11/26 Links Pt2: SJP plans illegal activity against Jewish students and Israel

From Ian:

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Leaked: SJP plans illegal activity against Jewish students and Israel

A recently uncovered internal document of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Binghamton University SUNY sheds new light on the anti-Semitic bigotry of SJP groups across the country, as well as SJP’s ties to international campaigns to harm the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
Entitled “Declaration of Principles and Strategies,” the document specifically outlines strategies for targeting, ostracizing, harassing, and silencing students on campus who oppose the boycott of Israel or who simply attend a pro-Israel event. In a lengthy section on “Tactics and Strategies Used to Counter Zionist Normalization,” the document gives detailed instructions for when and how to disrupt “Zionist” events and activities on campus. Disrupting an event is a direct violation of others’ right to freedom of expression and assembly, and a blatant violation of New York law.
The internal Binghamton-SJP Declaration is a window into “anti-Zionist normalization” campaigns being waged by SJP groups across the country, whose explicit purpose is to delegitimize all pro-Israel perspectives and actively suppress their expression on college campuses. These campaigns have resulted in dozens of Jewish and pro-Israel students’ events being disrupted, and Jewish and pro-Israel students feeling harassed, intimidated, and stripped of their constitutionally-protected freedom of expression and association.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Evil spirit taking over Middle Eastern studies

One of the main reasons for imposing a boycott on Israel is the "oppression of higher education" among the Palestinians. That's an interesting reason. In practice, when Israel entered the territories there were zero – zero! – higher education institutions there. This isn't Zionist propaganda. It's what Birzeit University President Gabi Baramki said.
In recent years, following the horrible oppression, the Palestinians have ranked first in the percentage of people with higher education in the Arab world. Again, this is the conclusion of a joint research conducted by two people, an anti-Zionist Jew and a Palestinian researcher. World Bank data reflect the same conclusion.
These are the facts. Of course they won't confuse the big experts on Middle Eastern studies. They will continue to blame Israel for almost every crime in the world. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Hero’s Welcome for Hater of Israel at MESA

So Steven Salaita isn’t a critic of Israel. Tom Friedman is a critic of Israel. Steven Salaita is a hater of Israel, it’s a title he’s proud to claim, and that hatred runs like a thread through all he writes and says.
Now if you aren’t a hater of Israel, you still might think that Steven Salaita deserves your support—not because of his hatred of Israel, but despite it. Academic life, once famous for its guarantees of job security, isn’t what it used to be, and the way Salaita was “de-hired” by the University of Illinois is the sum of every academic’s fears. If that’s you, and Steven Salaita enters the hall, you might offer up some polite (“civil”) applause, as a gesture of labor solidarity. But if Steven Salaita enters the room, and you rise to your feet in an enthusiastic standing ovation reserved for a true hero, that’s not a gesture of support. It’s an outpouring of adulation, because Salaita has been brash enough to say what you think: what exactly is wrong with hating Israel?
So at this year’s Middle East Studies Association (MESA) conference, on the very first day, I found myself in a standing-room-only audience of Israel-haters wearing MESA badges, who received Steven Salaita with a standing ovation. When I last attended MESA, in 1998, Edward Said got just such an ovation. Said was larger than life. Salaita is smaller than life—an indifferent speaker whose every other sentence ends in “right?”—but he is the anti-Israel, and in the yawning void left by the passing of Said, even a Salaita will do.

