11/06 Links Pt2: Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘They try to rewrite history'; Massacre on J Street

From Ian:

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Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘They try to rewrite history': Full text of Netanyahu’s speech on 19th Rabin anniversary

Yitzhak Rabin said it shortly before his murder, the prime minister tells the Knesset: ‘Jerusalem was ours, it is ours and it will remain so forever’
Distinguished guests, over the past several months, and especially over the past several days, we have witnessed a campaign of wild incitement against the State of Israel led by Abu Mazen and his Hamas partners. Hamas terrorists carry out terror attacks and Abu Mazen sends them condolence letters. Well, I wish to convey my condolences from here to the family of Officer Jedan Assad of the Border Police, and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.
This front of hatred is directed at all of us. It seeks to run over all of us. When faced with this front, there are some people who try to find the guilty among us. Instead we must stand together and say clearly and without apology: Unified Jerusalem is our capital and it will remain so. We are in a battle for Jerusalem. It may be a prolonged battle. I am certain we will be victorious. For some people, the issue of Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem is an instrument of political struggle. Our presence in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years, is called a provocation. They simply want to uproot us from here. They try to rewrite history, deny our brave affinity for Jerusalem and claim that we are trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, spread lies that we want to harm or destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque or change the prayer arrangements for Muslims on the Mount.
There is no greater falsehood than this. This is slander from extremists and it must be viewed against the backdrop of what is happening today in the Middle East. Various parties in the region that are contaminated by terror or who aspire to establish an Islamic caliphate in some version or another, they are the first to fan the flames of incitement. And the most absurd thing is that they complain about Israel? The only country that, out of principle, methodically protects the ritual sites of all the religions – they complain about us? I mean, who is protecting and who is destroying? We saw this in the past in Afghanistan when the Taliban destroyed holy sites and we see it today in Syria and Iraq when ISIS fanatics destroy mosques wholesale. In these countries, any place holy to other religions or even to different sects faces the same fate – destruction.

Massacre on J Street

Political candidates backed by the controversial Middle East advocacy group J Street were trounced at the polls on Tuesday, with J Street’s endorsees losing in almost every competitive race.
J Street scrambled to save face on Wednesday after two candidates that the group described as must-wins were defeated by their Republican opponents.
While J Street spread its money across 92 races around the country—the majority of them uncompetitive contests—J Street candidates locked in tight races were repudiated by voters.
Analysts say this is further proof that voters are increasingly likely to embrace more hawkish pro-Israel candidates over the dovish views characteristic of J Street and its allies in the Obama administration.
Democrats Mark Udall (Colo.) and Bruce Braley (Iowa), both of whom lost yesterday, received repeated endorsements and cash from J Street, which claimed that both candidates would counter “dangerous, neoconservative ideas” in the Senate. (h/t MtTB)

West has succumbed to madness over Israel, Phillips says

The West has succumbed to madness when it comes to Israel, declared British journalist, author and commentator Melanie Phillips at a recent lecture at Adath Israel Congregation co-sponsored by StandWithUs. This madness takes the form of demonizing Israel despite the fact that the country occupies the moral high ground in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
Phillips opened her remarks with a joke.
“I feel at home here,” she said. “The weather, the objective media, the acts of terrorism.”
However, the global situation is no laughing matter.
“Israel and the Jewish people are under an attack of delegitimization,” Phillips said. “The rest of the world is falling for Muslim rhetoric. The puzzle is that people are falling for this.”
During this summer’s Operation Protective Edge, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rallies took place across the globe. “People in Canada and Britain bought into Hamas falsehoods,” Phillips asserted. “They accepted the claims pumped out by the media as unchallenged fact. It wasn’t surprising that there were demonstrations against Israel after seeing pictures of dead Palestinian babies.
“You would think that political leaders would have the decency to stop this,” Phillips remarked. “On the contrary, virtually nothing was said.”

