11/15 Links: Israel Fights Terrorism. Europe Rewards It; The Israeli Arab Grievance Industry

From Ian:

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Israel Fights Terrorism. Europe Rewards It

So basically, as Israelis are dodging the cars, stones and fireworks being used by Palestinian terrorists, Europe is rewarding these same terrorists with more recognition of their proposed state. In the meantime, the Europeans are also condemning Israel for wanting to build homes in its own capital and in part of its Biblical homelands in Judea and Samaria. Obviously, this isn’t the first time Europeans have tried to tell Jews where they can and can’t live. Ghettoizing Jews has been a European tradition for centuries, from medieval times, right up until World War II, when the Nazis established ghettos to concentrate the continent’s Jewish population before systematically murdering them. And now they are trying to ghettoize us in our own country! I guess some things never change. Clearly, Israel needs to respond to the ludicrous actions of the Europeans. But how?
My suggestion: let Israel recognize the right of various European peoples to their own independent states. So the British parliament passed a resolution calling for the recognition of a future Palestinian state. Let Israel’s Knesset pass its own resolution calling for recognition of an independent Scotland, an independent Wales, and the reunification of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. If France and Spain decide to reward Palestinian terrorism by calling for recognition of the so-called state of Palestine, let Israel recognize and support the independence of Corsica and Brittany in France, and Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain. As a lot of people say, what goes around comes around.

WSJ Editor Rips Obama Admin. for Treating Israel Like ‘Virtual Outlaw State’

A prominent Wall Street Journal editor firmly denounced President Barack Obama’s foreign policy approach to Israel in a recent speech to a Jewish group, saying the White House treats the Jewish state like a criminal entity.
“Treating a democratic government as if it is a virtual outlaw state, as if it is embarrassing to bring the prime minster through the front door… there have been a series of slides and insults that are unbecoming of a great and serious power,” said Bret Stephens, columnist and deputy editorial page editor for the Journal.
Stephens penned an op-ed for the Journal in late October titled “Bibi and Barack on the Rocks” wherein he chastised the White House for its “petty insults” against Israel, which he said puts the strategic relationship between the countries at risk. He wrote that the Obama administration “seems to give more thought to pursuing personal vendettas against allies like Israel than it does to waging effective military campaigns against enemies like ISIS.”
Expanding on his views about the Obama administration’s relationship with Israel, Stephens told guests at the IAJF event that the U.S. needs to view things from Israel’s perspective.
“You listen to Obama administration officials talk about war and they say ‘Well, let’s take a look at Crimea. Look at it from a Russian point of view.’ [But] when was the last time the [Obama] administration said ‘Let’s see the world through the eyes of the Israeli prime minister or the Israeli defense minister?’” Stephens asked. “What does it mean to them to say ‘Oh yeah, let’s just get out of the West Bank. Let’s do so in a six month time table.’ Does that make sense?”

The Israeli Arab Grievance Industry

So what can we do?
In light of all this, it's hard to swallow the "dispossession and discrimination" line being bandied about to justify Israeli Arab violence and crime. When you unravel all the arguments of racism made by Arabs and leftists, you're mostly left with feelings of discrimination in being accepted to jobs. But in a country where judges, senior doctors and heads of colleges are Arabs, it's hard to accept this as a justification for revolt.
The reasons for the outbreak of violence therefore need to be found elsewhere, in the culture of extended family and tribe which is still very strong in the Arab sector, as well as the strengthening of Islamist bodies in Israel in recent years. These are slowly diverting the energies and organizational capabilities used for crime in a more nationalist direction, and to rally the masses for a struggle for the Palestinian homeland in the Arab triangle and Wadi Ara.
Because of this, police programs for community policing and "increasing trust" by studying cultural gaps and ethnic sensitivities are simply irrelevant. Such plans create an atmosphere in the police of either justifying or excusing crime by recognizing the "difficult background" of rioters and their "narrative" for the Israeli War of Independence.
Sadly, the police have been increasingly exposed to such programs primarily through a designated program promoted by the left wing organization, the Abraham Fund, and with the cooperation of the police. The "policing in a torn society" program teaches senior police officers to take cultural differences into consideration, understand the criminals' motives and to try and rebuild trust. The result of all this is the "containment" policy, which enables riots to take place on a limited scale so that the oppressed minority can express its "authentic rage". (h/t sophie44)

