Wednesday, October 29, 2014
UNRWA-Hamas Symbiosis Detailed in New Film
In a new documentary video entitled UNRWA Goes to War, journalist David Bedein builds a seemingly incontestable case against UNRWA, showing the close symbiotic relations between it and the terror group Hamas.UNRWA Goes to War
The video shows that not only did UNRWA schools serve as repositories for rockets in the last Gaza war, and not only were rockets launched from places adjacent to UNRWA institutions – the students at the schools are themselves educated to hate Israel and aspire to destroy it.
Bedein launched a scathing attack on UNRWA in a video he produced and published three years ago, earning a furious rebuttal from the UN group.
“While the UNRWA slogan is 'Peace Starts Here,' a more appropriate slogan would be 'War Starts with UNRWA,'” the film charges. It shows footage of what it says are UNRWA elementary school students participating in military-style displays in plain sight of their teachers, in afterschool activities organized by Hamas.
Vote for the Dishonest Reporter of 2014
Now’s the time to vote for the Dishonest Reporter of 2014. It’s our annual recognition of the year’s most skewed and biased coverage of Israel and the Mideast conflict. Make your voice heard and we’ll announce the ignoble winners by the end of the year.Elliott Abrams:Liberty and the Palestinian Authority
Vote for one reporter or news service, along with a brief reason for your choice. This year’s nominees are:
1. The Lancet: for publishing an open letter about Gaza by avowed anti-Semites.
2. Channel 4: for Jon Snow’s over-the-top Gaza video.
3. New York Times: for turning Gaza’s casualty count into a game of numbers.
4. Washington Post: for publishing an op-ed — on the Jewish new year — calling for the end of the Jewish state.
5. Haaretz: for using its politicized agenda as a marketing tool.
Even Human Rights Watch, whose bias against Israel is notorious, had to acknowledge basic facts about the PA:Jennifer Rubin: Forget the ‘peace process,’ Palestinians need reform
"Complaints of torture and ill-treatment by West Bank PA security services persisted. ... PA security services and men in civilian clothes identified as security employees violently dispersed peaceful protests and arbitrarily detained protesters and journalists. ... Palestinian courts did not find any West Bank security officers responsible for torture, arbitrary detention, or prior cases of unlawful deaths in custody."
Donors to the PA do not like to acknowledge and discuss these violation of human rights by the PA, because they do not fit into the usual narrative that Palestinians want and deserve self-government, but are denied it by Israel, and the only problem for the cause of liberty is the Israeli occupation.
Simple, but wrong. The PA itself is an increasingly repressive entity, with Abbas abusing the powers of his office to fight political enemies (and protect corruption). This is not exactly news, but until it is recognized and fought by donors it will continue and expand. It's ironic that all those groups, especially in Europe, who consider themselves champions of Palestinian rights wish only to condemn Israel -- while they continue to ignore the threat to Palestinians that emerges from their own officials and government bodies.
First, decades of anti-Semitic propaganda and enticement to violence have had predictable results. A large segment of the Palestinian population’s world view is at odds with reality. Thanks to ceaseless propaganda and censorship of outside news, they continue to subsume facts (Hamas’s defeat) to propaganda. Attitudes toward Israel have hardened, making compromise virtually impossible.
Second, insisting the Palestinians want and are prepared for peace does not help. In fact it cements the notion that their current mindset is sufficient for a peaceful resolution. It is not. The emphasis from the West should be on institution-building and civil society in Palestinian communities, including one would hope, a free media.
The bottom line is that peace will be the result of a successful process of replacing the toxic political environment created by Abbas and Hamas with a functioning society with a free flow of ideas. Political and economic improvements can change Palestinian attitudes about their own future and about Israel. Mindlessly returning to the same failed “peace process” makes things worse, which is what you can say for just about every feature of the Middle East policy of the Obama administration.
Israel and the war of words
Mr. Muravchik recounts how, in May 1967, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser sent his troops into the Sinai, closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (an act of war) and vowed that Egypt, joined by other Arab armies, would “destroy Israel This is Arab power. This is the true resurrection of the Arab nation.”Why African-American Firebrand Chloe Valdary Wants To Ignite a Zionist Renaissance
Opinion in the West, popular and elite alike, came down firmly in support of the Jewish state. “As the crisis deepened,” Mr. Muravchik writes, “a luminous group of intellectuals,” including thousands of academics, called upon the U.S. government to help Israelis defend themselves.