Top international law professor blasts U.N.’s Schabas for “self-evident” appearance of bias

In September, a UN Watch delegation met in person with William Schabas, together with the other two members of his U.N. commission of inquiry on Gaza, and asked him to step down on account of his numerous prejudicial statements and actions that have created the appearance of bias.
Schabas insisted, however, that he had consulted with a “broad range of people” who confirmed his objectivity and impartiality.
Yet it is unclear who these people are, because several of the world’s leading international lawyers and human rights activists around the world have called for him to step down.
The latest towering scholar to state the obvious is Joseph Weiler, President of the European University Institute in Florence, the European Union Jean Monnet Chair at New York University School of Law, and Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of International Law.
Despite expressing praise for Schabas as a “a distinguished and justly influential scholar,” Weiler writes in the European Journal of International Law blog that “it is hard for me to accept that his pronouncement on Netanyahu as being his favourite to be in the dock of the ICC – regardless of the context of the comment – is consistent with ensuring ‘the appearance of impartiality’.”

Richard Millett: Now Amnesty International’s Kristyan Benedict compares Israel to Islamic State.

A year earlier Amnesty made Benedict apologise for physically threatening me after I questioned Benedict’s guest presenter Abu Dheer who produced to an Amnesty audience the following very possibly fake photo of a young Palestinian boy with a Star of David allegedly carved into his arm by an Israeli soldier using broken glass.
Benedict called me a “war crimes denier” for questioning the photo and then threatened me physically.
Obviously, not on any level can Israel be compared to Islamic State but in the prevailing febrile anti-Israel atmosphere Israel is now regularly being compared so alongside the usual comparisons to Nazism and apartheid South Afria.
So this latest tweet by Benedict, sadly, comes as no surprise. Maybe Amnesty will carry out yet another investigation and make him apologise a third time. Who knows.
But Amnesty does itself a disservice by continuing to employ Benedict. When considering his “JSIL” tweet, his B52 “joke” and his theatening behaviour in response to the questioning of that fake photo why would anyone seeking objectivity take seriously any report that Amnesty produces on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

If Yitzhak Rabin Was Prime Minister Today-Obama Would Be Begging For Someone Like Netanyahu

Nineteen years ago, November 4, 1995 Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a crazy Israeli zealot. Since his death, the myth of Rabin's peacemaking expanded to huge proportions. But Rabin's final vision for peace was to the right of supposedly-"hawkish" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yitzchak Rabin was the last prime minister of Israel who did not support the creation of a Palestinian State.
Even though the process was a failure, some believe that Yitzhak Rabin deserves credit for attempting to make peace via the Oslo Process. But the late Prime Minister was not the blind "peace above everything else" type, as claimed by liberals in the United States and in Israel. Rabin did not support the creation of a Palestinian State, and believed that Jerusalem was the indivisible capital of the Jewish State,
One month before he was assassinated (on Oct. 5,1995), Rabin delivered a speech to the Knesset that laid out his vision for the future of Israel and the disputed territories. It was a vision which would have made the Netanyahu-hating Barack Obama long for his old friend Bibi. (h/t MtTB)

Daniel Gordis: Can we please stop talking about ‘hasbara’?

The problem is not with how Israel tells the story, but with how the Western world has grown tired of Israel. There are many reasons for this, but hasbara is not the answer.
No one has explained this phenomenon better than award-winning Israeli journalist Matti Friedman.
“You don’t need to be a history professor, or a psychiatrist, to understand what’s going on. Having rehabilitated themselves against considerable odds in a minute corner of the earth, the descendants of powerless people who were pushed out of Europe and the Islamic Middle East have become what their grandparents were – the pool into which the world spits.”
Precisely. And would hasbara – even the best we might imagine – have any impact on that? Obviously not. So can we please not talk about hasbara anymore? Let’s stop asking why the Israeli government is so incompetent at telling its story, and focus on the question that matters.
Let’s start asking instead: Why has the international community’s moral compass become so utterly dysfunctional?