Former Israeli Ambassador Says U.S. ‘Has No Alternative’ to Alliance With Israel

During a question and answer session at the IAJF event Oren was asked about the U.S.-Israel relationship, and how serious the current friction between the two countries is. The ambassador replied, “it’s not Yitzhak and Bill,” referring to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He added that though there are disagreements between Israel and the U.S, “particularly on the Iranian nuclear issue,” it is time for the countries to move past their differences.
“The time is to get over it. Get on with it,” he said.
Oren said the alliance between the U.S. and Israel is also harmed by another factor.
“In that alliance, one side of the alliance does not recognize the capital of the other,” he said, before joking,”so at this stage I wanna state unequivocally, and you can quote me on this, that the state of Israel recognizes Washington, D.C. as the capital of the United States.”

Richard Millett: The Poetry of Hizbullah

To say that my question “Is this book pro-Hezbullah?” wasn’t well received on Tuesday night at SOAS is an understatement.
I was at the book launch of The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication written by Lina Khatib, Dina Matar and Atef Alshaer.
After I had asked my question Dina Matar said “I knew you were going to ask that” and Lina Khatib waved the book at me and said “Why don’t you read it?”
The book explains how Hizbullah has been successful in staying relevant since its 1982 inception by adapting itself to changing situations and communicating these adaptations through various means such as poetry and social media.
Hizbullah are poets? Who knew.
One can imagine: “To kill a Jew, or not to kill a Jew. That is the question.”

Samantha Power Knocks European Nations for Ditching Anti-Semitism Conference

Yesterday, one of America’s top diplomats did something decidedly undiplomatic. At the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Berlin Conference on Anti-Semitism, Samantha Power used her keynote address to call out the nations of Europe for failing to attend, just as anti-Jewish incidents have spiked across the continent. “When leaders show up, nations take notice,” the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said. “It is also why, frankly, it is deeply concerning that even as anti-Semitism is rising in Europe, a third fewer countries are participating in the 2014 conference than took part in the 2004 conference, and only one in three of the countries that sent a foreign minister or other cabinet level official in 2004 has sent one at that level to this conference.”
Just to make sure the world got the message, Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning human rights activist and close adviser to President Obama, chose this portion of her speech to blast out to her 120,000 Twitter followers after she delivered it:

US envoy on anti-Semitism ‘concerned’ by state in Turkey

The United States is concerned over recent expressions of anti-Semitism in Turkey, the State Department’s special envoy for combatting anti-Semitism, Ira Forman, said.
Forman spoke of these concerns in an interview with JTA Friday from Berlin, where he attended a high-level meeting on anti-Semitism organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE.
“We are concerned when civil society or political leaders call on the Jewish community to denounce Israel,” Forman said in reference to such calls. Prime Minister Tayyp Erdogan made similar statements during Israel’s summer war with Hamas in Gaza.
“And we are concerned when we hear that someone posted a sign reading ‘to be demolished’ on Istanbul’s Neve Shalom synagogue,” Forman said in reference to an incident that occurred this week.

Kerry Lets Abbas Off the Hook Again

In playing the Temple Mount card, Abbas is walking a fine line between an attempt to boost his stock vis-à-vis Hamas and suicide since it is Israel that protects him against Hamas. Jordan, which has been forced by Abbas’s antics to condemn Israel as well, is similarly dependant on support for Israel, but can’t be seen to be against Palestinian terror if it is perceived as a “defense” of Arab rights.
But while we hope that this chapter is coming to a close, Kerry’s complacent pox on both your houses approach to Israel and the PA is only encouraging more Palestinian intransigence and violence. What was needed here was a direct U.S. condemnation of Abbas’s egregious incitement that led to bloodshed. But in its absence the likelihood grows that Abbas will continue to court disaster in his effort to boost his waning political clout in the West Bank. Kerry and President Obama’s continued effort to portray Abbas as a force for peace while flinging insults at Netanyahu is a formula for more unrest as well as an attack on the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Daniel Pipes: Sweden’s wishful thinking on the Mideast

