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Monday, November 17, 2014

11/17 Links Pt2: The Ivory Tower’s Nazification of Israel; Dutch Officials Demonize Israelis

From Ian:

The Ivory Tower’s Nazification of Israel
“What if the Jews themselves were Nazis?,” mused French philosopher, Vladimir Jankélévitch in 1986. “That would be great. We would no longer have to feel sorry for them; they would have deserved what they got.”
The recasting of Israelis, and, by extension, Jews as Nazis has, in fact, taken place, just as Jankélévitch envisioned. This summer’s Israeli incursion, Operation Protective Edge, provided anti-Semites and loathers of the Jewish state with resurgent justifications for assigning the epithet of Nazi on the Jews yet another time, together with oft-heard accusations of “crimes against humanity, “massacres,” genocide,” and, according to recent comments by Turkey’s prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan, in their treatment of the Palestinians, Israel has demonstrated that “. . . their barbarism has surpassed even Hitler’s.”
The Nazification of Israelis—and by extension Jews—is both breathtaking in its moral inversion and cruel in the way it makes the actual victims of the Third Reich’s horrors a modern-day reincarnation of that same barbarity. It is, in the words of Boston University’s Richard Landes, “moral sadism,” a salient example of Holocaust inversion that is at once ahistorical, disingenuous, and grotesque in its moral and factual inaccuracy.
In reflecting on the current trend he perceived in the burgeoning of anti-Israelism around the world, Canadian Member of Parliament, Irwin Cotler, once observed that conventional strains of anti-Semitism had been masked, so that those who directed enmity towards Jews were now able to transfer that opprobrium to the Jew of nations, Israel.
Dutch Officials Demonize Israelis
The truth is that there has never been an Israeli genocide against Palestinians, neither systematic nor acute, and that Israel has done everything in its power apart from not going to war at all -- that is, apart from surrendering -- to spare innocent lives, including the lives of the people trying to destroy it. This argument falls on deaf ears among many Muslims, as well as on those of the youths who support them.
Sadly, it was not long before more prominent and mainstream Dutch figures began expressing similar thoughts. Pieter Broertjes, Labour Party mayor of the Dutch city and "media capital" Hilversum, said during a radio interview, when asked what to do about Dutch Muslims travelling to foreign battlegrounds: "They are adults. Dutch citizens went to Israel to fight the British, we didn't stop them either."
After his remarks produced a backlash, Broertjes's spokesperson formally apologized, but not Broertjes himself, although he did comment on his self-described "clumsy" comparison during later interviews.
A few months earlier, his Labour Party colleague, Yasmina Haifi, championed the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by stating (with a straight face): "ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. It is part of a plan by Zionists who are deliberately trying to blacken Islam's name" -- in other words, part of the supposed "Zionist conspiracy."
Jan Wijenberg, a former Dutch Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen among other places, and known for his fierce anti-Israeli stance, wrote an op-ed that took the comparison even further: "The IS goal is to establish a utopian religious state, just as the Zionists have done."
Australian Spectator: The Girl from Sderot
As a child, she and her family frequented the beautiful beaches of Gaza, enjoyed the fruits of Gaza’s famed market gardens and bought elegant furniture from local Arab craftsmen. Her family counted Palestinians among their friends, neighbours, acquaintances. In 2005, Israel unilaterally – and optimistically – withdrew from the Strip. Soldiers departed, settlers left or were forcibly removed.
And then came hell.
Today, aged 24, she – like everyone else throughout the Negev – lives on a permanent fifteen second fuse; the time it takes between loudspeakers announcing ‘Colour Red’ and Katyusha rockets hitting the ground, obliterating everything for a hundred metres and sending deadly nails, ballbearings and shrapnel for up to a kilometre. Like all women and children in Sderot she also now lives with the dread of being massacred in her bed: notes recently discovered in an Hamas tunnel reveal plans for such an attack.
Yet, devoid of bitterness or hatred, she studies Arabic at Ben-Gurion university, in the hope of eventually working as a diplomat, politician or NGO worker who might – just might – help bring about peace with the Palestinians. She is the determined face of young Israel.
Bob Carr [former Aust. FM], a lazy narcissist too concerned about his silk pyjamas and rolled oats to bother getting to grips with the wretched complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his 18 months as Australia’s foreign minister, now seeks to grandstand with the left by cynically demonizing Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state. The girl from Sderot puts him to shame.