Arab NGO's 'Demonization' of Israeli Law Exposed

Two NGO Monitor reports released Wednesday exposed how radical NGOs in Israel are warping Israeli law to present it as "racist" for an international public, and are receiving heavy funding from Europe and the US.
One report focused on the Israel-based Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, which was behind an unsuccessful 2012 petition to nullify the "Nakba Law" that blocks funding for groups claiming the founding of Israel was a "catastrophe."
Adalah's database launched last March lists 101 Israeli laws and proposed bills that it considers "discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel in all areas of life." Adding to the importance of the list is the fact it has been cited widely in international media.
"Adalah's law database promotes the false and demonizing allegation that 'Zionism is racism,' and labels all references to the Jewish connection to Israel, including use of the Hebrew calendar or menorah symbol, as 'racist,'" NGO Monitor president Professor Gerald Steinberg said.
Steinberg added "Adalah also strips away the comparative context, treating Israel's status as the nation-state of the Jewish people as if it were unique among democratic societies."
In a second report, NGO Monitor tackled Zochrot, another NGO in Israel that supports the "Nakba" narrative opposing Israel's very existence, and accuses Israel of "ethnic cleansing."
The NGO is set to host an event at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque running from Thursday to Saturday entitled "48mm - The 2nd International Film Festival on Nakba and Return."

NGO Monitor: Adalah´s Database of Laws: Imagining Racism to Demonize Israel
NGO Monitor: European Funding for Zochrot, NGO Behind “Nakba” Film Festival

Where's the Coverage? Israeli Arabs Prefer Israel to Palestinian Authority

The mainstream media relishes reporting on a proposed bill being debated in Israel that would identify the Jewish state as the nation-state of the Jewish people. News outlets are falling over themselves to quote the bill’s critics and Israel’s critics, regurgitating the tired accusations about Israel’s broken or failing or stained democracy and how anti-Arab and racist Israel must be.
But, they are utterly silent about a new poll released by Israel’s Channel 10 News and conducted by the Statnet Research Institute, headed by Israeli Arab statistician Yousef Makladeh. Israel Today reports:
Makladeh asked fellow Arabs plainly and clearly: "Under which authority do you prefer to live, Israel or the Palestinian Authority?"
A full 77 percent of respondents chose Israel.
The vast majority – over three quarters – of Israeli Arabs prefer to live under the “racist” “apartheid regime” of Israel rather than under the Palestinian Authority.

Is Israel really an Apartheid State? (h/t Daphne Anson)


Report Reveals US Schools Whitewashing Hamas, PA

Parents groups are up in arms after a recent report found public schools in Newton, Massachusetts presented whitewashed versions of Hamas and Palestinian Authority (PA) charters, as well as other materials posing the destruction of Israel as acceptable.
The findings were made through an investigation of classroom materials by the independent watchdog group Verity Educate, which discovered "repeated instances of bias against Israel, bias against the US and its actions in the Middle East, and bias that sanitizes the ideology and actions of terrorists."
Parents for Excellence in Newton Schools (PENS), which took part in the research, on Sunday released a statement demanding action over the issue and detailing just how serious the school materials were.
In one case, students were given a modified version of the Hamas charter, in which references to genocide were removed and the word "Jew" was replaced with "Israeli" to sanitize the terrorist group's murderous intentions.
Likewise, the PA charter was presented with Article 2 missing, an article that claims all of Israel belongs to "Palestine." All following articles were renumbered to hide the change to the key piece showing the PA aims to replace Israel, not live alongside it.

Why I Was Called a Nazi on my College Campus

Last week, among other things, I was told by a Palestinian student visiting FSU that the 67 innocent Jews murdered in Hebron in 1929 were actually not Jews, but Arabs. I was also told I am less of a person than Hitler because at least Hitler had the chutzpah to declare his genocide on the Jewish people and that I am masquerading as though I want peace. I was told I am a racist, and a Nazi, and an imperialist who needs to check my white privilege. I was told that Israel is not a state but an occupying force directly responsible for the plight of the Palestinian people. I was told that the Palestinians are not interested in peace and coexistence, but that they will take back the land that is rightfully theirs. I was told that Hamas and Fatah are in no way responsible for what is happening to the people in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza. I read a sign “Israel=terrorist.”
And I think for the first time in my adult life, I truly understood what it means to stare racism straight in the face. I had a showdown with our campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Students for a Democratic Society, both of whom fervently protest Israel on a regular basis. The conversation circled around the misinformation displayed by the Palestinian supporters on our campus green in front of the library. I asked them for their material and asked them what their views were.

