Monday, November 10, 2014
Firebomb on Kosher Eatery in Paris
A firebomb was thrown at a kosher Jewish restaurant in the 17th district of Paris at week's end.Jewish teen attacked in Paris after arson attempt at kosher eatery
Several minutes earlier, some young Muslims who walked by the restaurant threatened the diners inside and called them “dirty Jews.” The diners did not react.
A few minutes passed, and a loud smash was heard when a firebomb hit the restaurant's door. The diners managed to see a group of Muslims running away as the firebomb ignited, starting a fire, which the restaurant's employees succeeded in putting out. None of the restaurant-goers was hurt.
The restaurant door was reportedly made of tempered glass, a factor which may have saved the clients inside the eatery from harm.
The assault happened Thursday in the 3rd arrondissement, or district, 500 yards north of Bastille, in front of the private high school Progress, which has a large number of Jewish students.Mordechai Kedar: Why and When was the Myth of al-Aqsa Created?
The victim, who was wearing a kippah, was standing in front of the school with some friends when a group of approximately 15 youths of African descent ages 16-19 assaulted him, according to a report of the incident by the National Bureau for Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA.
They beat the victim, who was not named, with their fists and elbows before fleeing the scene. He received medical attention and was given two days sick leave to recover from the assault, BNVCA reported.
Arafat, himself a secular person (ask the Hamas!), did exactly what the Caliphs of the Umayyad dynasty did 1300 years ago: he marshaled the holiness of Jerusalem to serve his political ends. He could not give control of Jerusalem over to the Jews since according to Islam they are impure and the wrath of Allah is upon them ("al-maghdhoub 'alayhim"; Koran 1,7, see al-Jalalayn and other commentaries; note that verse numbers may differ slightly in the various editions of the Koran). The Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs (5,60). (For the idea that Jews are related to pigs and monkeys see, for instance, Musnad al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, (Beirut 1969) vol. 3, p. 241. See also pages 348, 395, 397, 421, and vol. 6, p. 135.) The Jews are those who distorted the holy writings which were revealed to them (2,73; 3,72) and denied God's signs (3,63). Since they violated the covenant with their God (4,154), He cursed them (5,16) and they are forever the inheritors of hell (3,112). So how could Arafat abandon Jerusalem to the Jews?
The Palestinian Arab media these days are full of messages of Jihad, calling to broaden the national-political war between Israel and the Palestinians into a religious-Islamic war between the Jews and the Muslims. READ THEIR LIPS: for them Christianity is no better than Judaism, since both "forfeited" their right to rule over Jerusalem. Only Islam - Din al-Haqq ("the Religion of Truth") - has this right, and forever. This was and still is the leitmotiv in Friday sermons in Palestinian mosques and official media. (Note: photo acccompanying this article is a keffiya showing the hoped-for taking Jerusalem from Israel and the destruction of Israel on the scarf. On the right side it says "Jerusalem is ours" and the left: "Palestine" with no Israel on the map.)
Since the holiness of Jerusalem to Islam has always been, and still is no more than a politically motivated holiness, any Palestinian Arab politician would be putting his political head on the block should he give it up. Must Judaism and Christianity defer to myths related in Islamic texts or allegedly envisioned in Muhammad's dreams, long after Jerusalem was established as the ancient, real center of these two religions which preceded Islam?
Should the world reshape the Middle East map just because Muslims decided to recycle the political problems of the Umayyads 1250 years after the curtain came down on their role in history?