When the fighting concluded, Israel had prevailed, taking Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. Sen. George McGovern, who would become the Democratic Party’s “peace candidate” in 1972, said he hoped Israel would “not give up a foot of ground” until the Arabs made peace.
This summer, by stark contrast, as Hamas fired thousands of missiles at Israel, anger was directed at Israel. The media focused almost exclusively on Palestinian victims — even though the Israeli Defense Forces did more than any army in history ever has to protect noncombatants, many of whom Hamas used as human shields.
How did this change come about? After the 1967 war, Israel’s enemies and critics stopped talking about an Arab-Israeli conflict. It became a Palestinian-Israeli conflict instead.
The new David was supported by the diplomatic, political and economic clout of 22 Arab states, oil giants among them, as well as more than 50 other nations that self-identify as Islamic.
When I asked the man next to me in a crowd of several hundred pro-Israel demonstrators outside the Time-Warner Center in New York if Chloe Valdary had spoken yet, I was met with immediate enthusiasm at the very mention of her name. “Chloe is amazing … so determined. We need more like her,” the man said. An hour later, Valdary headed to the platform dressed, as any 21-year-old might be, in jeans, gold hoop earrings, and pink-rimmed sunglasses. As soon as Valdary’s name was called, protesters turned to each other and murmured in excitement.Palestinian Opinion and the Apartheid Libel
“Judea!” she shouted in greeting. Speaking in a slow, lyrical rhythm, Valdary emitted a type of love letter to the Jewish people. “You are the sons and daughters of former slaves in Egypt, of warrior poets, and kings who slayed giants, and queens filled with courage, and prophets and dreamers,” she proclaimed. “Rise, Zion, rise,” she declared in closing, and the crowd immediately began to chant her name.
While some of the enthusiasm surrounding Valdary’s activism might stem from her large and precocious talent as a public speaker and provocateur, it is often accompanied by a sense of bewilderment as to how an African-American Christian from New Orleans became a self-appointed defender of the Jewish people.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century, Palestinian nationalism has always been inextricably linked with the war on Zionism. Reinforced by a constant drumbeat of incitement from both the official media of the Palestinian Authority and its leadership, the political culture of the Palestinians remains implacably hostile to Israel even if one takes Hamas out of the equation. That culture of denial of Israel’s legitimacy feeds the terrorism of Hamas in the form of missiles and terror tunnels, but also the Arab violence in the streets of Jerusalem against Israeli citizens that has created a steady toll of casualties in recent months.It is also in that context that we should read the latest diatribe against Israel in the New York Times. An op-ed published today by Israeli Arab journalist Rula Jebreal is a compendium of charges all aimed to depict the country as fitting into the “apartheid state” libel. In her telling, every aspect of the country’s laws is geared toward discrimination against the Arab minority population. Israel is, like any democracy, imperfect and it would not be true to claim that Israeli Arabs have no cause for complaint. Some of what she writes about is true and some are distortions. But one doesn’t have to read too far between the lines to see that the purpose of her indictment is not redress of specific wrongs but the end of the Zionist project. The rights of national minorities should be protected in any society but the existence of that minority does not give them the right to thwart the basic purpose of the state.U.S. Judge Shields Palestinian Terrorists from Scrutiny
Reporters are taking legal action to force a U.S. District Court to publicly disclose secret documents that are believed to provide new details about payments made to terrorists by the Palestinian government, according to court documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.Hamas using mafia-like tactics to make money
Lawyers have been fighting for months to force a U.S. District Court in New York to unseal scores of documents and testimony that allegedly detail how the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has been paying salaries to convicted terrorists.
The sealed documents were submitted to the court as part of a 2004 lawsuit brought by terrorism victims seeking damages from the PLO as a result of their attacks on Israel.
The victims’ lawyers have argued for months that the documents in question play a critical role in establishing the PLO’s culpability and should be released to the public.
However, Judge George B. Daniels has rejected this request on the basis that the documents may reveal personal information about purported terrorists and potentially “undermine” the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) interests, according to court documents.
How does Hamas' method work?5 Viral Misquotes Anti Israel Groups Need To Stop Using
Hamas' assumptions were verified in this round as well. The threats it hurls into the ether force donor states to pay it "protection money" so that it will not make good on its threats and instead will maintain the calm in our corner of the Middle East. These threats make Israel (and Egypt) agree that once again billions of dollars are handed over to Hamas.
This pattern of action has become akin to that of the Vandals, Huns, Mongols, Aztecs and others. Hamas makes a living from protection money (which is euphemistically called "donations") which it receives from many countries in the world in order to prevent it from unleashing violence.