Elliott Abrams: How safe are the Jews of Europe?‎
A new study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (a London-based research ‎organization, which conducted the survey on behalf of the Fundamental Rights Agency of ‎the EU) is "the first in a series of reports looking at the perceptions and experiences of ‎anti-Semitism among Jews in different EU member states."‎
The findings are alarming, although they make it clear that the situation of British Jews is ‎considerably better than that of Jews living on the Continent.‎
The study is titled "The Exceptional Case? Perceptions and experiences of ‎antisemitism ‎among Jews in the United Kingdom," and can be found here. Among the findings about ‎the U.K.:‎
IsraellyCool: What Is NBC News Doing To Its Staff In Israel?
A little under a day ago veteran Arab Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh shared a brief and somewhat cryptic message with his friends on Facebook and twitter:
This morning he’s followed it up with a longer message on Facebook shared only with friends, with permission I’m quoting him here:
"There’s a serious problem when a major US network tells its employees they won’t get compensation for decades of work unless they promise not to say or write anything about their former working place.
In other words, they are saying: You must not reveal any of our secrets or tell the world about double standards and hypocrisy of the foreign media.
Not only is this unethical and filthy, but it’s also a form of blackmail. I wonder if NBC NEWS would treat its employees in the US in the same way. And what is NBC NEWS afraid of?"

Clearly NBC News has sent some communication out to all of it’s staff in Israel and perhaps the wider region with a change to the terms of their employment.
What are they afraid of? Is this somehow linked to the kinds of revelations of inherent bias that Matti Friedman exposed in the workings of the Associated Press (AP) in Jerusalem that we’ve covered in depth at Israellycool?
I’m going to be keeping a very close eye on this, I think there is a growing number of insiders who know the system of producing news about Israel for the outside world is fundamentally broken. NBC News might be trying to stick their finger in a collapsing dyke while water starts to pour over the top.
Making sense of Germany’s anti-Semitic ‘Toiletgate’ scandal
The battle for the non-anti-Semitic soul of the German Left Party is properly unfolding.
The Left Party’s charismatic head in the Bundestag, Gregor Gysi, threw down a gauntlet in the first week of November, with his effort to rope in leftist anti-Semitism and Holocaust trivialization.
Pro-Israel German observers viewed a public letter signed by Pau and Volker Beck, MP from the Green Party, to be a remarkable document. It urged the Volksbühne theater not to host an event with the anti-Zionist Jewish extremists David Sheen and Max Blumenthal, because it would serve “to promote anti-Semitic prejudice by comparing the terrorism of the Nazis with Israeli policies.”
It was apparently the first instance of left-liberal parties in Germany acknowledging the phenomenon of Jewish anti-Semitism.
The theater parley was canceled, jolting the anti-Israel Left Party MPs and extremists into a scene of public humiliation. Blumenthal went on a bizarre diatribe about Gysi and the notorious former East German secret police, the Stasi.
Ben Cohen, a NY-based expert on anti-Semitism and author of Some Of My Best Friends: A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Antisemitism, told the Post that, ”To see Blumenthal ranting and raving about ‘Stasi-ism’ and the Soviet practice of censorship is grimly amusing. After all, the comparison between Israel and the Nazis was a staple of Soviet anti-semitic propaganda and it’s one that Blumenthal faithfully recycles.”
UK Jews Invited British J Street Into its Inner Sanctum
Yachad, the United Kingdom’s version of J Street, has just been admitted into the official inner sanctum of British Jewry, the Board of Deputies.
The Board of Deputies is a rough equivalent of the much longer named Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. That organization rejected J Street’s bid for admission late last spring. The BoD has many more member organizations, although each represents a much smaller total number of Jews than does the American counterpart.
Officially the BoD describes itself as “the voice of British Jewry: a cross-communal, democratic, grassroots organization, and thus the authoritative first port of cal for Government, media and others seeking to understand Jewish community interests and concerns.”
Good Jews Who Do Not Know They Are Funding Extremists
In reviewing the most recently available financial report of the New Israel Fund, one can be amazed at some of their donors who - we hope - are not fully aware of the activities of the New Israel Fund (NIF), which provides nearly $27 million to radical left-wing and some openly anti-Israel organizations.