Optimism In the Face of Hamas and War
Realistic Jewish optimism is not an emotion; it is a value. It is not a prediction, but a profound, unselfish commitment. We, too, are called to realistic Jewish optimism. It is our privilege and sacred duty to stand with Israel and encourage others to do so, not because it is perfect—no nation is—but because its cause is profoundly just, and because it is ours. No matter how ignorant or misinformed some may be about the history and facts of the Middle East conflict, we must remain informed and inform others. We must fight anti-Semitism wherever it rears its ugly head. We must be critical consumers of media and speak up, speak out and advocate for Israel.The Middle East destroys itself
In the final analysis, we must, as Albert Camus wrote, “bear witness” to the truth and do what has to be done “in the never-ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts.” As we do, we must never stop hoping for peace, even in the midst of a seemingly intractable and endless conflict. For, as the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai put it, we are “infected by hope.” And as Maimonides taught, hope is the belief in the plausibility of the possible, not the necessity of the probable. Thus, we must struggle, and help others struggle, with the tension between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. And as Jews have always done, we must refuse to yield to cynicism or despair, always believing in and striving toward a better, brighter future.
What a mess. The world needs someone to blame. Hey, why not the Jews?Adelson: Palestinians an invented people out to destroy Israel
After all, it’s all Israel’s fault. Everyone else knows that all the problems in the region would be solved if only the Middle East had just one more Muslim country.
What could possibly go wrong?
A quick review. After the passing of Muhammed in 632 A.D., his adherents, having left no sons, broke into a family feud over who were the real heirs apparent, the true followers.
The ensuing Shia-vs.-Sunni split rages on today and erupts throughout much of the 1.6 billion Muslim world, with seemingly more violence every day.
And Palestinian Fatah and Hamas seem to hate each other without a state.
The region is on fire. Violence, murder and mayhem prevail. Things must settle down.
Of the 22 Arab states, almost all are simmering, if not at full boil.
The world knows where the problem lies, and upon whose doorstep to lay the blame: The UN is focused like a laser on the Jewish nation.
Things would be wonderful if only Israel would get out of the way, and allow for a 23-State Solution.
“The Palestinians are an invented people,” said Jewish-American billionaire and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, adding that “the purpose of the existence of Palestinians is to destroy Israel.”Sheldon Adelson Challenges Haim Saban to Team Up and Buy The New York Times
Adelson was speaking at the Israeli American Council in Washington Sunday, in a debate with Haim Saban, the Israeli-American media mogul and Democrat funder.
The event began on Friday, marking the first-ever national gathering of Israelis living in America. Organizers said that the event sold out weeks in advance, noting that the entire Israeli-American community is currently estimated at over 600,000.
In a spirited public discussion between two of America’s richest men and largest political donors, at the IAC conference in Washington DC, multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson openly challenged his more left-leaning counterpart and friend, billionaire and media mogul Haim Saban, to jointly purchase the New York Times away from the Sulzberger family, because of the Times’ open hostility towards Israel.Sheldon Adelson: Political Parties ‘on the Same Side’ When it Comes to Israel
The subject came up in a pubic discussion about media bias and Israel. Saban marveled at how Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had purchased the Washington Post for a mere $250 million, which Saban called “bupkis,” and that he was sorry that he did not try to buy it himself. At that point Adelson pounced on Saban and challenged him on the spot to join with him to buy the New York Times from the Sulzberger family. (h/t MtTB)
Jewish philanthropist Sheldon Adelson, a major funder of the Republican Party, told a gathering of Israeli Americans that U.S. political parties are “on the same side” when it comes to supporting Israel.Can the Political Left Tackle Anti-Semitism?
“Everyone in this room—whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or Independent… when it comes to Israel, we’re on the same side,” Adelson said Sunday at the first national conference of the Israeli-American Council in Washington, DC. He made his remarks while sharing a stage with Israeli American philanthropist Haim Saban, a top funder of the Democratic Party.
Though the media often focuses on Adelson’s political giving, he is also the world’s leading private donor to Jewish education, the Taglit-Birthright Israel program, and Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
While the far left miserably failed to turn the anti-war protests into an electorally successful political movement, it did succeed in exporting its anti-Zionist principles into much of the mainstream liberal left—which helps explain why one of the the first acts of Sweden’s new left-wing government was to recognize Palestine as an independent state.Jewish donors said abandoning UK’s ‘pro-Palestine’ Miliband
If the left-wing Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo is correct when he gushes that “anti-Zionism is synonymous with leftist world politics,” then responsible voices on the left need to consider where that will take them.