South African court bans BDS protests inside Woolworths

The Johannesburg High Court banned BDS South Africa on Tuesday from protesting in Woolworths stores.
The South African retailer, with a stock market cap of NIS 10 billion, has been involved in a long-running battle with boycott, divestment and sanctions activists over three Israeli foods that the store imports: pomegranates, figs and pretzels.
All together, Israeli products make up 0.1 percent of foods in Woolworths supermarkets.
The company, explaining why it was taking the matter to court, said the BDS campaign’s decision to ramp up its protest action left Woolworths with no other choice but to protect customers and staff, allowing them to shop and work unhindered.
“The right of BDS to assemble and protest does not extend to protest action inside Woolworths stores,” said the company in its court application.
The campaign took an ugly turn when a student body aligned with the ruling government placed pigs’ heads in what they thought was the kosher section of a Woolworths store in Cape Town last month. (h/t Yenta Press)

Seriously, its Time for the BDS to get a grip

News24, one of South Africa’s premier news sites seems to share their obsession and firmly places any activity in the spotlight given a hint of opportunity. But they would do well to read their readers’ responses to the articles that are given such prominence. South African’s are clearly sick of being bullied and intimidated and of being shown mock-dead people. They are sick of the BDS minimizing the horrors of apartheid by using the term loosely and without care. They are offended by the fact that their African brothers and sisters are being kidnapped and raped and blown up in markets on the continent whilst the BDS protest about pomegranates. It’s offensive to any sane person.
They have resorted to making up Woolworths financials in determining what the company has lost in revenue, they have deceived the press with so called “Shareholder” meetings and they have made a mockery of real suffering. Their integrity is quite clearly being questioned and it is time that they acknowledged their failure. It’s time to regroup. Seriously, as I would tell my children, its time to get a grip. And there is little time to be wasted.

The BDS Theatre of the Absurd

The latest production in the ongoing BDS propaganda circus was last week’s so-called “Woolworths Shareholders Press Conference”. Few realised that this was not a Woolworths shareholder meeting, but an impersonation of such an event mounted by BDS to create a media frenzy for their cause. As ever, the notion of truth was entirely irrelevant. The idea, rather, was to demonise the State of Israel and its supporters as much as possible, whilst bullying and intimidating the public at large into complying with its bigoted programme.
Present at this tour de farce was, as always, the “token Jew” who supports boycotts of Israel; Cosatu (whose Western Cape leader, Tony Ehrenreich, currently faces criminal charges for hate speech against the Jewish community); and BDS-SA, represented by National Co-ordinator, Mohammed Desai (who so memorably expressed the opinion that publicly chanting “Shoot the Jew” is not so big a deal).
The bogus “Shareholders’ conference” was just the latest piece of Israel-bashing street theatre by BDS SA. In recent years, we have seen numerous events demonising Israel, and often Jewish South Africans as well. This includes the annual hate-Israel jamboree known as “Israel Apartheid Week”, where its supporters have invaded and forcibly prevented Jewish functions from continuing and disrupted any business, academic or cultural event that ran counter to their blinkered views.

Pro-ISIS Group Says ‘Use Ferguson Flames to Fuel Terror in America’

Posted to Twitter in Ferguson, MO by St. Louis County Police: "Bricks thrown at police, 2 police cars burned, gun seized by police. Tonight was disappointing." Their motto is, "To protect and serve."
A group linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror organization is calling for lone wolf attackers to use the Ferguson riots in America as cover for their activities.
Al Nusra al-Maqdisiyya, a group of pro-ISIS activists who operate across social media on the Internet, tweeted on its Twitter account:
"O lone mujahid, you must use the breakdown of security in #Ferguson to increase the burning in America. They are squabbling over worldly [matters], so you send them to hell! #ISIS."

And Now They Blame Ferguson On The Jews

This is one of those rare occasions when The Mike Report is speechless. These photos were taken in downtown Seattle earlier this evening in the wake of the Ferguson grand jury verdict. Upset with the verdict in Missouri? Then boycotting Israel makes perfect sense.
The banner was carried by members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee. The same group was associated with protests this Summer in downtown Seattle which featured swastikas and comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany.