While many donors use NIF purely as a “clearinghouse” whereby their funds are passed to “partner” organizations, by using NIF as a conduit donors are lending tacit support to issues which are dangerous to the State of Israel. Check the organizations who receive their funds and it is clear.
How many NIF donors support the viewpoints of Alma Biblash, the Executive Director of the Human Rights Defenders Fund (HRDF) an organization to whom the NIF authorized grants worth $332,625 from 2011-2013, and who has called Israel “racist,” and “murderous,” and described the country as a “temporary Jewish apartheid state.” Biblash supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns and promotes the Palestinian Arab ‘right of return.’
Knesset members have accused NIF of “lobbying and funding activities that are all part of a campaign to destabilize the IDF”, but one wonders during times like these how many of their donors are actually aware of the NIF partner organizations calling Israel a “temporary Jewish apartheid state.”
Calgary YMCA rescinds peace award of pro-Palestinian activist
The Calgary Jewish Federation had protested the YMCA’s decision to award Saima Jamal the prize after a July 18 protest she organized against Israel’s war in Gaza ended with scuffles between pro-Palestinian activists and Israel supporters.
“Earlier this week, after careful and fulsome consideration, YMCA Calgary made the decision not to award a 2014 Peace Medal in the Community Peace Initiatives — Individual category at YMCA Calgary Peace Medals,” the YMCA said in a statement Friday, adding that it would not comment further on the situation until after speaking with Jamal.
Jamal expressed shock at the decision, which came less than a week after she was notified she would be receiving the award.
“That displays complete lack of respect for my work,” she said, according to CBC News. “I feel, to tell you the truth, lost. How can someone do this to me, an institution as respectable as the Y?”
Israel Denies Anti-Israel Doctor Banned 'For Life'
The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed that a Norweigan doctor with a long record as an anti-Israel activist has been banned from entering Israel, but denied reports he was also being blocked from visiting Gaza.
"He has been banned from entering Israel," foreign ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson told AFP, but he added that contrary to previous reports the ban was not necessarily permanent.
Hirschson denied the ban was a punitive measure, saying it was "exclusively a result of security considerations." He did not elaborate.
"The decision is exclusively a result of a security consideration. It is not a punishment, and therefore it has no time frame," he said.
"It is not 'forever' as some have implied, but for as long as the security considerations which have led to it remain the same."
Guardian omits key context in quote by Israel spokesman about Mads Gilbert
The Indy made it clear that Hirschon was responding to Gilbert’s support for al-Qaeda’s attacks on 9/11 when suggesting that he “was not on the side of decency”, while the Guardian omitted this context, making it appear as if Hirschon was merely responding to the Norwegian doctor’s criticism of Israel.
Further, CiF Watch contacted Paul Hirschon who noted to us that he didn’t speak to Shuttleworth or anyone from the Guardian about their story, and that it was during his conversation with The Independent about Gilbert’s support for the al-Qaeda attacks that he opined that the Norwegian activist was “not on the side of decency and peace”.
Whatever the reason for Shuttleworth’s omission, the bottom line is that Guardian readers were denied key information which would make Hirschon’s criticism of Gilbert possible to understand.
BBC’s favourite Norwegian doctor given multiple platforms for medical agitprop
Notably, the BBC made no effort to inform audiences of the controversy surrounding that letter when two of Gilbert’s co-signatories were found to have a history of disseminating antisemitic material or of the Lancet editor’s subsequent comments on the issue.
The BBC knows full well that there is no “siege” on the Gaza Strip and it should by now also be aware of the fact that Israel does not pose any limitations on the entry of medical supplies. However, it continues to mislead BBC audiences worldwide by providing an unhindered platform for Mads Gilbert’s promotion these falsehoods, thus clearly breaching its own supposed editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.
Elevating Arafat
Writing in the Irish Times, Michael Jansen examines whether a third intifada has begun a decade after Yasser Arafat’s death. According to him:
"The death of Arafat, “Mr Palestine”, at 75 on November 11th, 2004, marked an end to the era of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation by political and armed means."
Did Palestinian terror end with the death of Arafat as this seems to suggest? A simple look at the statistics and the death toll to the present day tells its own story.
Indeed, the rest of the article virtually whitewashes Arafat’s terrorism, lionizing him as a successful leader and statesman despite stating that “both armed struggle and negotiations have failed.”