Whose international law?

Yara Dowani, writing in The Jerusalem Post on November 4 (“More police are not the answer in east Jerusalem”), invokes international law repeatedly.
First she refers to “the occupation.”
And then, when alluding to the police and military presence in Shuafat, she writes: “If Palestinians in Shuafat are throwing stones at the Israeli light rail while it’s passing through, it is for a reason.
That reason is very clear: the light rail is considered to be illegal by international law, and allowing it to pass through normalizes the illegal situation in that area. So I think it is totally understandable and normal that Palestinians resist its presence.”
This is a startling – indeed shocking – statement on several counts. But let’s start with the matter of “international law” – a term that is invoked very freely.
Dowani’s position, clearly, is that Israel is an “illegal occupier” everywhere over the 1949 armistice line (often erroneously referred to as the “1967 border”). That is the position embraced by the Palestinian Authority and by the several nations that support the PA stance. But in point of fact, it is not supported by international law.

Israel’s UN envoy raps Security Council for silence on terror

Israel’s ambassador to the UN rebuked the Security Council for its silence in the aftermath of multiple terror attacks by Palestinians in Jerusalem over the past two weeks.
“If recent events offer any indication, the Security Council will once again remain silent as Israel buries yet another victim of Palestinian terrorism,” Prosor wrote Wednesday in a sharply worded letter to the world body’s most important organ.
“Shortly after the attack Hamas claimed responsibility, calling the perpetrator a ‘martyr’ and describing the attack as ‘a heroic operation,’” he added.
The ambassador accused the Security Council of sitting quietly by as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas incited violence by calling “on Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount using ‘all means’ necessary.”
He concluded: “I write to you today with the full expectation that the Council will continue adhering to its vow of silence. Should the Council revise its policy and deem it appropriate to condemn the Palestinian leadership’s incitement and the violence that follows, I will be the first to commend the Council for embracing sound judgment and upholding international peace and security.”

The Security Council's Deafening Silence


Is the Post-Abbas Mideast Already Here?

Concern over a post-Abbas Middle East is becoming more common. Last month, the Times of Israel’s Haviv Rettig Gur wrote a typically incisive essay on the state of play between Israel and the Arab world, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu–often one to embrace ideas that seem absurd only to soon solidify into conventional wisdom–was preparing for this eventuality. Last year Jonathan Schanzer explained, quite rightly, that it was time for Abbas to name a successor to ensure continuity in the peace process.
But what if the more dangerous scenario is not an absent Abbas but an irrelevant one? That’s what seems to be playing out right now. It’s possible that an Abbas-led PA is a leaderless PA. There is no old guard and no new blood, but something in between that leaves the Palestinian polity not yet in league with the Islamist fanatics of Hamas in a fluid, precarious state on the precipice.
And so we have the vicious yet cartoonish spectacle of the Palestinian president effectively joining a Palestinian intifada that started without him. Arafat wanted an intifada, and he got one. Abbas didn’t, and for a time was able to prevent it. Does Abbas want an intifada now? He can’t possibly be that stupid. But it doesn’t appear to matter.
Just what is Abbas actually doing, as leader of the PA? Getting the Palestinians closer to a peace deal? Certainly not; he walked away from it (more than once). Preventing Hamas from setting the terms of the debate? Hardly. Keeping a lid on an angry Palestinian polity inclined to violence? Not anymore. Abbas may or may not get swept away by a new uprising. It’s ironic that what could save him from such a fate is the fact that, increasingly, it might not even be worth the trouble.