The fact is that, in the west, “Palestine” is now the primary cause of anti-Jewish violence and anti-Semitic sentiment. That is less shocking when you realize that incitement against Jews, demonization of Zionism, and terrorist violence against Israelis is what defines the present strategies of the main rival Palestinian groups, Fatah and Hamas.
But it would take a left-wing leader with guts to declare that there is no place for these politics in our societies, that neither civic, nor social, nor racial equality are advanced by their presence here, that it is time for progressives to give their solidarity to the Yazidis of Iraq and the Rohingya of Burma, and not just the Palestinians.
It would take guts to say that critics of Israeli policy need to dissociate themselves from anti-Zionist, eliminationist rhetoric if they want to be taken at face value. And it would take guts to defend Muslim minorities from bigotry and racism while, at the exact same time, urging their leaders to confront the anti-Semitism plaguing these same communities.
Yet if there does turn out to be a leader on the left who is willing to say these things, then he—or she—is fully deserving of the title “mensch.”
The Independent on Sunday’s top story was headlined, “Jewish donors drop ‘toxic’ Miliband,” and it reported that Jewish backers of the British opposition leader, who is Jewish, were being deterred by his positions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. “Miliband has been warned that Jewish backers are deserting the party in droves over what community leaders perceive to be a new, aggressive pro-Palestine policy at the expense of Israeli interests,” the report claimed.Dutch Protestant Church pulls out of Kristallnacht event over sponsors
The report said fundraising dinners have been canceled by traditional supporters who complain that Labour under Miliband has abandoned a “balanced” position on the conflict, and instead has become overly supportive of the Palestinians, without the matter being debated properly within the party.
“A senior Labour MP warned that Mr Miliband now had a ‘huge if not insurmountable challenge,’ to maintain support from parts of the Jewish community that had both backed and helped fund Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s election campaigns,” according to the report.
A senior official from the Dutch Protestant Church pulled out of a Holocaust memorial event co-organized by Socialists who commemorated a Hamas leader.Norway: Anti-racism group demands Jews be excluded from Kristallnacht memorial event
Arjan Plaisier, secretary of the PKN umbrella of Dutch Protestant churches, announced Friday that he would neither be speaking nor attending the Kristallnacht commemoration event organized by the Platform Against Racism and Exclusion.
The platform lists among its Kristallnacht commemoration partners the International Socialists, which in 2004 held a ceremony in memory of Ahmed Yassin, a former spiritual leader of Hamas whom Israel killed that year.
Another sponsor was the Dutch Palestine Committee, which supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, and far-left groups.
The Kristallnacht event is funded by Kerk in Actie, the PKN’s aid organization.
Dagen's headline to this article is "Demanded Memorial Without Zionists", but as you can see below, the issue wasn't Zionists, it was Jews, plain and simple.Jihadis Exploiting SoundCloud to Spread Messages: Watchdog Group Says
An anti-racism group called "Nye SOS Rasisme" will not take part in the general Kristallnacht memorial march in Bergen, since their demand to exclude representatives of the Jewish community was not accepted. Anne Sender, a former leader in the community, will speak at the memorial. It is interesting to note that Anne Sender is a vocal critic of Israel.
"Nye SOS Rasisme" say they will conduct their own procession with banners against Israel, such as "Zionism is Racism". On their website they explain that the day marks opposition to racism, harassment and genocide, but that today Israel is a racist state. Zionism means that Jews have their own state, where they will be the majority and where they will have more rights. Just like Nazis did not want their state to be corrupted by Jews, the Zionists do not want their state corrupted by Palestinians.
Arab media analysts at MEMRI are claiming that Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated jihadists are exploiting SoundCloud, the “YouTube of audio,” as a channel for disseminating messages and propaganda.BDS “Successes” Now Liabilities
Berlin-based SoundCloud, which is the world’s second largest music streaming service, reaches some 175 million listeners monthly, according to the report. The desktop and mobile apps allows musicians, radio stations, orators, and music lovers to easily collaborate, share and distribute their creations and programming, which provides the Islamist groups yet another avenue to advance their supremacist goals, according to a report published Friday.
