Monday, December 01, 2014
NGO Monitor: Statement on Media Censorship of Criticism of NGOs
In a November 30 article published in The Atlantic (What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel), former AP journalist Matti Friedman states that, during his time at the AP Jerusalem bureau, reporters had explicit orders “to never quote [NGO Monitor] or its director… Gerald Steinberg. In my time as an AP writer moving through the local conflict, with its myriad lunatics, bigots, and killers, the only person I ever saw subjected to an interview ban was this professor.”Reflections on the UN Partition of Palestine
“Matti Friedman’s revelations regarding the efforts to censor NGO Monitor and me as its president are not entirely surprising,” said Professor Gerald Steinberg, president and founder of NGO Monitor. “Based on our experience in publishing detailed research on over 150 NGOs claiming to promote human rights and humanitarian objectives, we are aware of the intense efforts to maintain the NGO ‘halo effect’ and prevent critical debate. While the AP censorship was explicit, we have experienced similar silencing from other media platforms.”
Friedman also highlights the “ethical gray zone of ties between reporters and NGOs” in Israel, where journalists socializing in the same circles as NGO officials, seek employment with NGOs, and adapt to a journalistic culture in which NGOs “are to be quoted, not covered.”
On November 29, Arab UN delegations called the UN move ‘undemocratic.’ Ambassador Amir Arslan of Syria, proclaimed, “My country will never recognize such a decision,” Jamali of Iraq objected that Resolution 181, “Undermines peace, justice and democracy,” and they and their Arab colleagues abruptly walked out the halls of the UN in Lake Success, New York, in protest. Almost immediately, Arab labor strikes in Palestine were called, and acts of terror were launched against Jews.
In the first month after the UN vote, 118 Jews were killed and 217 were wounded. Civilians were attacked on the streets, and convoys to cities were also attacked as were medical clinics. Violence also extended into the Arab world. In the Yemenite city of Aden, anti-Jewish riots broke out with reports of 76 Jews killed and 74 wounded.
Soon, the Arab Legion of irregular troops led by Nazi trained commandoes Hassam Salameh and Abdul Kader Husseini, nephew of the infamous Mufti, Haj Amin Al Husseini, led the Arab war effort while the surrounding Arab nations preferred to wait until the British evacuation. On February 11, a bombing on Ben Yehudah Street in central Jerusalem killed and wounded hundreds.
The Jewish State, not even officially re-born, was fighting for its existence.
i24news Exclusive Interview with the Green Prince - 25/11/2014 (h/t Yoel)
Terror link’ charities get British millions in Gift Aid
Charities accused of supporting jihad in Syria and other forms of terrorism have been paid millions of pounds by British taxpayers.UNESCO seeks to save Jewish sites from Islamic State's claws
Groups under investigation for allegedly aiding Syrian militants have used the Gift Aid scheme to claim large sums from the public purse.
Among them is Al-Fatiha Global, a Midlands-based charity that is being investigated by the Charity Commission after the chief executive’s son was apparently pictured in Syria with two masked men holding AK-47s. He denies the photograph is of him.
Unpublished accounts seen by The Telegraph show that Al-Fatiha’s donations total went from £4,038 in 2012 to more than £1.2 million in 2013.
The auditors refused to approve the accounts, saying that insufficient records were kept of “goods distributed to beneficiaries in Syria”.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova recently warned that "Islamic, Christian, Kurdish and Jewish heritage … is being intentionally destroyed or attacked in what is clearly a form of cultural cleansing."The United Nations and Holy Sites in the Holy Land
Other than the physical damage, one of the greatest concerns is that terrorists are plundering ancient sites and selling artifacts on the black market to fund their operations. In a press release posted on its website, UNESCO reiterated that a ban on trafficking in Iraqi cultural objects was adopted by the U.N. Security Council in Resolution 1483 of 2003, and that it is still in effect.
According to the agency's Emergency Response Action Plan paper, "Relevant parties, including Customs and police at border crossings, Interpol, the World Customs Organization and auction houses, will be alerted and informed about the possibility of illicit trafficking of Iraqi cultural property, as well as the specific measures needed to prevent such acts."
The United Nations is inconsistent regarding its position on the “character”, “access” and “rights” of holy sites in the Holy Land across the Green Line.Tragedy of Mizrahi Jewish Refugees Emerges From the Shadows
In 2010, UNESCO published a paper highly critical of Israel regarding its treatment of two holy places in Judea and Samaria/the West Bank: the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem. The statements were a complete inversion of the truth:
Commenting on the Knesset bill after it was passed, MK Shimon Ohayon noted that “we have finally corrected a historic injustice and placed the issue of Jews who were expelled or pushed out of the Arab world in the last century, on the national and international agenda.”Travails of Jews from Arab Lands finally recognized after 66 years
Elaborating, he added, “In Israel, the history of the Jews who originally came from the Middle East or North Africa, who make up around half of the population, was ignored for too long. This is a vital part of our fight against those internally and externally who delegitimize our presence here and claim we are somehow foreign to the region.”