First, this move is aimed, I was told, not to punish Israel, but to give heart to those Palestinians despairing of the two-state solution, consisting of an Israel next to a Palestine. As such, it is not hostile to Israel (where government and population back the two-state solution) but hostile to Hamas (which rejects this outcome).
My response: The Israeli government and population reacted very negatively to the Swedish decision and will, no doubt, be annoyed to learn that it was patronizingly intended for their own good. Conversely, Hamas has hailed this move and called on other governments to follow Stockholm in order to isolate Israel.
Second, Israeli “settlements” on the West Bank (which I prefer to call “towns”) render impossible the two-state solution, making it urgently imperative to prevent their further expansion.
My response: I flip this around and see Israeli building as constructive pressure on the Palestinians to get serious about ending the conflict. The longer Palestinians procrastinate, the less land remains.
Third, the many statements and posters in which Fatah endorses “car jihad” are unimportant because Fatah is not the official Palestinian “government.” So, the Swedish Foreign Ministry does not concern itself with this homicidal incitement.
My response: Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority are three names for the same entity. Making a legalistic distinction among them permits Mahmoud Abbas, the head of all three, to get away with murder.

Recognizing Palestine risks worsening anti-Semitism, French Jews warn

CRIF, France’s federation of Jewish organizations and communities, said the submission to parliament of a draft motion favoring immediate recognition of a Palestinian state risks exacerbating anti-Semitic hatred.
CRIF urged French lawmakers to refrain from voting in favor of the motion, which a predominantly Socialist bloc this week submitted to a vote in the French lower house later this month. Last week, the French Green party advanced a similar initiative in the French Senate.
“In France, after the anti-Semitic riots this summer, this declaration will certainly not be interpreted as a peace initiative and risks exacerbating the anti-Semitic tensions which we saw last summer,” reads the CRIF statement on the planned vote, which is slated for Nov. 28.
CRIF rarely links France’s anti-Semitism problem to mainstream political parties’ policies on Israel.

Today's UN: Syria compares Israelis to Nazis, Nov. 13, 2014


Home of Baby Murdering Terrorist to be Demolished

The family members of Abdelrahman Shaludi, the terrorist who last month carried out an attack near the Jerusalem Light Rail and murdered two people, on Friday received an order informing them that their home is to be demolished.
Shaludi plowed his car into pedestrians at the Ammunition Hill station of the Jerusalem Light Rail, killing three-month-old Chaya Zisel Braun and 22-year-old Karen Jemima Mosquera, who was fatally injured and succumbed to her injuries a few days later.
The demolition order is part of Israel’s attempts to discourage terrorists from carrying out similar attacks.

Tensions simmer in Galilee village after violent Muslim-Druze brawl

Channel 10 reported that the fight erupted over the security situation, which has seen recent tensions with Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank — in part over Israeli plans to step up building activity in the city’s eastern sector and religious tensions at the Temple Mount — spread to Israeli Arab communities after last Saturday’s police shooting of a 22-year-old man in Kafr Kanna.
Palestinian leaders have used inflammatory language to warn against Israeli plans to change the status quo and allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount — something Israel has denied. Six Israelis have been killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks in recent weeks, including a Druze Border Police officer.
Ynet reported that, earlier in the week, two Muslim students at the local high school showed up wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh as a show of protest and were allegedly planning to demonstrate against the shooting of Kheir Hamdan in Kafr Kanna when a confrontation broke out with the Druze students. The incident may have led to the Friday night melee.
Members of the Druze community serve in the IDF and the Israeli Border Police, while members of the rest of Israel’s Arab community largely do not.

Gaza man caught after crossing border into Israel

The Palestinian, who was caught near kibbutz Kfar Aza, was taken to a nearby security facility for questioning, Israel Radio reported.
A similar incident occurred Wednesday, when two Palestinian men managed to walk five kilometers (three miles) into Israeli territory near Kibbutz Be’eri before being spotted and stopped by IDF soldiers. Both men, who were unarmed as well, were taken in for questioning, according to Channel 10.
The circumstances of both Saturday’s and Wednesday’s incidents remained unclear, but such events are often cases of civilians looking to work illegally in the country.