Midwest White Supremacist Sorry He Killed Gentile instead of Jews
The 73-year-old white supremacist who killed three non-Jews in a shooting spree last Passover eve at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and a nearby Jewish retirement home has said that he wanted to feel good by killing Jews before he dies.
Besides suffering from a sick mind, F. Glenn Miller also suffers from emphysema.
In several interview with the Kansas City Star, Miller said that after he killed his victims, he was surprised to learn from a newspaper report that they were not Jewish, but he still had the satisfaction of making “Jews feel less secure.”
“I was convinced there would be all Jews or mostly Jews” at the two centers, he said,
Antwerp Stabbing 'Not Surprising', Says WZO Official
"Unfortunately, we are receiving reports about incidents such as this all the time,” he said, noting that there has been a substantial increase in violent anti-Semitic incidents in Belgium. He stressed that he was not talking about graffiti and other similar incidents, but rather about real violence against Jews.
"It's not just in Belgium," said Hagoel. "There has been a wave of anti-Semitism since Operation Protective Edge. Over the last decade there has been an increase in cases of violent anti-Semitism. Every year there are more incidents than in the previous year. This worries us and we are trying to combat it.”
As to how to fight the phenomenon, Hagoel noted that the main objective is to raise public awareness. “People close their eyes and bury their heads in the sand. We are told by community leaders they life can go on as usual,” he said.
"The Israeli government and the Jewish Agency are trying to strengthen the Jewish communities around the world and raise their spirits but we are in a difficult time period," added Hagoel, adding that there is a problem with some of parliaments in Europe, where anti-Semitic parties have gained power.
French Muslims see Jews controlling nation’s economy, media
The assertion that Jews control the media received an approval rating of 23 percent in the general population group and 70 percent among practicing Muslims.

In the first survey, 1,005 respondents from the general population answered a series of questions about their attitudes toward Jews. Their answers were compared with responses several days later to the same questions by 575 people who said they were either Muslim or were born to a Muslim family.
Among the general population, 32 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “Jews use to their own benefit their status as victims of the Nazi genocide” compared to 56 percent of respondents from the Muslim group and among those who voted for the far-right National Front party in 2012. Among voters for the Front de Gauche far-left party, the assertion had a 51 percent approval rating.
The existence of “an international Zionist conspiracy” was endorsed by 16 percent of the general population and by 44 percent of Muslim respondents. The same figure among Front de Gauche voters called Zionism “a racist ideology” compared to 23 percent in the general population.
In the general population group, 46 percent of respondents endorsed the description of Zionism as “an ideology that proclaims the right of the Jews to have their own country on their ancestors’ land.”
Poll reveals anti-Semitism in Poland, renews debate over hate-speech laws
More than half of Polish youth visit anti-Semitic websites that glorify Hitler and the Nazi era, according to a new poll that has renewed debate about laws governing hate speech and stoked the concerns of Poland’s dwindling Jewish population.
The data, gathered by the Warsaw University Center for Research on Prejudice, was presented to the Polish parliament on Nov. 5. Some participants in the poll embraced such blatantly anti-Semitic statements as “Jews must realize that they themselves made the Poles hate them because of their treason and crimes.”
Twenty-one percent of the youth polled and 19 percent of adults said such hate speech should not be banned, while 14 percent of all those polled said racist language was common in Poland.
Kharkov: Graffiti Death Threats at Jewish School
Jewish students in Kharkov, Ukraine were shocked to discover serious anti-Semitic graffiti sprayed across their school building Thursday.
The graffiti included the slogans "Kill the Jews," and "Heil Happy Holocaust," as well as crossed out images of Stars of David and swastikas.
Educators were quick to call the local police, who arrived immediately and conducted tests and other trace search operations.
Kharkov's Chief Rabbi Moshe Moskowitz responded to the disturbing incident: "We cannot point to who did this. At such a sensitive time it is difficult to know who is behind this act."
Saudi school 'teaching anti-Semitism'
A reporter from News magazine got hold of a copy of a school history textbook which is said to contain "a smorgasbord of conspiracy theories and incitement against Jews, Israelis and divergent trends in Islam".
News commissioned a translation of the book from Arabic - which has sentences like “the Freemasons were a secret, subversive Jewish organization, which aimed to secure Jewish control of the world".
