09/19 Links Pt2: Former AP Reporter Confirms Matti Friedman's Account; Israeli hackers ‘scary talented’

From Ian:

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Former AP Reporter Confirms Matti Friedman Account

Last month, former Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman published an essay in Tablet highlighting how, and why, news organizations get Israel so wrong. The AP’s Jerusalem bureau, where Friedman used to work, was the subject of much of his criticism. He argued that the bureau stuck to a preexisting narrative of Israeli extremism and Palestinian moderation. One of his examples that his former employer stifled stories that presented a divergent narrative came from 2009, when two of his colleagues had a story about a peace proposal from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Palestinian leadership rejected. Both the Israelis and Palestinians confirmed this, but editors pulled the piece.
Steven Gutkin, the former AP bureau chief in Jerusalem, who hired Friedman in 2006, wrote a response in which he denied the charge that the story was pulled due to editorial bias, asserting that the information discovered by the reporters, namely a map depicting a proposed land swap, was old news. (Friedman addressed Gutkin’s response here on the Scroll last week. Gutkin has since published a rebuttal.)
Now, Mark Lavie, a former colleague of Friedman’s at the AP in Jerusalem and the author of Broken Spring, has weighed in, identifying himself as one of the reporters involved in writing about the 2009 peace offer blog post directed to Gutkin. He confirms Friedman’s account of the story being pulled.

Awaiting the verdict

If former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s Holyland trial was the Israeli corruption trial of the century, the Arab Bank trial that has been taking place in a federal court in Brooklyn for the last five weeks could be the terrorism finance trial of the century.
The trial has a master villain, Hamas, which carried out the August 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem, killing or wounding 130, and a range of horrid terrorist attacks during the second intifada.
There are the victims, 297 plaintiffs who were wounded or are family members of those murdered in the 24 terrorist attacks from 1998-2004 financed via Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s al-Shahid Foundation, using the Jordanian bank as a conduit.
Also, there is a 10-year history of intense legal battles, including trying to get the bank’s “secret” client documents located in Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian areas.

Military Occupation To Continue

Scotland rejects the two state solution. Backed by the nuclear armed British army, navy and air force, the once sovereign state of Scotland is to continue as just another large neighbourhood of the United Kingdom.
Israel has so many great friends amongst the Scottish people (we assume) because the ones who make the most noise don’t seem to like the prospect of an independent homeland for the Jews remaining here.
Lets hope that Yvonne Ridley’s dream of a “Zionist free zone” in Scotland is now sunk too.

Hagee: Israel is not an 'occupier' but the owner of the land

One picture captured my heart this past Sunday. The sight of Pastor John Hagee, the leader of tens of millions of evangelicals in the United States and around the world, and Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, a great scholar and veteran rabbi of the Orthodox community in San Antonio, embracing during a joint prayer at the Western Wall.
This picture joins the mounting evidence of a theological earthquake occurring in parts of the Christian world pertaining to relations with the Jewish people and the State of Israel. While some of us have difficulty opening up to these changes, considering the bloody historical account of the Jewish people with the church, it is important to know of this revolution and the righteous among the nations who come to our assistance.
In 2006, Hagee established Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a growing organization that currently numbers 1.8 million members. The group's activists regularly approach their representatives in the U.S. government in Washington on behalf of Israel. The organization has branches on many campuses in the fight for the hearts of the next generation, and starting this year will launch a program bringing Christian student missions to Israel to become directly acquainted with it.
CUFI convenes a huge annual conference in Washington and throughout the year holds dinners honoring Israel in every major city. Hagee emphasizes that they condition admission to the organization and its meetings with the stipulation that "they are not to be conversionary in any way, but are to communicate to our Jewish brothers and sisters our love for them and our desire to help them in any way that we can."

Jewish Group Partners With IsraAID to Help Iraqi Christians, Yazidis

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is partnering with the Israeli international relief organization IsraAID to help deliver urgent humanitarian aid to beleaguered Christian and Yazidi refugees fleeing the Islamic State terror group.
“As American Jews, we are proud to assist, together with our Israeli partner, IsraAID, in offering relief to the thousands of Christian and Yazidi refugees fleeing the brutality of ISIS and seeking shelter among Iraqi Kurds,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris.
AJC said it will provide funds to help cover the expenses associated with the distribution of hygiene kits, mattresses, blankets, kitchen utensils, and clothing.
Founded in 2001, IsraAID is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that has provided disaster and long-term relief to threatened communities in places such as Jordan, Haiti, Japan and South Sudan.
According to Iraqi Chaldean Catholic leader Patriarch Sako, more than 10,000 Christians have been killed in Iraq by Islamic State and some 170,000 have been expelled from their traditional homeland in the Nineveh Plains region.