Israel Boycott Controversy Continues at Fordham

Last month we published an article by Doron Ben-Atar, a professor of History at Fordham University, in which he detailed the Kafkaesque proceedings the university initiated against him after he spoke out against the American Studies Association’s academic boycott of Israel, a Title IX investigation he alleged was secretive and politically motivated. Glenn Hendler, chair of the English department at Fordham University, submitted a response to Ben-Atar’s article, which we’ve published here. Ben-Atar’s reply to the response is printed below.
Fordham History professor Doron Ben-Atar has managed to become a minor cause celebre following the October 13 publication in Tablet of his article about being “investigated on secret charges,” ostensibly because of his opposition to the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli academic institutions. As part of his publicity campaign, he also published an official letter describing the results of a Fordham administrator’s investigation.
This letter centers—not, as Ben-Atar claims, on “religious discrimination” or an alleged Title IX violation—but on two complaints that Fordham American Studies director Micki McGee filed against him. One was a charge of verbal harassment. The other was his threat to “fight the American Studies Program at Fordham in every forum and in every way” if it did not withdraw from the national association. The letter deems this threat “a possible violation of relevant sections of the University Code of Conduct,” specifically a section that forbids “engaging in, or inciting others to engage in, conduct which interferes with or disrupts any University function.”

BBC interviewee and source banned from German parliament

Readers may recall that last month BBC Trending’s Anne-Marie Tomchak produced a filmed report titled “Israel’s unwelcome African ‘infiltrators’” which was widely publicized on various pages of the BBC News website. As was noted here at the time:
“Tomchak’s entire report is constructed around the video posted by David Sheen…[…] Anne-Marie Tomchak should obviously also have adhered to BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality by ‘summarising the standpoint’ of her interviewee and main source, providing rather more information than the meaningless description “campaigner”.”
In that post we noted some of David Sheen’s prolific anti-Israel activities – none of which were communicated to BBC audiences in order to enable them to put Sheen’s claims into their appropriate context.
Recently, the source of that material upon which an entire BBC report was based has been making headlines in Germany.
“Blumenthal and Sheen, who are often hosted by groups campaigning for BDS, have been in Berlin for the past few days. They were scheduled to speak at several events, including one at the Volksbühne theater on November 9 and another one hosted by some members of The Left (party) at the German parliament on November 11. […]

New York Times Anti-Israel Bias Confirmed in Numbers, Says Watchdog

CAMERA Senior Analyst Gilead Ini, who authored the report, told The Algemeiner that there were several reasons for the disproportionate focus on Israel.
“Part of it is this now largely abandoned concept of linkage, which holds that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the one on which Middle East and world peace hinges,” Ini said. “Even President Obama made a speech recently saying that this idea isn’t true, but maybe The Times hasn’t got the message yet.”
Ini argued that the paper’s “worldview ” leads it to “cast a critical light” on Israel, “the party that is perceived to be more western.”
“In their eagerness to not excessively criticize a party that is outside their western, liberal context, they end up applying different standards to different countries,” Ini said. “Ironically the end result is anti-liberal, because countries are not judged by a single standard.”
The latest CAMERA study is consistent with previous findings of bias at the Times. A 2006-07 CAMERA study found, for example, “twice as many Op-Eds critical of Israel or espousing an Arab perspective as those supportive of Israel or critical of Arab policies.”
“We hope that someone at the New York Times is paying attention, and that the next time we do this study, the chart will be more balanced,” Ini said.