SoundCloud’s Terms of Service forbid users from exploiting the “Platform to upload, post, store, transmit, display, copy, distribute, promote, make available or otherwise communicate to the public… any content… that promotes violence, terrorism.”
However, the report lists dozens of groups, including terrorist entities as divergent as al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and the al-Nusra Front operation in Syria, who uploaded instructions, lectures, chants and other material calling for violence against the west, Israel and Jews, and the overthrow of nations to make way for a Muslim caliphate. (h/t Jewess)
The BDS movement appeared to be on the ascent at the start of 2014 with a pair of campaigns poised to push the movement into the mainstream. It started with the American Studies Association (ASA) announcing an academic boycott against Israel in late 2013. Within a month, the BDS was in the news again for its attack on SodaStream, which had just named Hollywood A-List Hollywood celebrity Scarlett Johansson as its brand ambassador.Syracuse Univ. Faculty Senate Tables Pro-Salaita Resolution…Again
But nearly a year has passed, and the BDS remains on the outside, as even its biggest successes can now be seen as failures that could haunt the movement for the coming year.
The ASA, which is currently holding its annual conference in Los Angeles, endured a year of censure by more than 250 college professors. More recently, to avoid violating American Civil Rights laws barring discrimination based on national origin, ASA leaders were forced to accept all Israelis wishing to attend the conference.
In doing so, it had to walk its boycott so far back, it now amounts to little more than a public statement.
On November 5, Syracuse University’s (SU) University Senate voted for the second time to table a resolution that calls on the administration of the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UI-UC) to either honor the contract of Dr. Steven Salaita, the former Virginia Tech associate professor who posted noxious anti-Semitic rants to Twitter for months before and during this summer’s Israel-Hamas war, or “to demonstrate, via AAUP recognized procedures of academic due process, that termination is warranted”.Prosecutor: Odeh’s ‘Amazing Series of Coincidences’ Indicate Guilt
The resolution in question wasn’t actually written by any SU faculty.
It’s a template that’s currently circulating broadly on various American campuses, endorsed (primarily, I believe) by well-meaning and principled higher education professionals who’ve been led to think that, by denying Dr. Salaita’s job offer, UI-UC’s Chancellor Wise and its Board of Trustees “assaulted” Salaita’s academic freedom.
He described Odeh as a Palestinian who overcame great suffering to build a productive life doing “God’s work” as a respected community activist in Chicago. The naturalization questions asking if she “EVER” had been arrested, convicted or imprisoned are “ambiguous for anybody. Why couldn’t they say in the United States or in another country in the application?”Breaking: Rasmea Odeh found guilty
That, Tukel argued, makes no sense. He noted that Odeh was considered proficient in English and scored 100 percent on her American civics test required for naturalization. To understand that “ever” means at any time, someone doesn’t need legal training, Tukel said. “You just have to be able to read.”
People lie in order to get something they want, he argued. Odeh wanted to move to America and knew that couldn’t happen if she volunteered a full, accurate accounting of her record. If she admitted living in Lebanon, immigration officers would have asked why she moved there and “then everything is going to unravel.”
The notion that U.S. immigration officers wouldn’t care about serious crimes committed in another country is “ridiculous,” Tukel said. Not everyone can come to the United States. Odeh’s conviction was for a crime serious enough to make her inadmissible, which gave her the motive to withhold it from U.S. immigration officials.
Found guilty of unlawful procurement of naturalizationBBC News misleads audiences on ICC Mavi Marmara statement
She was found guilty immigration fraud by way of of unlawful procurement of naturalization this afternoon.