Canadian PM Vows to Stand With Israel 'Through Fire and Water'

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed to support Israel "through fire and water" on Monday, during a speech at the Ottowa Convention Center.
"Friends, in this fight, we also stand with the democratic State of Israel," Harper said, "as we have again this year, as Israelis have once more come under attack from the terrorist group Hamas."
"I know there continue to be those who question the wisdom of our policy," he noted. "[Those] who, just as they once wished we would be more embracing of Putin, now would wish us to be more ambivalent about Israel, to go along with those who regularly single out Israel for criticism."
"Friends, that position is wrong," he continued.
Harper, like many, made the comparison between terror group Hamas and the global jihadist Islamic State (IS or ISIS).

The Men Who Enjoy Killing Jews

There is no greater temptation than explaining a mass murderer through his childhood’s ghosts.
Palestinian terrorists slit the throats of the Fogels till the last baby they find? It is because of the checkpoints around Nablus.
Mohammed Deif built the tunnels of death in southern Israel? It is because of the “occupation”.
Of Adolf Eichmann it has been said that he was an unhappy child, an unfriendly and lonely student, a sexually inhibited boy frustrated by the financial crisis of his father.
For fifty years, since Colonel Eichmann was hanged by the Israelis and his ashes scattered in the Mediterranean, the architect of the Holocaust has been portrayed as a gray bureaucrat, an ordinary human being, a faceless wheel of a larger project, driven by cowardice, desire for social advancement and bourgeois moral myopia.
Now a book by the German scholar Bettina Stangneth, “Eichmann Before Jerusalem”, tells us the truth.

Students for Justice in Palestine in New Orleans Promotes Bigoted Political Agenda

On Thursday, Students For Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of New Orleans (UNO) put on display a display featuring the alleged names of young Arabs that were killed “assault on Gaza” this past summer. The group claimed that Israel was responsible for the deaths, even though Hamas used children as human shields to achieve their racist objective of destroying the only Jewish state and constructing upon it a Jew-free Islamic caliphate. In their display, SJP also made light of the misery inflicted upon the children of Gaza by terrorists by neglecting the crimes committed against them by Hamas and its affiliates and instead opting to solely target Israel.
“It’s actually sad,” said Chloé Valdary, president of Allies of Israel at UNO. “There is a need to have a real conversation about children and all innocent civilians in Gaza because their lives matter and we must work to ensure that their welfare is protected. Unfortunately SJP doesn’t really care about them. It plays right into the hands of Hamas’s political strategy by pretending to lament the deaths of children, while simultaneously promoting the very regime which put these children in harms way in the first place, namely Hamas. Hamas does not care about its people. It rules by brutal fiat, suppresses political dissension, imprisons women, gays, and other minorities, and has conscripted children for its military purposes — forcing them to build terror tunnels used to attack Israel.”
Hamas, a terrorist organization condemned whose mission is to slaughter every Jewish man, woman, and child on the face of the earth, has its mission clearly written in its charter, Hamas goes to great lengths to ensure this mission is carried out — even if that means murdering its own people in the process.

Pro-Israel Students Are Part of the Solution

BDS does not resonate on American college campuses, and there’s a reason for that. College students want to make a difference. They want to change the world. They want to be a part of human progress.
The campus community can make a meaningful contribution to peace between Israelis and Palestinians by choosing to be part of the solution. But SJP members and their efforts to boycott, divest from, and sanction the Jewish state are not only promoting inaccuracies and falsehoods–they are divisive, and they tear communities apart.
There is a broad international consensus, supported by the vast majority of the Israeli people, that the only path to true reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians is two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security.
If the campus community is going to be part of the solution, we have to bring together people of different beliefs and different faiths. We have to engage in meaningful dialogue. We have to talk about two states for two peoples. We have to empower pro-Israel students to take tangible steps to invest in Israel and promote coexistence. Being part of the solution means being willing to engage in conversations about difficult issues.