J Street Poll: US Jews Love Bibi Netanyahu

All the way at the bottom of an article in Haaretz about the Jewish voters by and large maintaining their loyalty to the Democratic party, you’ll discover another classic: U.S. Jews are enamored with Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, more than any other person alive.
The poll asked respondents to rate their feelings of warmth towards various personalities and institutions on a scale of 0-100, and the results, in descending order of their mean score were: Netanyahu (61), Jon Stewart (58), Clinton (57), Democratic Party (51), Barack Obama (49), Malcolm Hoenlein (45), Sheldon Adelson (28), Republican Party (28), John Boehner (25) and the newly elected and soon to be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (24).
In fact, with that being our electoral reality, the 69% figure of Jews voting Democrats represents some loss in Jewish loyalty. Back in 2008, Obama received 78% of the Jewish vote.

Prince Charles to Muslim Leaders: Stop ‘Indescribable’ Persecution of Christians

Prince Charles called on Muslim leaders throughout the world to stop the “indescribable tragedy” of the persecution of Middle East Christians.
“It is an indescribable tragedy that Christianity is now under such threat in the Middle East—an area where Christians have lived for 2,000 years, and across which Islam spread in 700 AD, with people of different faiths living together peaceably for centuries,” Prince Charles said in a video statement ahead of the release of a report on religious freedom by the Catholic charity group Aid to the Church in Need.
Reflecting on his own faith as a Christian, Prince Charles called on religious communities to work together to stamp out extremism and uphold freedom of religion.
“The horrendous and heart-breaking events in Iraq and Syria have brought the subject of religious freedom and persecution to the forefront of the world’s news,” he said. “We have learnt with mounting despair of the expulsion of Christians, Muslims, and Yazidis from towns and cities that their ancestors have occupied for centuries.”
“Sadly, incidents of violence in Iraq and Syria are not isolated,” added Prince Charles. “They are found throughout some, though not all, of the Middle East; in some African nations; and in many countries across Asia.”

Israel Embassy in Dublin battles fake Tweets taunting Irish government

The Israeli Embassy in Ireland is battling a new threat these days – fake Tweets. Unknown perpetrators attempted to discredit the embassy by uploading a screenshot of fake Tweets to Reddit Ireland, purporting to come from the Israeli Embassy's official account, which taunted the Irish government and people.
A few weeks later, a popular Irish student website, oxygen.ie, mocked the scandal by putting up its own version of fake Israeli embassy Tweets, which were posted on the sattire section of the site.
The satirical Tweets were later spread across the internet and mistaken for official Tweets by the Israel Embassy in Ireland - prompting threats of legal action by the embassy against the student website.

Richard Silverstein Falls For Spoof. Again

I really have tried to not blog about DouchebloggerTM Richard Silverstein again. After all, his credibility has forever been damaged due to his previous indiscretions, with even the likes of Ha’aretz treating him like poison.
Alas, his combination of mendacity and stupidity provides delicious grist for the mill.
In his latest screw-up, Silverstein has once again fallen for a spoof story.
In this case, he has rushed to attack the Israeli Embassy in Ireland for allegedly posting some offensive and juvenile tweets.

The Israel boycott that backfired

For about a year, the American Studies Assn. has been offering a very public object lesson in how to destroy a scholarly organization. Ostensibly devoted to the study of all things American, the 5,000-member academic cohort has ventured outside its natural borders and into the crossfire of Israeli-Palestinian politics by voting to bestow pariah status on Israel. The decision to morph from a scholarly association into a political action committee has proved disastrous for the group and the discipline it purports to represent, undermining its credibility, alienating many of its practitioners and betraying what should be a bedrock commitment to the American values that used to define the field.
Whatever the outlook, the ASA's main function was to serve as a scholarly gatekeeper and arbiter of professional standards. It wielded authority by giving a forum for American studies scholars to present papers at the annual conference and by publishing refereed work in its journal, the American Quarterly, and its encyclopedias.
It is in this role that the ASA's anti-Israel policy has serious consequences for up-and-coming scholars in the field. The tenured elders can walk away in a righteous huff, but the stakes can be career-altering for graduate students and untenured professors. If you oppose the anti-Israel stance of your disciplinary mother ship, do you pay dues to a group whose foreign policy you abhor — and thus forgo the professional validation and collegial networking?
If there is any silver lining here, it is that the ASA has become so notorious as a shill for the BDS movement that university deans who might once have turned to the group for an imprimatur for new hires may now look upon its seal of approval with a jaundiced eye.