In other words, through the use of a cherry-picked quote from a press release, BBC audiences are mistakenly led to believe that although the ICC has determined that it is reasonable to believe that ‘war crimes’ were committed aboard the Mavi Marmara, it does not have the time or resources to do anything about it.The Independent Misleads Over “430-Mile Israeli Brick Wall”
However, what is not adequately clarified in this BBC report is that not only did the ICC not determine that Israel had committed ‘war crimes'; it did not rule anything at all. No charges were filed, no trial was held and the report (available here) produced by the ICC’s chief prosecutor – the purpose of which was to examine whether or not there was a case for the ICC to pursue – is based on analysis of information already available (including, for example, the Turkish Commission) rather than on independent investigation by the ICC.
Israel’s security barrier is often erroneously and purposely referred to as a “wall” by those who wish to question Israel’s means of self-defense.BBC’s Middle East editor promotes Amnesty International’s Gaza report
In a blatant publicity stunt, Palestinians have knocked a hole in a walled section of the barrier to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Independent was happy to cover the story.
The Independent also promoted a lie:
Israel’s security barrier is not a “430 mile-long wall.” While the structure contains walled sections in some sensitive areas, some 90% of the barrier is a chain-link fence.
Palestinians and anti-Israel activists like to promote the image of a wall or “apartheid wall” as it portrays a far more sinister structure, much like the Berlin Wall, which was created not as a means to protect innocent lives but to subjugate the people behind it. Even the head of Islamic Jihad has acknowledged that the barrier prevents terror.
Amnesty International is one of several organisations which have sadly deviated from their original important purpose by allowing politics to dominate their agenda in the Middle East. AI’s anti-Israel reports – now legend for their bias and faulty methodology - are frequently promoted and quoted by the BBC. During this summer’s conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip, BBC news reports repeatedly used statements from AI to advance the notion of Israeli wrongdoing.Netanyahu: World must not cave to Iran’s demands
Amnesty International’s latest report was published on November 5th and as usual is based on subjective ‘eye witness’ accounts. Predictably the report reaches the conclusion that the incidents it examined are evidence that: “[t]he repeated, disproportionate attacks on homes indicate that Israel’s current military tactics are deeply flawed and fundamentally at odds with the principles of international humanitarian law”.
Of course any objective assessment of whether or not a specific Israeli action adhered to principles of proportionality is dependent upon the assessor being familiar with their target and perceived military benefit. There is no evidence to suggest that the writers of this AI report were privy to such information.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned the six world powers, including the US, against caving to Iranian demands to pursue its nuclear program, just so that it can meet a November 24th deadline to conclude a deal with Tehran.Iran should surrender, not the West
“The international community faces a clear choice,” Netanyahu said. “It can cave to Iranian demands in an agreement that would be dangerous for Israel and the world.”
“Or it can stand firm and insist that Iran dismantle its capacity to produce nuclear weapons,” he said.
Israel won’t support any agreement that allows Iran to be a threshold nuclear state, Netanyahu said.
It is important to understand that today the West is even more interested in a deal than the Iranians. That's why in the beginning, the West accepted the idea that the extremist Ayatollah regime could develop a nuclear program. Now, it has been decided to allow them to keep thousands of centrifuges (5,000 out of 19,000). What do they need so many for? To develop medicine? For electricity? The Iranians, with their incredible chutzpah, are doing this during the negotiations. If they give it to you -- would you not take it?Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban urge Obama to reconsider nuclear deal with Iran
The Iranians lied about their nuclear program three times in a single decade. Three reasons that mean negotiations should not be between equal partners. The Iranians are the ones who should be compromising, making concessions, surrendering, begging for a deal. But that is not the case.
In Washington, they really calmed us down over the weekend by telling us that the secret letter that Obama sent to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not make a connection between the war on terror and the deal. Everyone in this story is trying to come off as innocent. Iran wants a civilian nuclear program, and the secret letter was actually Maimonides' letter...
A top Democratic Party donor and backer of Hillary Rodham Clinton slammed President Obama’s Iran strategy and advised Israel to bomb the “living daylights” out of Iran if a nuclear deal with the major powers endangers Israel.‘US, Iran held secret talks to renew ties if nuke deal reached’
If Obama strikes a “bad deal” with Iran in nuclear talks under way and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assesses it as a deal that would put Israel at risk, “I would bomb the living daylights out of these sonsofbitches,” Haim Saban said Sunday at the first conference of the Israeli American Council, an advocacy group he is helping to fund.
