Power made the accusations after a briefing given by Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations (UN) official in charge of coordinating the international effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons.Al-Nusra Threatens Sunnis in Lebanon
"Under Ms. Kaag, 96 percent of Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpile, including all of the most lethal materials, have been destroyed.
But Ms. Kaag told reporters after the briefing that Syria had yet to address what she described as “some discrepancies or questions” about whether it had accounted for all of the chemical weapons in its arsenal. She also said Syria had yet to destroy seven hangars and five tunnels used for mixing and storing the weapons — which is required under the chemical weapons treaty that Syria has signed. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Hague-based group that collaborated with the United Nations in overseeing the Syrian chemical disarmament, is now responsible for ensuring that Syria honors its promise."
Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Al-Nusra Front, on Friday threatened Lebanon's Sunni Muslims they must support its cause or "pay the price", Reuters reports.US denies cooperation with Iran against ISIS
The group said the coming period would be decisive for anyone who stood with the Lebanese army, the report said.
The statements were made in a video which purported to show several Lebanese soldiers the Islamist terrorists captured during an incursion into a border town last month. It was not immediately possible to verify the video.
The State Department said Friday it was not coordinating military action or sharing intelligence with Iran, despite an earlier report claiming Iran’s supreme leader had authorized his top military commanders to work with United States, Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight terror group ISIS.Iran gives IAEA rare access into centrifuge site
BBC Persian reported Friday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had told his top commander Major General Qasem Soleimani to coordinate military operations against the extremist Sunni Islamic State group.
The reported comments would mark a surprising reversal for Iran which has traditionally opposed America’s involvement in Iraq.
UN inspectors have gained rare access to a plant where Iran is developing centrifuges for enriching uranium as part of a transparency deal they say is giving them a "better understanding" of Tehran's disputed nuclear program.Obama and Erdogan Discuss Fighting Anti-Semitism
A confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report obtained by Reuters acknowledged that a long-running IAEA investigation into suspected nuclear arms research by Tehran was making little headway, given Tehran's lack of cooperation.
But Friday's report to member states also said the IAEA had visited an Iranian research and development (R&D) center for centrifuges on Aug. 30. It gave no details or say where the site was. But such access could be crucial to helping the IAEA determine how far along Iran may be in developing more modern models of the finely calibrated machines used to refine uranium.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to combat anti-Semitism, the White House said in a statement.Istanbul Store Bans Entry to ‘Jew Dogs’
“They discussed the urgent need for effective pressure and diplomacy aimed at bringing to an end the conflicts in Ukraine and Libya. The President and President Erdogan also discussed the importance of building tolerant and inclusive societies and combating the scourge of anti-Semitism,” it added.
Under the rule of the Islamist AKP party of Erdogan, who used to be the country’s prime minister before his recent election as president, anti-Semitism has risen steadily, prompting many young Turkish Jews to leave the country.
That rising hatred has been blamed on vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric by Turkish leaders and politicians, which often spills over into anti-Semitism.
A shop in downtown Istanbul, Turkey, posted a sign on its window front announcing that “Jew dogs” are banned from entering, local Jewish newspaper Salom reported.Ahead of Berlin rally against anti-Semitism, Merkel vows to fight phenomenon in Germany
The discriminatory banner, which was spotted on Thursday, says, “The Jew dogs cannot come in here” and features an image of an Israeli tank.
The store, located in Tahtakale, an area where many Jewish businesses are situated, sells mobile phone accessories.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday she would do everything she could to fight anti-Semitism in Germany, amid reports of attacks and a spike in anti-Israel sentiment since the Gaza conflict.Anti-Semitic French Comedian Mocks Foley Beheading
In her weekly podcast, Merkel said she was alarmed that Jewish institutions in Germany still needed police protection and called for a big turnout at a rally against anti-Semitism that she was planning to address in Berlin next weekend.
In a recent video, he lampoons the Western indignation over the chilling beheading of Foley by Islamic State (IS) militants last month as "progress" and ridicules the outrage of global leaders including US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande and UN chief Ban Ki-moon.11 top Israeli wound-care innovations
Dieudonne says the 2011 execution of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who was "killed like a dog" and the hanging of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2006 did not spark the same anger as Foley's death.
"The Rothschild mafia says no, that's alright, but James Foley is too much," Dieudonne says, in an apparent reference to the prominent Jewish banking family but also his euphemism for Western governments.
Exciting new methods for treating, cleaning, sealing and healing wounds of all types are constantly being developed in Israel and introduced to the global healthcare community.Wix founders invest in crowdfunding site give2gether
Here ISRAEL21c presents 11 of the most innovative and useful wound-care products recently introduced to the market or in advanced clinical-trial stages. We’ve listed them in alphabetical order.