According to media reports, the Gazans have succeeded in raising the massive sum of $5.4 billion for Gaza's reconstruction, a sum which can be compared, for example, to the sale of 100 good startup companies.
If that is the case, the Gazans have scored big time with their venture capital fund. There is really no need to invent anything, but simply to stick to the ancient idea of threats and demands for protection money ("donations") – and the world will pay up.
My previous post, “Top 8 Images Anti-Israel Groups Need To Stop Using” was so awesomely good, it needed a sequel.J Street Stands With Terrorist-Sponsor Over Israeli Ambassador
Today, I’m going to write about misquotes. It’s fun to quote people. Especially when it’s taken out of context, reworded, or just plain made up. Then you take a nice picture of the person you misquoted, and superimpose your quote onto the picture. This way, no one will ever doubt you. Seriously. If they didn’t really say that would someone take the time to open up Picasa and type text over a picture they Googled? (h/t Bob Knot)
J Street, the George Soros-funded organization which claims to be pro-Israel, took the side of a terrorist-sponsor over Israel's ambassador to the United States.Breaking the Silence NGO barred from national service program
After Ambassador Ron Dermer was critical of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, who is in the tenth year of a four year term, and said that "it is “an embarrassment that anyone in the world embraces this man as a peacemaker,” J Street took aim at Dermer rather than Abbas.
J Street wrote that it is "greatly concerned" by Dermer's remarks and that Dermer's comments "have gone too far" and are "tragic."
The organization then highlighted gushing comments about Abbas made by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before concluding that Abbas "may not be ideal but he has renounced violence and stuck by that policy and he has consistently stated his desire for peace and a two-state solution."
Reality, however, tells a different story and raises concerns regarding J Street's acceptance of tyranny over democracy.
Israel's national civil service authority has rejected a request by the Breaking the Silence organization -- which brings together veteran soldiers dedicated to exposing alleged mistreatment of Palestinians by the IDF -- to participate in the national service volunteer program due to its controversial political nature.Palestinians protest pope’s acceptance of Bar-Ilan award
On the request form to join the program, Breaking the Silence described its goal as "to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the occupied territories. We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life."
The committee charged with deciding whether organizations can join the volunteer program ruled against Breaking the Silence, writing: "The committee recommends that National Civic Service Authority Director Sar-Shalom Jerbi reject the request due to the fact that the organization deals distinctly with political activity and is not suited to any of the activities permitted by national civilian service regulations.
The pontiff was awarded the school’s highest award on Monday, but Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki wrote in a letter to the Vatican that the university was closely tied to the settlement movement.Macy’s SodaStream Decision Unrelated to Anti-Israel Campaign
“Bar-Ilan University violates international law by directly and indirectly supporting the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise,” Maliki wrote, according to the Ma’an, a Palestinian news agency. He added that the university “is one of the institutions most committed to the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestine” and advocates “hatred and incitement against non-Jews.”
There was no immediate response from the Vatican.
While Macy’s has officially stayed mum on the controversy, a source familiar with the decision confirmed to the Free Beacon that the store would no longer carry the products. The source also told the Free Beacon that the decision was based strictly on sales performance and was not connected to the BDS campaign.CAIR Spokesman Compares Bill Maher To ‘Grand Dragon Of The KKK’
“We had carried Sodastream for a number of years and promoted it regularly,” said the source. “But over time, sales had diminished. Our decision to discontinue selling the product is as simple as that.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in early October that the at-home soda-maker had shown disappointing sales numbers in the past year, and one analyst told the paper that he had heard Macy’s would stop stocking the product.
Pro-Israel activists treated the BDS campaign’s latest claims of victory with skepticism, noting that Macy’s store continues to stock the Israeli-made Ahava skincare products, another high-profile target of the boycott movement.
In a heated debate on MSNBC with free speech advocate Greg Lukianoff, CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper defended UC Berkeley students’ efforts to uninvite comedian Bill Maher for his comments on Islam, comparing him to the Grand Dragon of the KKK.JCPA: Is Lebanon on the Brink of a New Civil War?