SJP At Loyola Univ. Placed On Probation For The Year

The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter on the campus of Loyola University was placed on probation for the remainder of the academic year, according to the Jewish Daily Forward. The group gained attention for protesting the Hillel on campus’ Birthright Israel recruiting table and and hurling insults at Jewish students. Hillel was also sanctioned due to its failure to properly reserve a tabling space.
SJP's punishment was not due to the content of their behavior, but rather their failure to properly register the "organized demonstration."

SJP UCLA Announces Another Bigoted Campaign Against Israel

The article also failed to explain the bigoted nature of the BDS movement, which singles out solely the Jewish state for largely-imagined human rights abuses and neglects to mention or draw attention to actual human rights abuses that are both systemic in nature and supported under various tyrannical regimes in the Middle East. The Syrian government, for example, has gassed its own people and murdered Palestinians in refugee camps, yet SJP and the BDS movement remain silent.
Last February, SJP brought an unsuccessful divestment resolution before last year’s USAC. TruthRevolt Editor-In-Chief Ben Shapiro crashed the party and made sure that everyone in the room realized the bigotry and hatred espoused by SJP.
SJP also attempted to block UCLA student government candidates from accepting trips to Israel from pro-Israel groups.

This BDS piggy went to market…

Why Woolworths? Why pigs? Woolworths, one of South Africa’s most respected and popular brands that sells home ware, food and clothing has been the target of demonstration and boycott by BDS SA. The fact that Woolies imports from Israel amount to barely a percent is irrelevant to BDS. They have firmly locked their target on the upmarket store and demonstrations, threats against shoppers and staff and violence have become the order of the day. Nearly 60 protesters, including children were arrested for disturbing the peace two weeks ago.
The morons from COSAS who placed a pig’s head in the meat section of Woolworths’ Sea Point branch have not only offended the Jewish community but Muslims as well. The porky creature is forbidden to both religions and to Jews the image or use of a pig has been seen as a symbol of anti-Semitism since time immemorial.
Why COSAS, who quite frankly should be concentrating on their university studies are so fixated on Israel at the expense of so many problems that plague not just South Africa but the African continent is beyond me. Civil war, dire poverty, starvation and disease are all problems that plague the continent but are ignored so that anti-Semites can indulge their latent tendencies.

"Delinquents Who Want To ... Bring Down Liberal Democracy": The Semple Truth About Manchester's Rag-Bag Anti-Israel Army

David Semple is a Canadian film maker, who, in addition to current film projects relating to Israel, is writing a book called Jerusalem in the Age of Imperialism.
He has newly posted a pertinent commentary on this year's anti-Israel activity in Manchester, the British city which, of course, once played a seminal role in the Zionist movement in Britain (think Sieff, think Weizmann).
'Who are these people who march through our cities, shouting “Palestine will be free; from the river to the sea”? For a start, most of them have no connection with Gaza, east Jerusalem or the so-called West Bank. No, they are a rag-bag of Marxists, anarchists, professional protesters, converts to Islam, third-generation British Muslims, and immigrants from north Africa and southwest Asia.
They have taken on the cause of Palestinianism not because they care about Palestinian Arabs, but because it is the frontline of an Arab-Muslim supremacy movement that detests both Israel and the Western world. In other words, these people are the “third intifadists” – delinquents who want to “shake off” Judeo-Christian culture and bring down liberal democracy.

Did Israeli Police “Storm Al-Aqsa Mosque”?