Coming off a hugely successful IPO last year, the founders of Israel-based website builder tool provider Wix.com are giving back to the community — in the form of an investment in give2gether, the crowdfunding platform for non-profit organizations. Wix did not say how much it was putting into the fund, but the investment is said to be “significant.”Hebrew U Grad Student Invents Anti-Slime Coating
Give2gether CEO Arnon Shafir welcomed the Wix investors to the platform. “The Wix co-founders believe that give2gether is outsmarting the crowdfunding heavyweights,” said Shafir. “Give2gether powers a new generation of smart crowdfunding campaigns to go beyond being just social or cool — but effective.” The Wix co-founders, Giora Kaplan, Avishai Abrahami and Nadav Abrahami, will not be taking on any official role in give2gether and will not be involved in the day to day operation of the company.
Who knew that slime could be such a pest? Also known as biofilm, that slimy bacteria that builds up on food and in the kitchen makes millions of people sick every year. And not just in developing countries with poor sanitation. Slime is the root cause of many bacterial infections that won’t go away. But an American immigrant to Israel thinks he’s got a solution — already patented and being developed into a product to ensure that fruits and vegetables will be safer to consume by the time they reach your table.Israel Helping to Boost Pomegranate Yields in India
Using a molecule that was created at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, graduate student Michael Brandwein devised a slime-resistant coating that can interfere with, or stop, the genetic processes in bacteria that cause slime build-up. Working under Prof. Doron Steinberg from the Biofilm Research Laboratory of the Hebrew University’s Dental Faculty, Brandwein was awarded a Kaye Innovation Award during the 77th annual meeting of the Hebrew University Board of Governors last June for his team’s ability to decrease slime buildup by about 60 percent on plastic and glass surfaces, and by about 95% on cardboard. “We discovered that cardboard boxes are really healthy for bacteria,” he jokes, noting that the addition of a polymer coating even without TZD decreases bacterial formation. Together with TZD, the rates are astonishing.
For nearly 23 years, since India and Israel entered into full diplomatic relations in 1992, relations between the countries have progressed rapidly, including politically, commercially, in sciences and culture, and particularly in the area of agriculture.Israeli develops device for lost glasses
In its mission to transition to sustainable agriculture and to diversify its food sources, India has been utilizing Israeli technology. Recently, an Israeli expert from the Ministry of Agriculture, Itzhak Kosto, held a two-day ‘Pomegranate Seminar’ at the Center of Excellence for Fruits at Mangeana in Sirsa, India, bordering Punjab. The center is one of the 20 Indo-Israeli centers in India that utilize Israeli technology to solve agricultural issues. Kosto spoke about supplying fertilizers to plants through drip irrigation, as well as pest and disease management and other issues with local farmers and scientists.
While India grows one-third of the world’s pomegranates and is the largest producer in the world, only 3 percent its yield is exported. Israel on the other hand, produces 60,000 metric tons of pomegranates and exports nearly half because of the high quality of Israeli pomegranates.
Ariely teamed with Look Chief Technology Officer Shmuel Gan to develop and design the Look device, which is a small attachment for the glasses that can connect to mobile devices through an app for easy tracking. For people without smartphones, LOOK also offers a keychain remote. Anytime the glasses are lost, the user can use their device to activate a beeping sound.Comedian Fools Muslim Council of Britain with Hoax Campaign to Ban Peppa Pig
According to Ariely, what sets LOOK apart from other tracking systems is that her device is designed specifically for glasses and takes into account comfort and aesthetics.
Until now, similar devices have been generic trackers meant for things like keys and luggage where appearance isn’t important,” Ariely said. ‘Look represents a new trend of merging technology and fashion.”
Children's global TV sensation Peppa Pig has been used by pranksters for an elaborate 'haram pig' hoax which apparently took in the Muslim Council of Britain. The jokers created a hate-filled Facebook group and petition calling on authorities to ban the show over accusations that the central character is Haram (meaning unclean) and therefore not suitable for Muslim youth.
The Facebook group 'Muslims Against Peppa Pig' appears to have enjoyed steady growth over the past fortnight, reaching 3,500 likes by yesterday evening. When news about the bizarre rants posted on the page began to spread, interest from Peppa Pig supporters spiked and the page was flooded with posts from users opposed to the ban.
The page and accompanying Facebook video upload of the page owner decrying his son's interest in pigs were deleted over the course of last night, as the joker founder became concerned about arguments between Muslims and non-Muslims alike were taking a nasty turn.
Although the page is now gone, internet mirrors allow a glimpse of the page as it was just before deletion last night. The 'about' section, which sets out the groups aims and intention reads: "Pigs are haram and an insult to the Islamic religion and should be boycotted as soon as possible".