In the meantime, events in Lebanon have raised the already high tension in the Gulf States. Iran offered arms to Lebanon, in what is seen as a public relations stunt. More seriously, Saudi Arabia offered immediately to buy weapons for the feeble Lebanese army in order to bolster its capabilities against the jihadists. The partition of Lebanon is not an option that the Saudis would like to see especially since events in their “backyard” have brought about a Shiite Houthi-dominated regime in Yemen.Lebanon’s once-mighty Hezbollah is facing attacks in Syria — and also at home
Indeed, one cannot overestimate the importance of the fate of Tripoli to the Sunni jihadis. Its fall would have been the beginning of the disintegration of the Lebanese state as a nation-state and the awakening of the old sectarian fears that could provoke its implosion and partition into Christian-Maronite, Shiite, and Druze enclaves facing a Sunnite entity related either to Al-Qaeda (if conquered by Jabhat al-Nusra) or to the Islamic State. Such a situation would undoubtedly represent the beginning of a new civil war that could end with closer ties between the Shiite Hizbullah-dominated areas in Lebanon and the Assad regime and ultimately with the Christian and Druze territories, which would mean a re-drawing of the regional map already heavily transformed since August 2014 by the establishment of the Islamic State and caliphate. The possible fall of the Kurdish Kobane (Ayn al-Arab in Arabic) town in Syria would definitely fit this current scenario of establishing a nucleus of the Islamic State from the Mediterranean to the very doors of Baghdad.
Hezbollah has won grudging respect, even from some foes, for its tenacious guerrilla campaigns against Israel. But now Lebanon’s most powerful military organization is losing its aura of invincibility.Hezbollah tunnelling across northern border?
Tactics that the Shiite group has used against Israeli soldiers are being inflicted on its own forces by militants from the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, which have carved out footholds in Lebanon along the porous Syria border.
The growing number of attacks and kidnappings by the Sunni militants represent the opening of yet another military front for Hezbollah. It already has thousands of troops deployed in Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while still more are facing Israel in southern Lebanon.
“Hezbollah is spread thin. They are waging so many battles and are positioned on so many fronts,” said Imad Salamey, associate professor of political science at the Beirut-based Lebanese American University.
Israel believes the militant group Hezbollah has probably dug tunnels across the border from Lebanon in preparation for any future war although it has no conclusive evidence, an Israeli army general said on Wednesday.7th Armored Brigade updates to Merkava Mk. 4 tank with eye on Hezbollah
Israel's vulnerability to tunnels was laid bare during its war against Hamas in Gaza in July and August. What began as shelling exchanges with Hamas escalated into a ground offensive after Palestinian militants used dozens of secret passages dug from Gaza into Israel to launch surprise attacks.
Residents of northern Israel, who were battered by Hezbollah rockets during a month-long war in 2006, have at times reported underground noises suggesting that guerrillas were burrowing across the frontier in a new tactic. The Israeli military says searches it has carried out have turned up nothing.
The IDF’s Seventh Armored Brigade is in the midst of a modernization process that will see all tank battalions equipped with the Merkava Mark IV tank by 2016, a senior army source said Tuesday.The Guardian: Most Arab states share Isis’s ideology. They’re trying to have it both ways
The brigade’s 75th Battalion will complete the switch from the Merkava Mark II tank to the Mark IV on Thursday, and an additional two tank battalions will complete the process within two years, he added.
The tanks will come equipped with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’ Trophy active protection against anti-tank missile attacks, making them suitable for combat in areas infested with guerrilla cells armed with anti-tank missiles, such as in Lebanon against Hezbollah, according to the source. (h/t MtTB)
Compulsion in religion is the ideological foundation stone of Isis and Islamist movements in general. Believing they have superior knowledge of God’s wishes for mankind, such groups feel entitled – even required – to act on his behalf and punish those who fail to comply with the divine will. In doing so, of course, they do not claim to be seeking power for themselves but merely trying to make the world more holy.Six-year-old 'soldier for Khilafa': kids radicalised in shocking video
Bombing Isis and banning Islamist movements may suppress such movements for a while but it does nothing to address the ideological problem. Unless the question of compulsion in religion is tackled head-on, and in a serious way, they will resurface later or similar groups will emerge to replace them.
Although freedom of belief is a widely accepted principle internationally, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it is still far from becoming established in the Arab countries. This is true of both governments and society.
As far as many of the Arab public are concerned, discriminating against members of the “wrong” faith, or those who hold unorthodox views, is not only acceptable, but the right thing to do. For Arab governments, enforcing religious rules and allying themselves with God helps to make up for their lack of electoral legitimacy.
A terror risk expert says it's brainwashing, aimed at creating violent extremists.Connections Between Turkey’s AKP and ISIS?
The video shows four Australian children, aged six to 13, calling for an end to our way of life.
"These are disturbing and shocking images and they do raise concerns about the welfare of the four young boys who are identified in the video,” Family and Community Services Minister Gabrielle Upton said.