Al-Jazeera America’s Fraudulent USS Liberty Documentary

An Al-Jazeera America "documentary" with the inflammatory title, "The Day Israel Attacked America," promotes the myth of a far-reaching conspiracy regarding what repeated investigations have determined was a tragic accident, Israel's attack on the Navy's U.S.S. Liberty during the 1967 Six-Day War. Al-Jazeera recycles discredited charges that Israeli pilots knew beforehand they were about to attack an American ship. In this video, as in previous such works, some former Liberty crewmen and like-minded conspiracists insist that the U.S. government, including the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and Congress, failed to investigate the attack. In reality, six separate inquiries determined the attack to have been a "fog of war" mistake:
The Al-Jazeera America television news network seems intent upon using this fraudulent video to inculcate its viewers with the false belief that Israel is an enemy of America. But in fact it is Al-Jazeera America, whose owner/operator, the government of Qatar is a major funder of Hamas, the terrorist Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, and past supporter of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, whose government was overthrown by the military after tens of millions of Egyptians had demanded the fundamentalists' ouster, that is itself a problematic news source for American viewers. The network's ongoing anti-Israel propaganda is contained in its technically high-quality presentations including numerous "news hour" style broadcasts. The network's collaborators include National Public Radio (NPR) – partially supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars – which provides promotional endorsements during newscasts for Al-Jazeera America broadcasts. The propaganda has been extensively documented in CAMERA‘s Web feature “Al-Jazeera America Watch.”

New York Times Israel Correspondent Jodi Rudoren Attacks Critics as ‘Noisy Group of Advocates’

Jodi Rudoren, the New York Times bureau chief in Israel, has launched an unprecedented attack on pro-Israeli critics of her journalism, declaring that there “is a very active and very noisy group of advocates who has decided that tearing apart coverage of the conflict is a good tool of advocacy.”
Rudoren was speaking at a conference held at Israel’s Bar Ilan University last weekend which focused on media coverage of Operation Protective Edge, launched against the Hamas regime in Gaza by the IDF over the summer in response to thousands of rocket attacks on Israeli population centers.
Rudoren reserved special opprobrium for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA,) a media watchdog that has regularly uncovered factual errors and editorial bias in her reporting. The organization’s name is “not accurate”, she claimed, because its members are “not for accuracy in Middle East reporting, but for promoting a pro-Israel message, which is absolutely their right, just as the Institute for Middle East Understanding is not for Middle East Understanding, but for promoting the Palestinian narrative.” (h/t MtTB)

UN: 12.2 million Syrians need humanitarian help

Amos painted a grim picture of the worsening situation in Syria: a 40 percent contraction in the economy since 2011, three-quarters of the population living in poverty, a 50 percent drop in school attendance, and 7.6 million people displaced inside the country and 3.2 million who have fled to other countries -- the largest displacement in any conflict.
Amos' briefing followed the release Tuesday of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's report to the council on implementation of the July 14 resolution authorizing cross-border delivery of aid to Syrians in rebel-held areas without government approval through four crossings in three countries. One crossing from Iraq, now controlled by extremists, has never been used.
Amos said that since the adoption of the resolution, and primarily through cross-border deliveries, the U.N. has delivered aid to nearly all hard-to-reach locations in four governorates -- Aleppo, Idlib, Daraa, and Quneitra -- which is why it should be renewed.

Jordan Deports Syrian Refugees, Watchdog Says

U.S.-based NGO Human Rights Watch first reported Monday that the government of Jordan sent Syrian refugees back to their war-torn homeland, including unaccompanied minors and wounded civilians.
According to HRW’s report, Jordanian police raided and closed a treatment center in the city of Ramtha near the border with Syria, where 12 refugees were receiving regular medical care. They then forced the group, which included six paralyzed men and two children, to go to private residences in the Syrian border town of Deraa, where they lacked access to the medical help they needed.