Students for Justice in Palestine: promoting hate on campus

September 23, 2014 has been proclaimed by Hatem Bazian as an "International day of Action" against Israel. Bazian, who once infamously called for an "intifada" in America, was a founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, the group that will be spring boarding the "Day of Action"
Students for Justice in Palestine, also known as SJP, or more popularly as Students for Just us in Palestine has a long history of threatening pro-Israel activists, shouting down free speech, and intimidating those who disagree with them. This year, they sport free legal protection for their rights, while they run roughshod over everyone elses.

JVP calls for the destruction of Israel

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has no room for Israel as the state of the Jewish people in their ideology, as they call for Palestine, "From the River to the Sea"
Its nothing new. Extremist JVP routinely stands with those calling for intifada and endless war, and has long tolerated the daftest conspiracy theorists and haters.

USA Today, not the Guardian, gets ‘1000 acres of land’ story right

News media often refer erroneously to the West Bank as “Palestinian land” or “Palestinian territory” and Israeli acquisition or development there often get reported as “land grabs.” For example:
Referring to Israel’s decision to declare almost 1,000 acres adjacent to the West Bank community of Gva’ot as state land, The Guardian (U.K.) wrote, “Israel has published tenders to build 283 homes in a West Bank settlement, days after announcing its biggest land grab on occupied Palestinian territory [emphases added] for three decades.” (“Israel to build 283 homes in West Bank”, Sept. 5, 2014)
USA Today, by contrast, eschewed hyperbole for context. Special Correspondent Michele Chabin reported of Gva’ot and the newly-designated state land that “this community of 17 Israeli families, apartments for disabled adults, a school for disabled children, several horses and a petting zoo is accustomed to solitude. So [Rachel] Pomerantz, who rents a small prefab home here, was surprised by the sudden international attention on the settlement since … the Israeli government announced it would designate a swath of land next to Gva’ot as state-owned property.”

Ombud Upholds HRC Complant: CBC Unfairly Blamed Israel for Targeting Gaza Power Plant

In a recent HRC alert last month, we notified you about how our efforts prompted the CBC to amend its reporting to acknowledge that Israel denies responsibility for targeting and shelling a power plant in Gaza.
In an effort to further hold the CBC to account, HRC asked the CBC’s Ombudsman to review our concerns and on September 8, Ombudsman Esther Enkin upheld our concerns finding that on matters of controversy, CBC is tasked with maintaining balance and must represent both sides whenever possible. CBC’s inconsistent reporting was “not acceptable” according to Enkin.

US House calls for tougher fight against anti-Semitism

Noting a “clear and troubling pattern of increased violence against Jewish persons and their property,” the US House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution Thursday evening condemning anti-Semitism and calling on US Secretary of State John Kerry to take additional steps to curb the international tide of anti-Jewish incidents.
The resolution was authored by Representatives Peter Roskam (R-IL), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Nita Lowey (D-NY), and Kay Granger (R-TX) to condemn what they described as “the rising tide of anti-Semitism abroad.”
“Today’s unanimous passage of our resolution sends a clear and strong message that we condemn the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout the world and that we will do all we can to prevent its spread,” the four wrote in a statement shortly after the resolution’s passage. “We must ensure the world views such actions for what they are, the vile and hate-fueled persecution of an entire people, rather than an acceptable expression of frustration with political events in the Middle East or anywhere else. The United States must continue to play an essential role in shining a spotlight on the ugly resurgence of anti-Semitism, as well as all forms of religious discrimination.”
The wording of the resolution included an “unequivocal” condemnation of anti-Semitism, noting that the House “rejects attempts to justify anti-Jewish hatred or violent attacks as an acceptable expression of disapproval or frustration over political events in the Middle East or elsewhere.” The resolution goes on to “decry and condemn” the comparison of Israel to Nazis, describing it as “an insult to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and an affront to those who survived and their children and grand-children, the righteous gentiles who saved Jewish lives at peril to their own lives and to those who bravely fought to defeat the Nazis.”