A group calling itself The Muslim Youth Project runs regular events for young children.
In the video of the event held on September 21 in 2013 in Lakemba, young boys rally under the banner "Soldiers of Khilafa" with a six-year-old proclaiming:
"You're never too young to be a Soldier for Khilafa."
The children promise to die fighting to end democracy in Australia, replacing it with a Caliphate ruled by Islamic Sharia law.
When the Turkish parliament voted to authorize the use of force in Syria and Iraq, American and, indeed, most foreign media misconstrued the content of the resolution to suggest that Turkey would target the Islamic State (ISIS). In reality, if President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could rank his desired targets, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime would be at the top of the list, followed by the Syrian Kurds such as those who live in Kobane, and ISIS would be a distant third. Indeed, there is much reason to doubt Turkish commitment to counter ISIS.Iran Says Turkey is Prolonging the Syrian Civil War
Alas, if recent reports out of Turkey are true, then the relationship between Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and ISIS are closer than previously known. There is a Turkish website called “Takva Haber” which Turks say serves as the mouthpiece for ISIS. It has been crucial in pushing out ISIS propaganda, and it has also helped ISIS recruit Turks to the degree that Turkey will be facing blowback from the radicals it has spawned long after Erdoğan is dead or in prison.
Iran accused Turkey on Tuesday of prolonging the three-year conflict in neighboring Syria by insisting on President Bashar Al-Assad's overthrow, Reuters reports.German 'Nazi' classroom under investigation
Tehran and Ankara back opposing sides in the civil war, which pits rebel forces including radical Sunni Muslim fighters from the Islamic State against Assad, Tehran's closest regional ally.
Turkey, which has called for Assad to step down, has been a main transit point for foreign militants crossing into Syria to fight his forces, while Iran has supported him both militarily and politically.
"Ankara’s interference in Syrian internal affairs has unfortunately resulted in prolonging the war and extensive deaths of innocent Syrian civilians," Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted a senior Foreign Ministry official as saying.
A school district in Germany has caused quite the media stir this week after images of students saluting with Hitler-like mustaches surfaced in an influential publication.The Old "Israel Looted Palestinian Books" Canard Rears Its Ugly Head Again
German newspaper Bild broke the story on Tuesday, revealing that members of a high school class were communicating using the notorious Nazi salute and other 1930s-Germany rhetoric.
According to local media reports, the ninth-graders have taken to popular messaging app WhatsApp to promote Nazi slogans, anti-Semitic jokes and other offensive content. Twenty-nine students are part of the group.
The school kids reportedly greet one another with the 'Hiel Hitler' sign, a symbol that has come to define the Third Reich's reign over 70 years ago.
The case has grabbed the attention of the cops, who have launched an investigation into the school. A police spokesperson said they were mulling legal action against the teens.
While Jewish DPs languished, US gave Nazi criminals refuge
As I noted in a couple of years ago, the canard that Israel deliberately misappropriated books belonging to the Palestinian Arabs has been a weapon in the Israel-haters' cachement for some considerable time.
It has gone the rounds of the Israel-demonising propaganda network, appearing, for instance, here / and here and here
But as that 2012 post of mine declares, in 1948, in an article entitled "Arabs in Israel," Norman Bentwich, Professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, noted in regards to the work of the Ministry of Minorities, set up to safeguard the welfare of Arabs (and other non-Jews) in the newly-proclaimed Jewish State:
A remarkable cultural enterprise is the establishment in Jaffa of an Arab library, which includes close on 100,000 books and periodicals salvaged from private houses that were deserted and broken into during the fighting. It includes, too, some Arab manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries, which may have value for scholars. The books and manuscripts are being catalogued by a Jewish scholar of Baghdad. The library is housed in a private mansion of one of the richer Arabs of Jaffa, and there is a project of making it a cultural centre. The whole cost to the Government so far has been only a few hundred pounds.
In Jerusalem 30,000 books were similarly salvaged and handed over for safe-keeping to the [Hebrew] University of Jerusalem. It is likely that the owners of the books will come to identify their property and collect it back; but the action of the Ministry will have prevented looting and destruction, and it has received the appreciation of the Arab population.'