'They Even Cut the Throats of the Babies': Yazidi Survivors Share How They Lost Their Families to ISIS

Speaking to the UK's Daily Mail, a number of refugees living in various centers across Iraq told stories and shared photos of the family they had either never seen again or watched die before their eyes. "My older brother, my father, my mother, my wife and even my two kids were killed. All I have left of them is just one picture on my mobile phone," says one man, Tahysn, whose two sons were aged three and four when killed.
A Yazidi grandmother identified as Rezal, who escaped Mount Sinjar, managed to escape the wrath of the Islamic State, but watched children die on the mountain of thirst and heat. "When we left Sinjar, the kids suffered a lot... Many men from our village died, many women have been captured. I saw some kids dying because of the heat," she said. "Daesh [the local name for ISIS based on their Arabic acronym]... even cut the throats of the babies," she said.

Analysts: ISIS Developing 'Colonies' in Middle East as it Gains Credibility Among Jihadists

One report from the Washington Institute says ISIS has developed colonies in areas as far as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, and in the Sinai Peninsula through jihadist groups declaring loyalty to the Islamic State.
ISIS has spread, they note, as far as Africa. One station is the result of fighters loyal to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gaining complete control of the Libyan seaport city of Derna. Derna is near the Egyptian border and about 200 miles from Greece.
Jerusalem-based intelligence analyst Adina Kutnicki told Breitbart in an interview that ISIS’ expansion into Libya is definitely an offensive move.
“Wherever the Caliphate (ISIS) claims as its address and hoists its banner, rest assured, offensive jihad gains exponential traction,” Kutnicki said.

British Islamist in Support of ISIS Beheadings: Adult Infidels Are Combatants


Khamenei: Iran Will Continue to Support Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that his country will continue to support the Islamic Jihad terror group in Gaza as well as rival Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
The three terror organizations have collectively fired thousands of rockets at Israel.
“We are not bound by religious differences; we equally supported Shiite #Hezbollah along w/#Hamas & #IslamicJihad and will keep doing that,” he posted on a Twitter account widely believed to be operated by his office, adding, “We strengthened our Palestinian brothers’ fist in #Gaza & other areas & will do so. As I already said #WestBank should also be armed like Gaza.”

Former envoy: Iran showed no flexibility in nuke talks

A day after nuclear talks with Iran were extended until July 2015 after the sides failed to come together following a year of intensive negotiations, Ross said that the US had demonstrated flexibility during the talks, including a willingness to back down on demands over the Arak heavy water facility and the Fordo enrichment facility, but that its positions were received by intransigence by the Iranian counterparts. …
The former diplomat said that Iranian negotiators were either unwilling or incapable of budging from a series of red lines.
Iran, Ross said, would not roll back centrifuge programs for uranium enrichment to the levels that the P5+1 members hoped, and “would not budge on the demands that sanctions be removed immediately” upon the achievement of a comprehensive agreement.

69% of Americans oppose deal leaving Iran with nuclear capabilities

More than two-thirds of Americans oppose a deal with Iran that would allow it to maintain nuclear weapons capabilities, according to a new survey by American political strategist Frank Luntz. Americans are also overwhelmingly mistrustful of Iran, and consider it to be the country that poses the greatest threat to the United States.
The survey, shown to The Times of Israel on Tuesday, the day after US-led talks with Iran were extended till next July, also found an overwhelming majority of Americans believe the Iranians are stalling rather than negotiating in good faith, and that the regime in Tehran cannot be relied upon to honor any accord it may reach.
More broadly, Americans overwhelmingly feel the world to be less safe today than 10 years ago, and believe America is weaker today than it was 10 years ago.

Zarif: Final Deal Will Give Iran a “Serious” Enrichment Program With No Sanctions

In remarks reported by Buzzfeed, Zarif made the dubious claim that Iran had a right to enrichment under terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT):
“We believe that the right of Iran to have a peaceful nuclear program including enrichment is enshrined in the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] which does not require anybody’s recognition,” he said. “The right is there. What is important is for Iran to be able to implement that right, to exercise that right without the threat of sanctions and pressures which in our view are illegal, but which unfortunately have been imposed on the Iranian people for the past many years.”