‘The Economist’ defends the terrorists of Sinai

North Sinai used to be one of Egypt’s richest provinces, thanks to the smuggling trade, particularly that going through the underground tunnels which provided an economic lifeline and an arms conduit for Gaza. Wealthier Bedouin replaced their shacks with villas topped with bizarre pagoda-shaped roofs. No more. Once a crossroads between Asia and Africa, the northern part of the peninsula feels under siege. Israel has built a wall along its frontier of 240km (150 miles), severing the once-lucrative traffic in drugs and African migrants. Egyptian forces have smashed the tunnels; lest some have escaped detection, they have begun blowing up houses near the border.
More than 1,000 families on the Egyptian side of Rafah are being moved out. When tribal leaders beseeched the authorities in Cairo to limit their plans for a buffer zone, initially 500 metres wide, but perhaps stretching to 5km, Mr Sisi refused. As the Egyptian military operation hardens, says a Bedouin academic, “they are turning the population into the enemy by making them suffer”.
Since surfacing in Sinai in June 2012, the Partisans have become stronger. Tribal elders, resentful of jihadists’ assault on Bedouin customs as un-Islamic, have fled for their lives to Cairo; some have been killed en route. Drawing on tribal and smuggling networks stretching from the Arabian peninsula to Libya, other jihadists have gravitated to Sinai, some with weapons discarded from Libyan arms depots. Gaza’s besieged Islamists are wondering whether to throw in their lot with the jihadists, too.

Assad under scrutiny by Lebanese tribunal

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon has decided to allow prosecutors to present new evidence in the investigation of the country’s worst political crime in recent history: the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri nearly a decade ago.
Lebanon’s Daily Star reported that prosecutors will seek to expose the role of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the massive bombing that killed Hariri. The evidence focuses on the breakdown of relations between Hariri and Assad.
“Let’s call a spade a spade your honor,” Iain Edwards, a defense lawyer for a senior Hezbollah operative accused of complicity in the attack, told the court. “The prosecutor is now basing his case on Syria being behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri.”
Edwards added that the prosecution is effectively saying that Syria, Assad and his security apparatus wanted the Lebanese prime minister killed.
The dramatic development comes at a bad time for Assad, who is fighting for survival after nearly four years of civil war in Syria.

Viral video of Syrian boy hero a fake

A video that went viral last week of a young Syrian boy daringly rescuing a terrified girl hiding underneath a car as bullets and gunfire rained down on them was revealed on Friday to be a hoax . A group of Norwegian filmmakers admitted to the BBC that they produced the fake video to raise discussion about the conflict.
"If I could make a film and pretend it was real, people would share it and react with hope," Lars Klevberg, the film's director, told the BBC.
"We shot it in Malta in May this year on a set that was used for other famous movies like Troy and Gladiator," Klevberg said. "The little boy and girl are professional actors from Malta. The voices in the background are Syrian refugees living in Malta."
In the clip, the boy is seen running toward the girl, then stopping after it appeared he was hit by gunfire. He then gets up, grabs the young girl by the hand, and ushers her away from the fighting.

10 Way Iran Subverts the Middle East (and the World)

In 2009, at the beginning of his first term in office, President Barack Obama announced that his administration would be seeking to “directly engage” with Iran. Nonetheless, Obama acknowledged that Iran’s “actions over many years now have been unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world; that their attacks or their financing of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, the bellicose language that they’ve used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon, or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon — that all those things create the possibility of destabilizing the region.”
Nearly five years later, in a 2013 press release announcing the Joint Plan of Action regarding Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration issued a fact sheet about the deal with Iran, noting that though some sanctions had been relaxed, “[a]ll of our targeted sanctions related to Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism, its destabilizing role in the Syrian conflict, and its abysmal human rights record, among other concerns, remain in effect.”
However, despite ongoing negotiations, during the past year Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism and destabilization of its neighbors has continued, and in many ways worsened.
Notably, Iran does not work alone, and often assigns its dirty work to Hezbollah, described in the Wall Street Journal as the “tip of an Iranian imperial spear.”

Turkey: Beware the Jewish Olive Tree!