The school has now been asked to provide certified German translations of all its teaching materials by the end of the year.
The Saudi School is run by the Saudi government and is not a religious institution. All lessons are taught in Arabic and follow the Saudi curriculum. However, the school must still comply with statutes set by the Austrian Education Ministry, and anti-semitism and incitement is against Austrian law.
Ashdod Chapter of KKK Struggling To Recruit (satire)
The Ku Klux Klan, long known for its vocal opposition to blacks, Jews, Catholics, and nonwhite immigrants, established its Ashdod chapter in 1990, as the last major influx of immigrants from the crumbling Soviet Union was underway. Grand dragon Ed Vickers, now 65, recalls the heady atmosphere surrounding the moment, as he and the three other founding members looked forward to what they thought would be a rich field of new recruits. To their dismay, in the intervening years only three new members have joined, and one of those was likely a clerical error.
Vickers and his colleagues, transplants from Idaho and Washington state, saw statistics regarding the number of Jews living in Ashdod, which at the time had a Jewish population of about 84,000. Realizing that the figure dwarfed the Jewish presence in both Idaho and Washington combined, the trio – Vickers, Duane Lamaar, and Duke Scott – saw a gold mine of potential in enlisting other residents of the coastal Israeli city to fight the presence of those Jews in their midst, and set out to accomplish what many others before had done throughout the United States.
Immediately, however, the three encountered difficulty in locating, let alone attracting, potential new members. “We went door to door at one point, canvassing, handing out a few flyers warning folks of the Jewish menace,” recalls Lamaar, 62. “We mostly got blank stares. I thought at first they were simply ignorant, maybe didn’t speak English, and, well, that could be why we didn’t make much headway.”
Star of David gone in new Apple OS, but it’s not alone
Sensitive pro-Israel fans of Apple’s Macintosh computers can relax: A change in icon, from a Jewish star to the letter aleph, in the text input list of the Mac’s new operating system does not appear to be part of an anti-Israel or anti-Jewish campaign by Apple.
Rather, it seems to be part of a campaign against the flags of all countries outside Europe or North America, says an expert.
In recent days, there’s been considerable online buzz surrounding the fact that with the new Yosemite operating system for its Mac computers, Apple has dropped the blue Star of David that appeared when a user was typing in Hebrew. The symbol had appeared on the top right-hand corner of the screen, indicating that the user was in Hebrew mode and that whatever was being typed would be in Hebrew. In Yosemite, the Star of David has been replaced by an aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
The Jewish star has indeed been replaced. But so have the flags of India, China, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Iran – in fact, the flags of nearly every country in Africa and Asia have been dropped. The flags that formerly “flew” on top of the Mac screen in previous incarnations of the OS have been replaced by characters from each language. (Two notable exceptions are Greece, which saw its flag dropped even though it’s European, and Vietnam, whose flag is still included even though it’s in Asia.)
PR leader Charley Levine dies at 62
Charley J. Levine, one of the icons of the Anglo-Israel world, died on Sunday after a short illness. He was 62.
During his career as one of the top public relations professional in the country, Levine worked with dozens of international leaders including Al Gore, Mike Huckabee, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Irwin Cotler, Rupert Murdoch, Ed Koch, Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Levine was founder and CEO of Lone Star Communications, one of Israel’s most active public affairs and media relations consultancies. Until June 2006, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Ruder Finn Israel. Prior to that, Levine established Charles Levine Communications in 1983 and served as its president and CEO.
Elbit will install anti-missile lasers on German Air Force planes
Elbit Systems will install its J-Music anti-missile laser protection system on German Air Force transport planes, the Israeli defense firm announced Monday.
Elbit was awarded the contract by Germany's DIEHL Defence company, and within a year, the system will be operational on new German A400M Airbus aircraft.
"Designed to protect large military and commercial aircraft against attacks by ground to air heat seeking man-portable missiles (MANPADS), the J-MUSIC systems, will be integrated into a multi-turret DIRCM (Direct Infra Red Counter-Measures) system, ensuring 360 degree protection of the aircraft," Elbit said in a statement.