Italy Now Has a Hotline to Report Anti-Semitism

The leader of Italy’s Jewish community announced a new measure to deal with a recent rise in anti-Semitic incidents: a hotline. The Anti-Semitism Antenna will be accessible by phone and online, explained Renzo Gattegna, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, and is intended for use both by Jewish victims of anti-Semitic acts as well as Italian witnesses or bystanders, Haaretz reports.
“The goal of the initiative is to nullify any threat of hatred and discrimination. It is a concrete effort for the benefit of the entire community especially now that old biases are back even in the most advanced and democratic societies,” Gattegna said in a statement.
Callers will be able to report any anti-Semitic incident by calling the number or filling out a form online. Each warning will be verified, conserved and used to analyze anti-Semitic hostilities.

UK soccer coach blasts anti-Semitic display in Belgrade

Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino blasted an anti-Semitic banner unfurled by Partizan Belgrade fans as “unacceptable” and “disrespectful” after European football was again embroiled in a racism row.
A huge banner bearing the words “Only Jews and Pussies” was displayed throughout Thursday’s Europa League match between the two teams in the Serbian capital.
“I didn’t see but the club is aware. And if it is true, that is very disrespectful,” Pochettino told the British media after the game which ended in a 0-0 draw.
North London club Tottenham have long enjoyed close links with the Jewish community.

'Sieg Heil' Receipts Investigated by Swedish Store

A Swedish supermarket apologized after the message "Don't Come Back! Sieg Heil" was found printed on two receipts.
Louise Stephan, a representative for supermarket chain Coop, confirmed the message was found on two receipts from a Stockholm location and the words were apparently added to the system manually by an employee.
"I can confirm that this happened. It's completely unacceptable and we're very disappointed," Stephan told The Local.
Stephan said the store is investigating. She did not say whether the responsible employee had been identified or what actions would be taken against the worker.

News from AmericaMet Opera Sells Tickets with 'Murder a Jew' Pic

The Metropolitan Opera has sunk to a new low in its glorification of the Palestinian terrorist murder of wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, on the Achille Lauro in 1995, say outraged Jewish groups. In its promotional materials, including a video on its official website, the Metropolitan Opera features a Palestinian terrorist pointing a gun at the back of a wheel-chair bound Klinghoffer, when he is about to murder him.
“The Met Opera is clearly trying to sell tickets off of an evil Palestinian terrorist who is in the process of murdering a crippled Jew in the back in cold-blood” said Mark Langfan, President of Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI). The group, headed by Langfan and Helen Freedman, is spearheading an unprecedented coalition of over 60 Jewish and non-Jewish organizations for the demonstration planned for this coming Monday, September 22, at 4:30 pm in front Metropolitan Opera at the Lincoln Center Plaza at Broadway and 65th Street.
Langfan said that the Met Opera’s clear organizational message is that “killing a Jew is not just a good thing, but it’s ‘Art.’ The Met Opera, and all its board of directors are actively promoting Jew-murder in its ugliest form. It’s rank, pure Jew-hate, anti-Semitism in its most vile form.”

My Fellow US Jews, We Are All Ambassador Tzvi Mazel

American Jews have a watershed chance to stand up against anti-Israel invective in which Palestinian terror is equated with the sufferings of its victims. The upcoming re-showing of the Opera ‘The Death of Leon Klinghoffer’ about a disabled American Jew, murdered and thrown off the S.S. Achille Lauro in 1986, by Palestinian terrorists, is an extreme example of such confused im-moral equivalence in which Israel bashing runs amok.
It is the narrative of Arab terrorists as victims rather than the reality of their being the violent aggressors who fight by any means against the existence of a Zionist state on any borders.
The Death of Klinghoffer contains anti-Semitic vitriol, promoting stereotypes. In one such line, “You Jews are always complaining of your own suffering, but you get fat off the poor, cheat the simple, exploit the virgin, pollute where you’ve been exploited - America is one big Jew.”
As the opera opens soon expecting to fill the Met with throngs of 'culture' lovers, now is the time to stand up and decry such folly.

Bomb Explodes in Bolivian Jewish Cemetery

In the latest shocking example of rising global anti-Semitism, anonymous criminals on Wednesday detonated an explosive in the Jewish cemetery of Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Residents living adjacent to the site reported to the police of hearing a strong explosion from the Jewish graveyard. After arriving on the scene, local police discovered the remains of an explosive.
Representatives of the Jewish community came immediately to the cemetery and found considerable damage caused by the blast. Fortunately the cemetery was empty at the time, meaning no injuries were caused.
The local Jewish community demanded that police waste no time in investigating the incident so as to locate the culprits; police report that all leads are being checked.