The Temple Mount has become a central flash-point in the violence that is currently afflicting Jerusalem. And some of the media, fueled by outrageous claims from both Palestinians and Jordanians, are giving the impression that Israel has assaulted or desecrated an Islamic holy place.
This is certainly believable if you were a reader of the Daily Telegraph, which includes the following video, dramatically titled “Violence as police storm Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
While the Wall Street Journal quoted the accusations of the Jordanians and the Waqf, its article, unlike the Daily Telegraph’s, included a fuller examination of the incident in question:
"Israel denied it was responsible for the fire and blamed Arab protesters, saying they were launching firecrackers at police from within the mosque during clashes. Police said they went a few feet inside the mosque and shut the door on them.
The police said masked Palestinians started throwing a hail of rocks and firing hundreds of firecrackers after the beginning of visiting hours for non-Muslims. In the ensuing melee, the police said they sought to shut the doors to the mosque, where protesters had taken cover.
But the entry was wedged open. Police said they went a few feet into the mosque so they could shut demonstrators inside."

Guardian falsely claims right-wing Jews want to pray ‘inside al-Aqsa Mosque’

Whilst there is indeed a movement to allow Jews to pray at the Temple Mount (the holiest site in Judaism), there is no movement by religious Jews to pray inside the al-Aqsa Mosque, a mosque located on the Temple Mount compound.
Yet, a Guardian video (which accompanied a Nov. 5th article by Peter Beaumont) on the recent terror attack in Jerusalem, as well as ongoing Palestinian violence on the Temple Mount, included the following claim about the ’cause’ of the violence at the Mount, at the 1:23 mark into the video:

NPR Host Claims Professor Fired For Criticizing Israel, Conceals What He Really Said

Here & Now concealed from its audience that Salaita's comments went far beyond simply "criticism of Israel." The concealment of what Salaita actually said reflects a pattern in media that are hostile to Israel. For example, the Guardian, the influential British newspaper with a reputation for hostility to Israel, also presented the story as a case of denial of free speech in a setting ( academia) where provocative views should be encouraged. The Guardian too ignored the worst of Salaita's tweets, repeating only a few that were less actionable because they were directed at the Israeli government.

Guardian Tweet on Jerusalem terror attack: Israel police shoot dead driver…

Note the characteristically Guardian style of focusing on the Israeli response to a Palestinian act of terror, instead of the terror attack itself. Additionally, the word “Palestinian” is of course absent from the tweet.
Observe also that they only noted the crowbar attack on the police, while ignoring the much more relevant facts that the incident began when the Palestinian man ran his vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing one and injuring many others.

The BBC News website’s Middle East priorities: missile ignored, football fight reported

On the evening of Friday October 31st a missile was fired from the Gaza Strip, landing in the Eshkol region and constituting a second breach of the ceasefire which ended Operation Protective Edge since it came into effect just over two months ago.
The BBC News website editors apparently did not consider that event newsworthy enough to justify an article on its Middle East page.
However, on November 4th the website’s staff obviously did reach the conclusion that a story about a punch-up at a football match in Tel Aviv was information BBC audiences could not do without.

Iran Quietly Fearful of Republican Takeover of Congress

Iranian leaders are quietly expressing fear about the Republican takeover of Congress Tuesday night, with many conveying concerns that Tehran has lost a key bloc of U.S. Democrats who wanted to roll back economic sanctions and hand Iran a favorable nuclear deal, according to an internal CIA analysis and Farsi language reports.
Fears about the Republican takeover of Congress have plagued Iranian leaders for weeks, according to the CIA analysis obtained by the Washington Free Beacon that outlines internal commotion in Iran over the shifting political tides in the United States.
The eventual outcome of Tuesday’s elections prompted many Iranian commenters and officials to express concern that years of U.S. capitulation to Iranian demands might soon come to an end.

McConnell: Any Iran deal must recognize Israel's defense needs

"Senate Republicans remain intent to ensure that any comprehensive agreement concerning the Iranian nuclear program both protects the national security of the United States and recognizes Israel's own defense needs as a security partner of our country," Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell told Israel Hayom on Wednesday. After the Republicans won control of the Senate in Tuesday's midterm elections, McConnell will likely become the new Senate majority leader.