Because of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s sectarianism, Turkey has become quite an inhospitable place to be a religious minority, whether Jewish, Christian, Alevi, or Yezidi. Over the last several years, Turkish militants have murdered or attempted to murder priests in Turkey. Whereas the Turkish government has sought sympathy for the refugee crisis that has resulted from the Islamic State’s rise in neighboring Syria and Iraq, Turkey’s treatment of refugees differs wildly based on their religion. Simply put, when Turkey distributed humanitarian aid, Yezidis need not apply. And, as for the Alevis—basically a Shi‘ite offshoot sect that accounts for at least one-fifth of Turkey’s population—Erdoğan has refused to recognize their places of worship and deemed their children should be educated only in Sunni doctrine. The Jews are facing unprecedented anti-Semitism to the point where the community has begun to pick up and leave, much as most of the Iranian Jewish community did during and after Iran’s Islamic revolution.
So just how bad has anti-Semitism become inside Turkey? Erdoğan has, of course, been no friend to Turkey’s environmentalist movement. The Gezi Park protests began as an effort to save one of the few remaining green spaces in central Istanbul against government-sponsored development but morphed into a wider opposition movement as a result of Erdoğan’s heavy-handed tactics. Over subsequent months, Erdoğan has accelerated development which has raised the ire of those seeking to protect Turkey’s green spaces. Now, it seems, Erdoğan’s supporters have found a new and creative way to justify the bulldozing of trees. From a Turkish column explaining a whispering campaign promoting the ideas that olive trees are ‘pro-Jewish’ and therefore should be destroyed. A Turkish interlocutor translates the key passage:

‘Hitler’ reacts to Nicki Minaj video

In the latest “Hitler Reacts To” video — where YouTubers parody a dramatic scene from the 2004 World War II movie “Der Untergang” (“Downfall”), by replacing the film’s subtitles with their own anachronistic text — the Fuhrer lashes out at Minaj for imitating his “Triumph of the Will” documentary.
“How could Nicki Minaj rip off my director like this?” the subtitles imagine a crestfallen Hitler shouting. “Without giving me any credit? Without espousing any Nazi ideology!”
The Hitler video comes after a tumultuous week for Minaj, whose music video for her song “Only” was accused of appropriating Nazi imagery and glorifying fascism. The video intrigued some — like the Atlantic’s Noah Berlatsky, who put on his Literary Criticism 101 hat and gave the video a deep reading Tuesday — but mostly outraged everyone else, including the Anti-Defamation League, which was “deeply disturbed.”

Lebanese-Canadian charged over 1980 Paris synagogue bombing

A Canadian academic was charged in Paris on Saturday over the deadly 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue, the man’s lawyer said.
University professor Hassan Diab, a Canadian of Lebanese descent, appeared before an anti-terror judge just hours after arriving from Montreal after losing a six-year legal battle against extradition.
The October 3, 1980, bombing of a synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris killed four people and marked the first fatal attack against the French Jewish community since the Nazi occupation in World War II.
The 60-year-old sociologist had been fighting his extradition to avoid what he said would be an unfair prosecution in France for a crime he insists he did not commit.
Diab’s extradition came after Canada’s supreme court refused on Thursday to hear his final plea to halt the procedure.
Screenshot from a November 14, 2014 CBC report on the extradition of Hassan Diab, accused of the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris, an attack that killed four people.
Diab was arrested at his home in an Ottawa suburb in November 2008 at the request of French authorities who alleged he was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Belgian Jewish man stabbed in Antwerp

A 31-year-old Belgian rabbi was stabbed in Antwerp Saturday while on his way to his synagogue, near a train station in the city’s Jewish district.
According to initial reports, the man’s life was not in immediate danger but he was in serious condition and he remained in hospital. He was stabbed in the throat as walked under a railway bridge to the Pelikaanstraat area on Saturday morning, according to the European Jewish Press.
Belgian police launched an investigation into the incident. The motive, whether anti-Semitic or criminal, was not immediately known.

A collection tainted with blood

Attorneys from all over the world brought lawsuits in the names of people claiming that their families were the original owners of the art, but 400 to 500 of the claims are considered suspicious. As part of the deal with Gurlitt, the Bavarian government and the Jewish Claims Conference set up a website to make it easier for potential plaintiffs to find works their families had owned. Gurlitt himself declared that he was committed to the return of the stolen works to their rightful owners.
Unfortunately, Gurlitt died at the height of the affair, leaving the collection to the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, Switzerland. The German media reported that he had chosen the museum because he was angry over the way that Germany had chosen to deal with the matter. The Bern museum issued a statement saying, "The Board of Trustees and Directors of Kunstmuseum Bern are surprised and delighted, but at the same time do not wish to conceal the fact that this magnificent bequest brings with it a considerable responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particular of a legal and ethical nature."
Museum officials claim they had never been in contact with Gurlitt, and the bequest had come to them "like a bolt from the blue." The museum is a signatory to the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which stipulate that the museum has an obligation to try to find the legal owners of art works that belonged to victims of World War II.
The art works are still in the possession of German authorities. Ron Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, threatened that the museum in Bern would be inundated with "an avalanche of lawsuits" if it dared put the works on display. The decision on the matter will be issued on Nov. 26. It appears that the museum will receive most of the art works, but about 500 of them that are suspected of "Nazi connections" will remain in Germany's possession.