Israel Sends Experts to Fight Ebola in Africa

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Ron Prosor on Thursday night spoke at a UN Security Council emergency session initiated by America, the current Security Council chair, in which he promised Israeli aid in combating the global ebola epidemic.
"Israel is ready for the new challenge standing before the world, and has started providing funds and medical equipment," said Prosor. He noted that the Jewish state has sent "Israeli health experts to Cameroon."
"A world crisis demands an international response. Every country has a role in the struggle against ebola," commented Prosor. "The whole world must replace apathy with initiative and finding solutions."

Top fintech right here in Israel, say MasterCard honchos

When it comes to picking winners, MasterCard and Citi have a good track record — and that bodes well for Pricence, the winner of the third annual MasterCard Israel Technology Award. Now $25,000 richer, Pricence will get a coveted spot in Citi’s Israel financial technology accelerator, and have the opportunity to present its technology to top European investors at the MasterCard/Citi Accelerators in Dublin, Ireland.
One of MasterCard/Citi’s previous Award choices — KitLocate, which developed a technology to use all data on a cellphone for contextual location-based services — has had a successful exit, snapped up by international search engine company Yandex. The 2013 winner of the second edition of the now-annual contest, CallVU, is still enrolled in the Citi fintech (financial technology) accelerator and is putting the finishing touches on advanced versions of its call center technology that integrates text and images with voice calls, greatly reducing time, cost, and frustration associated with help desk calls.

Israeli hackers ‘scary talented,’ says security expert

Israeli hackers are young and scary — scary talented, that is. That’s the observation of a man who knows what hacking is all about. Antonio Forzieri. EMEA Cyber Security head for security firm Symantec. “I’ve seen hackers at work all over Europe and the US, and Israeli hackers are younger, faster, and smarter than those in almost any other country. To me, that combination of intelligence, youth, and ability is scary. We had better make sure they use their powers for good.”
Forzieri had an opportunity to watch about 60 of Israel’s best hackers split into several dozen teams during the second annual Cyber Challenge, sponsored by Symantec, EMC-RSA, and Israel Aircraft Industries. The teams were given an opportunity to run rampant over a network set up for them by Symantec that duplicated a banking ATM network. The teams were given milestones — the time it took them to hack points inside the network, credit given for creative methods of busting a roadblock, and others — for a total of 80 specific missions.

Israeli ‘malware prophet’ CyActive snags Siemens funding

Somewhere a start-up is working on full-blown crystal ball technology that will be able to accurately predict the future. Until then, the world is going to have to be satisfied with advance warning of malware attacks by CyActive, the Israeli-developed cyber-security system that can prophesy the creation of new viruses and malware — what they are going to look like, what they might do, and most important – how to defend against them.
Predicting the creation of new malware before it happens is prophetic enough, as far as international tech giant Siemens is concerned. On Thursday, CyActive announced that it had received a substantial strategic investment from the Venture Capital Unit of Siemens (SFS VC). CyActive CEO Liran Tancman said the funds would be going into research and development as well as marketing, as CyActive seeks to spread its predictive cyber-security technology around the world.
The funding for CyActive marks the first investment of Siemens’ “Industry of the Future Fund” in Israel. The Venture Capital Unit of Siemens joins Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), a top 10 global venture capital fund, in investing in CyActive.

Israel’s oil wars shift to the Golan Heights

What if Moses had made a right turn?
According to the old joke, if Moses had turned right when he led the Jews out of the Sinai Desert after 40 years of wandering, perhaps the Jewish people, rather than the Saudi Arabians, would be sitting on large oil reserves.
But an American oil company is convinced that Moses may not have been wrong after all. It is betting millions of dollars on the hope that Israel actually has enormous amounts of oil inside its borders that could meet most of the country’s needs. The only problem? The oil is either trapped deep inside rock, in a compound known as oil shale, or located hazardously close to Israel’s freshwater reserves.

Cats offer paw-sible clues to new AIDS drugs

Kitty might be the purrfect pet but according to a new Technion-Israel Institute of Technology study, she could also hold the clue to new anti-HIV drugs.
The feline virus FIV that causes the disease in cats looks a lot like HIV. Both FIV and HIV rely on a protein called integrase that inserts the virus’ DNA into an infected cell’s DNA.
Faculty of Biology Assistant Professor Akram Alian and graduate student Meytal Galilee say they may have found a new weak point in the protein that drug designers may be able to target in the future.
In an article recently published in Cell Structure, the two researchers offer up a detailed, 3-D molecular map of FIV integrase that could help scientists also understand how this protein works in HIV.