Iran Denies Agreeing to Ship Uranium to Russia

“Iran Rejects New York Times’ Claims about Shipment of Enriched Uranium to Russia,” says the Fars headline. The story goes on to report that Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzijeh Afkham stated in Tehran: “Iran rejects all speculations and rumors by some foreign media which take place with specific political intentions.”
Afkham also said that Iran “will only consider the national interests of Iran” in the talks.

Arab Experts: Negotiations a Sham, Iran Still Seeks Nuclear Bomb

Veteran columnist Randa Taki A-Din, writing in Al-Hayat, notes that to date the negotiations with Iran have contributed nothing to the West. According to her, even the upcoming talks will lead the two sides to a dead end. She questioned Iran’s declarations that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes, and reiterated that a country with so much oil and gas does not need civilian nuclear energy. Iran still seeks nuclear weapons, Taki A-Din wrote:
Salam Al-Saadi wrote in the Al-Arab newspaper that even if an agreement between Iran and the six world powers will be signed in the near future, the Islamic Republic is not expected to change its behavior and involvement in the region. On the contrary, he said, Iran is expected to breach the agreement.
An article published in the Emirati Al-Ittihad newspaper also warned that Iran’s leaders have already decided to make their country a military nuclear power. According to the article, Iran has made a wrong decision to go in the direction of nuclear development instead of economic development.

UK Labour Leader Ed Miliband Warns: For First Time, British Jews Are ‘Scared for Their Children’s Future’

Britain’s Labour Party leader Ed Miliband said British Jews for the first time in their lives fear for their children’s futures amid a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the UK, the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.
“Some have told me how, for the first time in their lifetime, they are scared for their children’s future in our country,” Miliband said. “Others have expressed a general unease that this rise in anti-Semitism could signal that something has changed – or is changing – in Britain.”
Miliband, who is the son of Jewish refugees, said the idea of “Jewish families fearful of living here in Britain” is no longer unthinkable. Britain has a record of “diversity, tolerance and respect,” he asserted, but in the past few months Britain’s Jewish community has expressed growing concern about the anti-Semitism. He added that their worries had to be taken “very seriously.”

Lawsuit over Rampant Anti-Semitism in NY School To Proceed

A lawsuit filed by several Jewish families in New York against the Pine Bush Central School District in White Plains can proceed, a federal court ruled.
The lawsuit claims that the students’ rights were violated by “rampant anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment” and “deliberate indifference” by school officials, according to The New York Times. The families are seeking an unspecified amount in monetary damages.
In recent years, Jewish students attending schools in the Pine Bush district have complained of various anti-Semitic incidents, including anti-Semitic slurs and nicknames, drawings of swastikas, jokes about the Holocaust, physical violence, and fellow students forcing them to retrieve coins from the ground and/or dumpsters.
Jewish students also accused fellow students of making Nazi salutes, telling anti-Semitic jokes, and shouting out "white power" chants.

Arsonist in kosher Paris supermarket blaze gets 4 years in jail

The four-year prison sentence given to the man who torched a kosher supermarket in suburban Paris “sent an important message,” the chief rabbi of France said.
The Correctional Tribunal of Pontoise near Paris on Oct. 26 sentenced a 27-year-old ambulance driver for setting fire to the Naouri kosher supermarket in Sarcelles, a heavily Jewish suburb of the French capital, on July 20.
Identified in the French media as Abbas C., the driver was given a longer term than the 26 months sought by the prosecutor.

Canada Vows to Fight Anti-Semitism on Holocaust Month

Canadian Minister for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney and Minister of State for Multiculturalism Tim Uppal released a joint statement on Monday timed for Holocaust Education Month.
"The Holocaust stands alone in history for its sheer brutality and inhumanity. The Shoah will forever serve as a powerful reminder of the odious effects of anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred and intolerance, and why it is important to prevent these poisonous ideologies from spreading," wrote the ministers.
The statement continued "Canada has been profoundly shaped by the 40,000 heroic Holocaust survivors who made our country their home in the years following the war. We owe an enormous debt to those survivors who have dedicated their lives to sharing their personal testimonies in our schools and communities."