Arab Media: Iran Had Upper Hand in Nuclear Negotiations

Media outlets in the Arab world are reporting today extensively on the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers, and largely denouncing the Western willingness to extend the deadline for achieving a nuclear agreement.
According to certain commentators in Arabic language outlets, Iran held the upper hand in the last round of talks and managed to force its position on six world powers, even though no final agreement was signed between the two sides.
“Iran won,” wrote Fateh Abd al-Salam in the A-Zaman newspaper (Arabic link). “Tehran has shown that it has the last word when it forced the postponement of the signing of the agreement until next July.”
Some Arab publicists agree with Israeli intelligence concerns that Iran will use the extension to develop its military nuclear program under the nose of the international community. However, they believe that United States and the other world powers still have a chance to fix their policies towards Iran.

As Nuclear Talks Fail, Israel to Upgrade Relations With Iran Neighbor Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani military leaders plan to visit Israel in June, in order to attend an international arms exhibition, a move which suggests strengthening ties with the Kavkazi state, Israel’s Ch. 2 News said Tuesday.
The head of the Azerbaijani National Guard; Special Forces Command, and Defense Ministry officials decided to send an official delegation to the upcoming ISDEF military trade show, an international defense exhibition to be held in Tel Aviv in June.
This is the first time that such a high-level delegation will be in Israel, which attributes major strategic importance to bilateral relations with Iran’s neighbor.

Iranian Police: 200,000 people in the country are alcoholics

In a country where alcohol is illegal, 200,000 people in Iran suffer from alcoholism, according to Iran's police chief Ismail Ahmadi Moghada.
Selling, buying and consuming alcohol in the Islamic Republic is strictly forbidden and can come with a penalty of 80 lashes, according to Iranian law, which is based on Shari'a. Iranians have not been deterred from drinking, causing the Iranian authorities to take the issue even more seriously.
Moghadam said further on that the number of alcoholics comprise only 10 percent of "addictive substance usage" in Iran.

Turkish Legislator Pens Bill Naming Israel Terrorist State

Lütfü Türkkan, a Turkish deputy from the Nationalist Movement Party(MHP), introduced on Monday a bill to the Parliament of Turkey which proposes recognizing Israel as “a terrorist state.”
Turkkan told the Turkish parliament that Israel was conceived in terror, in 1948, that Israel’s “attack” on the “humanitarian” ship the Mavi Marmara constituted terrorism and that Israel’s actions in this past summer’s war with Gaza were also acts of terrorism.
The far rightist legislator said that Israel deliberately targets civilians and that the reason the Arab-Israel conflict has not yet been resolved is because of Israel’s “terrorist actions” against Palestinian Arabs.

Facebook 'Could Have Stopped Lee Rigby Murder'

Facebook failed to notify authorities of a message from one of Lee Rigby's killers in which he threatened to kill a soldier. Michael Adebowale used the site to contact another extremist, discussing his plans five months before carrying out the murder of Fusilier Rigby on a street in Woolwich, London.
The report on Lee Rigby's killing, published today, said that Rigby's murder could not have been prevented by intelligence services, however that may have been different had an unnamed website passed on details of Adebowale's messages.
That website was this evening named as Facebook by various sources, according to Sky News.

The myth of 'de-radicalization' of Islamic radicals​

On Monday, I appeared before the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence. The committee is studying the question of security threats to Canada as well as ‘de-radicalization’ efforts being promoted by the RCMP.
I suggested to the senators that ‘de-radicalization’ initiatives by Canada’s security agencies were doomed to failure because the very men and women partnering with the RCMP in this exercise were not just part of the problem, but in many ways the cause of radicalization.
For example, in mosques across Canada, our Friday congregation begins with a prayer to Allah for a victory of Muslims over the kufaar (Christians, Jews and Hindus). In such a climate, relying on Islamic religious clerics and Islamists to fight radicalization is like employing the fox to guard the chicken coop.