VW, SAP, Shell team up for Israeli connected car solution
The future of driving is the connected car, and last week, German cars-maker Volkswagen announced that it was teaming up with oil producer Shell and software giant SAP Technologies to help build that future – courtesy of the SAP’s Israel office. SAP is supplying the software and network connectedness component of the technology — which is being developed in SAP’s Ra’anana offices.
According to SAP, driving would be a lot more fun if some of the more prevalent frustrations involved – like knowing where to look for parking, automatically opening gates at tollbooths and garages when you approach (instead of having to fumble around for tokens or tickets), or even helping families figure out the best and most fun places to take the kids.
“Connected” has become a major buzzword in the automobile industry, as manufacturers seek new features to distinguish their brands, and to provide additional safety measures. The ultimate in connected cars is the Google car, which, if and when perfected, will “drive” itself, with the vehicle receiving all its instructions about where to go, what route to take, and where to park without human interaction.
Beta-O2 testing cure for type 1 diabetes
The ßAir bio-artificial pancreas, developed by Israel’s Beta-O2, was recently implanted in the first of eight diabetes patients in Sweden as part of a $1 million pilot human study on this groundbreaking treatment and potential cure for type 1 diabetes (T1D).
Chairman of the Board Dan Gelvan tells ISRAEL21c that the advanced implantable system is science-fiction-come-true for people with T1D, an autoimmune disorder — also known as insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes – in which the immune system destroys the insulin-producing islet cells of the pancreas.
T1D patients (about three million people in the United States alone) must monitor their glucose and take insulin daily to do the essential job of converting sugar, starches and other food into energy – a task normally handled by about two grams of islet cells.
“Imagine if those with type 1 diabetes no longer had to worry about insulin injections or glucose levels. They could eat what they wanted, exercise as they wished and need not measure every step they took,” says Gelvan, also managing director of life sciences at Aurum Ventures, the company’s lead investor. “This is the future that Beta-O2 envisions ßAir will help to create.”
Competition Winners Announced at Israel’s 2014 Homeland Security Conference
On November 12, Windward and CyberSeal were named the first- and second-place winners, respectively, of the International Innovation Competition for HLS and Cyber Technology at Israel’s 2014 Homeland Security Conference, which was sponsored by the Chief Scientist at Israel’s Ministry of Economy with the the Israel Export Institute CyberSeal and MATIMOP – The Israeli Industry Center for R&D.
Windward, an intelligence and information technology company, was established in 2010 by Israeli Navy veterans Matan Peled and Ami Daniel shortly after commercial satellites started being used to pinpoint the precise location of ships on the open sea. Combining traditional naval skills with modern data science, Windward offers technology and intelligence tools that enable port and customs authorities and watchdog NGOs to monitor the movement of any ship around the globe and automatically determine whether a particular vessel may be involved in illegal activities. Windward is now developing a way to map the global movement of goods in order to help Wall Street traders and other financial entities identify and determine trade opportunities in real-time.
Over 250,000 tourists from Arab countries visited Israel from 2009
Most of the tourists came from countries who do not maintain diplomatic ties with Israel
Over a quarter million of Muslim and Arab tourists have visited Israel since 2009, with a majority of them coming from countries which have no diplomatic ties with Jerusalem, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth revealed Sunday, citing a report by the Population and Immigration Authority.
Nearly a half of those – 124,719 tourists – came from Indonesia, 23,483 from Malaysia, 38 from Saudi Arabia, 168 from the United Arab Emirates and 147 from Qatar and Oman. Almost 100,000 came from countries which maintain diplomatic relations with Israel: 81,000 from Jordan and 13,333 from Egypt.
Almost all of the tourists arrived in the country for religious reasons, the report said, visiting and praying at the holy places in Jerusalem. However, many also visit Palestinian relatives, seek medical treatment or do business and shopping.
Victory: Israel Takes the Top in Euro 2016 Qualifying Group
Israel's national soccer team soundly defeated Bosnia 3-0 on Sunday night at Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa, placing itself squarely at the head of its group in the qualifying round of the UEFA 2016 European Championship.
Over 30,000 fans cheered the victory, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid), as Israel took the top of Group B with nine points, placing itself ahead of Wales.
The match leaves Israel undefeated in the qualifying games, having won last month against Andorra 4-1 and Cyprus 2-1. Israel is a point ahead of Wales, even though Wales has already played four matches.
Achmed the Dead Terrorist Goes to Israel - Jeff Dunham: All Over the Map