DLD Tel Aviv innovation fest sees start-ups strut their stuff

Yossi Vardi, one of the godfathers of Israel’s hi-tech scene, co-chairs the event, which he imported from Munich in 2011. During the conference, hundreds of start-ups set up shop, accelerators and hubs highlight their protégés, who pitch their ideas to teams of venture capitalists and angel investors.
In Mitcham Hatachana, the old train station refurbished as a chic shopping center on the edge of Jaffa, a renewed hangar is filled with sounds, lights, art and sculptures – each with a hi-tech twist.
Maayan Cohen, a hi-tech designer who recently returned to Israel after several years in Canada, showed off a project called EyeCanTouch, designed to help children with disabilities draw using their eyes.
The program uses a camera to track eye movements, which move a computer cursor over arrows on a computer screen. Those arrows control a colorful robotic spider equipped with a marker, leaving a trail of ink where it creeps.

World’s ‘oldest known siddur’ unveiled in Jerusalem

Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum presented what it termed as the oldest known Jewish prayer book, or siddur, at a closed ceremony Thursday evening.
The tiny manuscript, about the size of an iPhone 4s, is estimated to be 1,200 years old, and is about 50 pages long, with Hebrew script covering each thick, rough-edged page.
It’s the property of Steve Green, the Oklahoma City scion of national retail chain Hobby Lobby that owns The Green Collection, with more than 40,000 biblical antiquities. The family members are devout Christians, descendants of preachers, and major donors to evangelical ministries.
Now they’re taking what is considered the world’s largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts and using it as the core of the family’s planned $800 million, eight-story Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. The prayer book will eventually be part of the museum’s collection.

Kibbutz Near Gaza Celebrates Delayed Bar, Bat Mitzvahs

After three postponements due to rocket fire during Operation Protective Edge, 16 youngsters from Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border were set to celebrate their bar and bat mitzvahs at a joint ceremony on Thursday evening, with an expected 1,500 guests in attendance.
Kibbutz Be’eri suffered significant damage to cars, buildings, and agricultural fields from Gaza rocket fire over the summer. The joint ceremony, an annual tradition at the kibbutz, marks the end of a year-long process for the youngsters.
“The children have already been preparing for this ceremony for two weeks, and it is supposed to include singing, dancing and a special fire display,” said Mencher Dvori, the kibbutz secretary-general, according to Israel Hayom. “It will be a very meaningful experience, the biggest celebration at the kibbutz this year.”

Lone IDF soldiers, hailing from across the globe, set new record

One of the most powerful moments a person who immigrates to Israel can experience is swearing loyalty to the Israel Defense Forces and the state at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, just before beginning combat military service.
On Thursday, no fewer than 20 lone soldiers from Company C of the Paratroopers Brigade 101st Battalion, part of the class drafted in August 2014, pledged their loyalty to the IDF in Jerusalem. The lone soldiers came from all over the world and volunteered for combat service despite the hardships. Only a few of those present knew that a new record was being set.

An airlift of 21 flights from El- Al Airlines flying from 10 different international locations, are bringing parents of lone soldiers serving in the IDF to Israel.

In a special initiative to enable families to spend the Jewish New Year together, an airlift of 21 flights from El- Al Airlines flying from 10 different international locations, are bringing parents of lone soldiers serving in the IDF to Israel. Flights are taking off from New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Moscow, Paris, London, Brussels and Amsterdam.
On Thursday, September 18, a flight from Moscow with the first group of parents landed in Israel.
The El-Al Airlines, the Israel Hotel Association (IHA) the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers (AWIS), the IDF’s Manpower Directorate are all part of the unique project to reunite parents with their sons and daughters who took part in the recent Operation Protective Edge against Hamas.
An event of this scope has never taken place before as 125 parents to 77 soldiers will arrive in Israel in the upcoming few days. “We initiated this project in order to show our appreciation to the lone soldiers, who bravely decided to leave their home country and protect Israel,” said David Maimon, Chief Executive Officer of El-Al Airlines, which provided the parents of lone soldiers with the free flights.