Prisoner shoes stolen from Nazi death camp museum

Eight shoes belonging to prisoners at a former Nazi death camp have been stolen from a museum at the site in Poland, a museum official said Tuesday.
Police have launched an investigation into the weekend theft from the State Museum at the former World War II camp in Majdanek, museum spokeswoman Agnieszka Kowalczyk-Nowak said.
“An employee noticed shoes were missing during a routine check on Saturday. A hole was cut in the metal mesh on a display containing several hundred shoes in barrack 52,” she told AFP.
“After counting the shoes, we found eight missing,” she said, adding that the motive for the theft was not known.
“It’s in this barrack where all the shoes are on display so that visitors can begin to comprehend the sheer scale of Nazi crimes.”

Eichmann trial docs, from trash to auction

The documents, some of which were also found in a deserted apartment in Jerusalem, reportedly had belonged to a member of the prosecution team.
Meron Eren of the Kedem Auction House said in a statement that it was fortunate that the collection was not lost, as the man who found the documents in a Jerusalem trash bin reportedly then searched the apartment from which they had come and found more papers just before they were to be discarded.
Eichmann, who was responsible for organizing the genocide of European Jewry, escaped Germany to Argentina after World War II and was captured by Israel’s Mossad spy agency in 1960. He was hanged on May 31, 1962, following a trial lasting some four months.

New bio reveals triumphs, trials of Mossad’s most famous female agent

Moti Kfir, former director of the Mossad’s School for Special Operations, said he had a hunch the first time he met Sylvia Rafael that she was exceptional and that she had the personal attributes that would make her an outstanding agent.
What Kfir did not know at that first encounter was that Rafael, who served time in a Norwegian prison after having been arrested and tried following the Lillehammer Affair, a botched 1973 assassination attempt targeting Palestinian terrorist leader Ali Hassan Salameh, would become a Mossad legend.
Even less obvious from the start was that half a century later he would pay tribute to his pupil and operative by writing her biography.
“Sylvia Rafael: The Life and Death of a Mossad Spy,” co-written by Kfir and popular Israeli writer Ram Oren, was recently published in English. It is a gripping spy thriller, and it is also a revealing portrait of a woman who made painful personal sacrifices in order to serve Zionism and her adopted country of Israel.

Israel’s Recognition of Aramean Nationality Empowers Arameans Worldwide In Demand For Rights

Lost in the uproar over the proposed Nationality Bill has been the historic recognition of Arameans as a separate nationality in Israel. Israel is the first country in the world to recognize the Arameans.
Israel’s historic recognition has empowered and emboldened Arameans to seek better treatment in other countries they live in.
Tomorrow (Wednesday November 26), the World Council of Arameans (WCA) will be addressing the Seventh Session of the Forum on Minority Issues at the United Nations in Geneva. Shadi Halul, an Aramean from Gush Halav in the Galilee, will be traveling to Geneva in order to address the assembly. His two year old child was the first person to be registered under the new identity in Israel, one month ago. Halul was invited by the WCA.

Israeli tech set to quench China’s growing thirst

As part of the project, dozens of Israeli environmental technology companies will set up facilities in the city of Shougang, bringing Israeli know-how in such area as desalination, sewage management, irrigation and water recycling for agricultural use.
Some of that Israeli technology will help quench China’s need for clean water, said Bennett.
“Israel and China are natural partners for technological and business cooperation. We have extensive experience in management of water resources and the Water City Project will help open the Chinese market to Israeli water companies, as well as advancing bilateral relations,” he said.

Second Temple Era Military Outpost Discovered, Possibly Destroyed by Alexander the Great

Archaeological excavations in Israel’s Netiv Haasarah have uncovered a Persian era military installation.
Netiv Haasarah is a town in the “Gaza envelope” with a population of about 700. The dig, headed by Dr. Yael Abadi Rice, found a fortified town and a military tower from approximately 2,100 years ago. This time period was when the Second Temple was standing in Jerusalem.
“It seems this was a military outpost,” Dr. Rice told Tazpit News Agency. “Besides for the army stationed there, people were sent there to work the area on the road from Ashkelon to Gaza.”
Besides the military tower, the outpost also included residential buildings and warehouses. The tower, built of limestone and mud bricks, was found with a partially preserved staircase. Inside the warehouses, archaeologists were surprised to find intact pottery and stone utensils, as well as oil and wine jars.