Israel’s New Pioneers Work to Transform the Negev Desert Through Farming

In southern Israel, the next generation of Jewish pioneers is making the desert bloom.
A group of young, Zionist, idealistic adults are cultivating a previously uninhabited area in the northwest Negev on Israel’s borders with Egypt and Gaza—growing tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, cauliflower, pomegranates, olives, and more.
“I am there (in the Negev) because I can make a difference,” said Nava Uner, who lives in Bnei Netzarim, one of three Halutza (pioneer) communities in the Young Farmers Incubation Project.

For athletes, Israeli ‘smart hat’ beats Apple on price, timing

If you’re in the market for smart health gear, you can wait another half year or so for the Apple Watch to go on sale – or you can get a “smart hat” from Israel’s LifeBEAM. Specializing in devices that let users measure heartbeat, number of calories burned, distance covered while running or cycling, and other key metrics runners and cyclists care about, the new LifeBEAM baseball cap takes the place of chest heart monitors, wristbands, pedometers, and other devices.
And at $99, it’s priced at the very bottom of new health devices, while providing much more information – a value proposition the company is confident will help it sell a lot of hats. There’s also a visor geared towards women, who seem to prefer them over baseball caps, the company says.

IDF Blog: A Rare Documentation: The Triumph of the Yom Kippur War Through a Camera Lens

Forty-one years ago, the soldiers of the 401st Armored Brigade bravely fought in Sinai, stopping the infiltration of Egyptian forces into Israel during the Yom Kippur War. One of those soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel (Res.) Avi Gur, then a young officer fighting in the southern front, documented the war with his Olympus Pen EE.2 camera. In a special interview with the IDF Blog, Avi shares both experiences and photos from the front line of the war and tells of the bravery and victory of the IDF’s soldiers.
On the eve of the Yom Kippur War, Israel had 358 fighter jets, 2,100 tanks and 37 naval vessels in its arsenal. On the contrary, the Egyptian and Syrian armies were much better equipped with 998 fighter jets, 5,350 tanks and 137 naval vessels. “You have to imagine thirty tanks securing an area of 143 km,” said Avi. “We stood alone facing thousands of soldiers and weapons. For every thirty enemy soldiers there was one Israeli soldier. The ratio is simply unproportional. But we, the Israeli soldiers, even though we stood before thousands, we did not run away. We fought professionally and wisely. People had no choice but to be heroes.”

Biography Sheds New Light on David Ben-Gurion’s Place in Jewish History

There is one sentence in “Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel” that made me sit up in surprise. I thought that I knew the basic facts about how Israel came into being, but while describing what it was like in the days and hours before the state was declared, author Anita Shapira provides one important anecdote I was not aware of.
On the 12th of May, the Zionist Executive met to decide what to do. Moshe Sharrett had just returned from Washington and reported that the State Department warned him that, if the Jews declared a state, the U.S. would not support it. Golda Meir reported that her mission to persuade King Abdullah of Jordan not to enter a war had failed. Yigal Yadin, the head of the Haganah paramilitary organization, said the chances that the nascent state would survive were 50-50 at best. And then, Ben-Gurion called for a vote. It was 6-4 in favor, and by that narrow margin—the best he could cajole from a cautious Zionist Executive—Ben-Gurion declared the State of Israel.
There are few times in history when one person through one action affects the course of human events, as Ben-Gurion did that day. To take that action after attaining such a narrow margin, with full awareness that a war against six Arab armies was about to begin, required extraordinary courage and decisiveness. For this act alone, Ben-Gurion deserves a place of honor in Jewish history. Without him, there might not have been a Jewish state.