Oskar Schindler’s Grave in Jerusalem Catholic Cemetery to be Refurbished

Forty years after his death, authorities have decided to refurbish the burial site of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who helped save thousands of Jews during World War II. Schindler is buried in the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Development Authority, the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry, and the Jerusalem Municipality have launched a joint campaign to renovate and landscape Schindler’s grave site and erect a memorial there.
Part of the construction, which is expected to cost around $524,000, will include revamping pathways to the cemetery and Schindler’s grave, and building shaded seating areas nearby. Rooms near the burial site are also slated for renovation, and an indoor site commemorating Schindler will be constructed to preserve his memory.

Christian Zionist Organization Seeks to Deepen Hispanic Ties With Israel

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) is partnering with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC)/Conela, one of the largest Hispanic Christian organizations in the U.S., in order to deepen Hispanic engagement with Israel.
According to NHCLC/Conela, one of the goals of the partnership is to increase Hispanic Evangelical participation in ICEJ’s annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration in Jerusalem.
“Our objective is to exponentially increase Hispanic participation and attendance at the annual Feast of Tabernacles, held each fall in Jerusalem under the sponsorship of the Christian Embassy,” Dr. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the NHCLC/Conela, said in a statement.

Amid Instability in Israel, FIDF Galas Across U.S. Raise Funds for Soldiers’ Wellbeing

At a time when Israel faces an increasingly unstable security situation—including recent vehicular attacks on Jerusalem’s light rail stations, stabbings, tension at the Temple Mount, and Arab riots—Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) is raising money at record-high levels for programs that enhance the wellbeing of those protecting the Jewish state.
FIDF, which raises more than $80 million annually, says it “offers a range of programs that address the educational, social, economic, recreational, spiritual, and cultural needs of the IDF soldiers as well as the families of soldiers fallen in defense of the State of Israel.” Among other programming, the organization supports bereaved families, supports “lone soldiers” whose families live outside of Israel, runs medical programs for wounded soldiers, and builds recreational centers as well as synagogues and educational facilities for soldiers.
This fall, FIDF has been hosting gala fundraisers around the country. On Nov. 6, the organization’s Western Region raised a record of more than $33 million in Beverly Hills, Calif. Other recent FIDF galas took place in Chicago ($2 million raised); Long Island, N.Y. ($1.4 million raised); Michigan ($1 million raised); Boston ($800,000 raised at the gala and $4.1 million raised by the region this year); northern New Jersey ($600,000 raised at the gala and $3 million raised by the region this year); Philadelphia; Ohio; San Francisco; San Diego; Baltimore; and Scarsdale, N.Y.

AOL, Cornell Tech to fund new labs in New York, Israel

The New York City-based Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute (part of the Cornell NYC Tech graduate school), which was born out of a 2011 collaboration between the upstate New York university and the Haifa one, announced the new lab’s opening on Wednesday.
The lab, called “Connected Experiences,” or ConnX, will last four years and is funded by a “multimillion” dollar gift from AOL. The exact amount was not disclosed.
The lab will operate in both Israel and New York, and will allow researchers to explore technologies in areas including communication and coordination, food and wellness, education and safety, and information and entertainment.
“The partnership with AOL will allow Cornell Tech and Technion researchers access to resources — platforms and engineering and product knowledge — that is not readily available in academic settings,” said Dan Huttenlocher, dean of Cornell Tech, in a statement.
The gift also supports a fellowship program for graduate students, half of them to be female, in New York and Israel. Faculty in the new ConnX lab will include Shiri Azenkot and Serge Belongie at Cornell Tech, and Anat Rafaeli, Nir Ailon and Roi Reichart at Technion.