Saban is an entertainment mogul who has for years been close to former President Bill Clinton and his wife who is now considering her own 2016 presidential run.
He said Obama made a mistake in helping to strike an interim agreement with Iran to roll back some sanctions in exchange for the rollback of some nuclear activity. The interim agreement led to the talks now taking place between Iran and the major powers, led by the United States, and has a deadline of Nov. 24.
The US and Iran reportedly held secret talks to potentially renew diplomatic ties if a nuclear deal between world powers and Tehran to curb Iran’s atomic program is reached and sanctions are lifted.Iran, Russia to sign nuclear plants deal Tuesday
The talks focused on the opening of a US trade office in Tehran, according to a report in the London Times, which means that the two countries were set renew relations for the first time in 35 years.
Iranian officials cited by the paper said talks on the matter were set to resume in Baku, Azerbaijan this week and would be led by Mohammad Reza Sabzalipour, the head of Iran’s global trade bureau.
The head of Iran’s atomic energy agency will travel to Russia Tuesday to sign a construction deal for two nuclear power plants on Iran’s southern Gulf shores, local media reported.Iran Possesses All the Technology for a Nuclear Weapon
Ali Akbar Salehi’s visit will cap months of negotiations between Iran and Russia, and comes as the Islamic republic faces a November 24 deadline for a long-term nuclear agreement with world powers.
“I am going to Moscow to sign an agreement for the construction of new nuclear power plants,” Salehi was quoted as saying on Sunday by Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
November 24, 2014, is a looming deadline for Iran, Israel, the United States and the world over its nuclear weapons program. America’s Wendy Sherman, who is leading the negotiations, has described the talks as “a forest of distrust.” At the same time, she declares, “Our bottom line is unambiguous … Iran will not, shall not obtain a nuclear weapon.” Against this backdrop, media revelations have disclosed a secret correspondence between the Obama White House and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — kept even from Congressional leaders and possibly America’s closest allies, including Israel.Iran Nuclear Threat 'Five Times' Greater Than Previously Thought
As the world ponders Iran’s dash to enrich more kilograms of uranium, the underlying concern is not so much about the enrichment process itself, but the end product: a nuclear warhead. Iran has been developing its warhead for some sixteen years. That design is nearly perfected.
The Iranian regime could have five times more advanced centrifuges capable of producing nuclear weapons-grade uranium than previously thought, according to a report in The Sunday Times.Jewish Cemetery Desecrated in Hertfordshire UK
As world powers prepare for renewed talks with Iran over its nuclear program, and only two weeks before the November 24 deadline to reach a deal, the former deputy head of the International Atomic Energy Association told the paper that while Iran has admitted to possessing 1,008 advanced IR-2m centrifuges, the real number could be as high as 5,000.
Iran "could have up to 4,000 to 5,000 centrifuges or raw materials for them" in locations other than its two major nuclear plants in Natanz and Fordow, where international agencies have focused their attention, said Olli Heinonen.
Vandals desecrated headstones in the Jewish section of a cemetery in Hertfordshire, UK. Witnesses said that seven headstones were toppled over, and two others were damaged.Minaj video panned for ‘Nazi’ imagery
The Hertfordshire cemetery is a universal one, with sections marked off for different religions and communities. The Jewish section of the cemetery is small, and local community leaders said that there was no question that the desecrations were aimed at Jews specifically.
Police opened an investigation, but closed it after saying that there were no leads in the case. The closure of the case has upset the Jewish community to a great extent.
The teaser video for the “Only” single, in which Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, and Drake (whose mother is Jewish) also appear, features explicit if somewhat incoherent lyrics unrelated to the visuals.Hundreds At Memorial for WWI Soldiers Buried at Ramle Cemetery
In the animated clip, Minaj stars as a dominatrix/dictator, flanked by Drake, dressed as the pope, whose suggestive lines would likely make the pontiff blush.