Does that look like deliberate plunder to you? No, not to me, either. (h/t Alexi)
In the waning days of World War II, Waffen SS general Karl Wolff, made a deal with the American intelligence operative Allen Dulles that he would surrender his men in Northern Italy in exchange for immunity from war crimes. With the imminent collapse of the Third Reich, Wolff had more to gain from this understanding than Washington, but Dulles kept his promise, protecting Wolff from prosecutors at Nuremberg.At 105, ‘British Schindler’ honored by Czech Republic
This was the beginning of a dutiful friendship, not just between these two men but among the interests they represented. It serves as prologue to “The Nazis Next Door,” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014, $28) Eric Lichtblau’s riveting account of how America became a refuge for war criminals with the collusion of US agencies who recruited them for the Cold War and then sought to insulate them from justice.
While aspects of this story are known, the significant contribution made by Lichtblau, a Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, is to piece it all together through declassified files and extensive interviews in a devastating indictment of an American intelligence and military establishment that made a pact with the devil — a bad bargain in terms of espionage results but one that encompassed mass murderers, run-of-the-mill killers and assorted collaborators.
A 105-year-old man known as the “British Oskar Schindler” received the Czech Republic’s highest honor Tuesday for his actions in saving hundreds of Jewish children from the Nazis.One of the Youngest Survivors of Hebron Massacre Dies at 80
Sir Nicholas Winton was flown on a Czech military plane to Prague, where Czech President Miloš Zeman awarded him the Order of the White Lion. Seven of the 669 children he rescued were present at Tuesday’s ceremony, which coincided with the Czechoslovak Independence Day.
“I want to thank you all for this tremendous expression of thanks for something which happened to me nearly 100 years ago,” Winton said after receiving the award.
Winton was 29 when he first arrived in Prague in December of 1938. He was planning to go on a skiing holiday in Switzerland but changed his plans when he heard about the refugee crisis in Czechoslovakia. In the following months, he organized eight trains that carried children, the vast majority of them Jewish, from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to safety in the United Kingdom.
In 1929, after years of relatively peaceful existence, the Arabs of Hebron responded to the call of the Mufti of Jerusalem and slaughtered the Jews in their midst.Remembering Jonas Salk, Vaccine Pioneer
A Jewish child, Shlomo Slonim, 18-months-old at the time of the massacre, survived the brutality.
The Slonim baby lived because after being struck in the head with an axe, he lost consciousness and was covered by the dead bodies of his slain parents. His four-year old brother and grandparents were also slaughtered.
In all, 24 of the 67 Jews butchered in Hebron that day died in the Slonim house. People hid there because it was thought to be the safest place, given the close relations Shlomo’s father had with the Arab neighbors who had promised him protection.
But none were spared.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jonas Salk, the doctor who invented the Polio vaccine in 1952. (Salk died in 1995 at age 80). Although SARS, Swine Flu, and now Ebola have recently captured national attention, none of them had the same nationwide debilitating effects of Polio, which “crippled an average of more than 35,000 people” per year in the late 1940s and early 1950s.Israel’s universal flu vaccine heads for universal acceptance
Dr. Salk was born and raised in New York City. The son of Jewish immigrants, he attended City College for undergraduate studies and received his M.D. from NYU. Instead of pursuing a career as a practitioner though, he took a job as a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh where, after years of work, he developed the Polio vaccine.
Beginning in 1954, and lasting nearly two years, a large clinical trial was held involving nearly two million people, including children, doctors, nurses, and teachers. The results proved to be an overwhelming success. By the early 1960s, less than 1,000 new cases of Polio were reported, and the disease was eradicated in the United States in 1979.
A universal flu vaccine developed by Israel’s BiondVax has been granted patents by both the European Union and Japan, the company announced Wednesday. BiondVax’s technology had previously received patents in the United States, Hong Kong, Australia, China, Russia and Mexico, and the two new approvals extend its reach dramatically.Israel's Embassy Asks Japanese to Visit - in Anime
With the newest patent approvals, the company said that it can now enter into wide-scale development programs with pharmaceutical companies and governments that will license its technology to develop a one-stop-shop vaccine for influenza.
Israel's ties with Japan have been budding rapidly, as evidenced in last week's Japanese Culture Week in Jerusalem attended by Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister who called the two nations "close neighbors," and in an unprecedented Industrial R&D Agreement in July.
Now, the Israeli Embassy to Japan is riding on the wave of mutual interest with the release of a unique promotional video last Friday, which was created in full Japanese anime style by the Japanese Manganimation studio.
The animated video, entitled "Nice! Israel - Saki and Noriko's sisterly travel - Vol. 1" follows the journey of two sisters to Israel. (h/t Bob Knot)
The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive - Where Do You Get Off
Edward G. Robinson solicits funds to help rehabilitate refugees from Europe in pre-State Israel.