Neither Minaj nor video director Jeff Osbourne has publicly responded to the critics, who claimed on Twitter and Reddit that the iconography was undeniably evocative of the genocidal regime.
Ramle, today a mixed Jewish and Arab city in the coastal plain south of Tel Aviv, was the site of an Australian field hospital that operated during WWI, making it natural that the town become the burying place for many of the fallen soldiers whose final resting place is so far from their homes. Other WWI cemeteries for soldiers who fought in or near Palestine in the Great War are in Haifa, at Jerusalem's Mount Scopus, in Gaza and Beer ShevaToyota opens ‘brave new world’ of Israeli tech cooperation
The ceremony at the beautifully kept cemetery was attended by some 45 World War Two veterans, medals gleaming on their chests, who live in Israel. Members of the families of WWII soldiers, some proudly wearing a late father or grandfather's medals were also present, as were the military attachés of Commonwealth, European and many other countries, members of the diplomatic corps of these countries and a Guard of Honour of the Israel Defense Forces.
In attendance this year were two Chelsea Pensioners, members of The Royal Hospital Chelsea, dressed in their red uniforms, who came especially for this event from London. One of them had served with the British Forces in Palestine during WWII.
In its first-ever hackathon in Israel, Japanese car manufacturer Toyota walked away with new ideas and apps that, the company said, will bring its vision of the “connected car” closer. For the company, said Yu Nagata, senior researcher of Toyota’s Department of Development and Strategic Planning, Israel was the natural place to seek out those new ideas and apps. “Toyota chose Israel for it’s because of its strategic location between Europe and Asia, its diverse population, and of course it is a center of innovation in information sciences.”Ford Picks Israeli Mishor 3D’s Navigation Systems
That’s not a statement a top Japanese business official would have made just a decade ago, according to Dr. Roni Bornstein, an Israeli who heads the local branch of Rakuto Kasei, a Japanese chemical and food technology and production conglomerate. “They have come a long way in their relationship with Israel,” Bornstein said of the executives who run Japan Inc. “There have been numerous political obstacles to opening up a relationship with Israel, not the least being the fear that Arab countries would stop selling them oil.” Add to that, he said, a traditional insularity and conservative approach to the outside world, both of which made Israel a very foreign entity in Japanese eyes.
Israel’s Mishor 3D, which develops augmented reality navigation systems for automobiles, has signed a deal for its tech with the Ford Motor Company.Meet Ema Shah, the Kuwaiti Singer Who Dares to Sing in Hebrew
Ford will pay Mishor a yet undisclosed amount to fit its navigation systems into future Ford vehicles
Founded in 2010 and located in Shefayim Israel, Mishor 3D boasts that its state of the art technology is a multi-disciplinary endeavor as it brings together specialization and skills in numerous fields including: geographical information systems (GIS), imaging, real time positioning and advanced 3D techniques. The technology could be incorporated with either in-dash navigation/ADAS/ infotainment or, alternatively, a variety of mobile devices.
Ema Shah is a superstar in Kuwait and the Arab world. Known for her singing and her musical style, which blends pop and classical influences, she is also a pioneer for women in the region, choosing to dress as she wishes--not just on stage but in everyday life as well. Lately, Shah--is trying to break a political taboo by reaching out to Jewish musicians--defying cultural hostility to Israel, hoping she can help cultivate peace.
The 34-year-old Shah's interest in Hebrew dates to 2010, when she caused an international controversy by singing the familiar Jewish folk song, "Hava Nagila," at a nightclub as part of a performance involving multiple languages.
The audience loved it, she told Breitbart News in an interview last week, but a few people were shocked, and alerted police. One woman shouted: "No normalization with Israel, this is Zionism," Shah recalls.
The incident only made Shah--winner of Best Music Video at the New York Winter Film Awards in 2014--more determined to reach out to Israeli--and Jewish--singers and musicians, in the Middle East and the United States. She hopes that by doing so, she can break through the barriers of mistrust in the region, and undo hateful attitudes in the Muslim world in particular.