He’s right. The theme of “indigeneity”—that those deemed to be native to a particular territory have supreme rights over it—has been a core element of the Palestinian and Arab campaign to portray Israel as a colonial interloper, and an alien presence in a Muslim-Arab region. But Jews lived in the Islamic world for thousands of years, just as they did in the land that is now Israel.
In that sense, there is a political goal behind the commemoration day, and it’s nothing to apologize for. Almost 70 years after Jews were stripped of their citizenship and property by avowedly anti-Semitic regimes, their fate remains largely hidden from the gaze of historians and journalists. In part, that’s because these refugees didn’t stay refugees for very long. The majority were absorbed in Israel, still others went to Europe and the Americas, all of them got on with their lives. But fundamentally, the injustice remains unaddressed.
History was made Sunday, when for the first time in the annals of the state, official recognition was given to Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran.For Jewish ex-refugees, it’s about recognition, not politics
The event, hosted by President Reuven Rivlin at his official residence, was the continuum of legislation that was passed by the Knesset in June this year designating November 30 as the national day of commemoration of the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran.
The date was significant in that it commemorates the day after the anniversary of the November 29, 1947 UN resolution on the partition of Palestine, which led to an immediate flare up of anti-Zionist action and policy among Arab states, resulting in the killing, persecution, humiliation, oppression and expulsion of Jews, the sequestration of Jewish property and a war against the nascent State of Israel.
In 1948, close to a million Jews lived in Arab lands. Some were massacred in pogroms. Most fled or were expelled between 1948 and 1967. In 1948 there were 260,000 Jews in Morocco. Today there are less than 3,000.
In the same time frame, the Jewish population of Algeria declined from 135,000 to zero, in Tunisia from 90,000 to a thousand, in Libya from 40,000 to zero, in Egypt from 75,000 to less than one hundred, in Iraq from 125,000 to zero, in Yemen from 45,000 to approximately 200, in Syria from 27,000 to 100, and in Lebanon from 10,000 in the 1950s to less than 100.
Waldman settled in San Francisco, where in 2001 she founded Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA), an organization committed to education and the collection of oral histories of Jewish refugees.Israel calls for reparations for Middle Eastern Jews
“I feel as though the chapter of our history was torn out of the Jewish history book,” Waldman told The Times of Israel. “Most Israelis originally from Arab countries don’t know their own histories.”
In 2011 JIMENA began translating the personal accounts it collected into Arabic and Persian with the help of Middle Eastern dissidents, launching an Arabic Facebook page last year which has already garnered 10,000 followers.
“We feel that unless the Arab young generation is educated, our job is not complete,” she said. “We get tremendously positive reactions.”
Israel on Sunday marked the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries in the years after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin calling for financial reparations.Cities against Israel
In a bid to draw attention to the plight of the forced migrants, Israel formally marked their displacement with a ceremony at the president’s house under a new law naming November 30 as the anniversary.
“It is not for nothing that this day is marked on the day after the 29th of November,” Netanyahu said, in reference to the anniversary of the UN adoption of the Palestine partition plan in 1947. “The Arab countries, which never accepted the UN declaration on the establishment of a Jewish state, compelled the Jews living in their territories to leave their homes while leaving their assets behind… We have acted – and will continue to act – so that they and their claims are not forgotten.”
All these proposals have public relations as their main goal. Keeping Israel in a negative light draws the attention away from the massive criminality of the Palestinians. That concerns both Fatah and its leader, Palestinian President Abu Mazen, who glorify Palestinian murderers of Israeli civilians. The criminality is even more pronounced in the largest Palestinian party, Hamas, a genocidal Islamo-Nazi movement.UAW-affiliated California Grad Student Union to Vote on Israel boycott this week
Once a new initiative is made, such as the one by the Leicester city council, others will follow. Israel cannot effectively fight these developments with its present infrastructure: it needs a central anti-propaganda agency with a sizeable budget. Only such an organization can be effective in making the boycotters understand that there are no free anti-Semitic lunches.
The anti-Israel movement on campus never sleeps.California Teamsters Issue scathing letter in opposition to BDS
The latest is that anti-Israel students took over control of the operating council of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) Local 2865, comprised of over 12,000 graduate student employees. They used that control to send to the membership for a vote on December 4 a wide-ranging anti-Israel resolution.
What makes this resolution different is that it turns Grad Student union members into activists inside the classroom, calling on them to honor the academic and cultural boycott in their university teaching capacity. This places the union vote far outside any of the other academic boycotts, such as by the American Studies Association, which did not even purport to infringe upon professional responsibilities in the teaching of courses.
As in all these efforts, the anti-Israel activists position themselves to control the flow of information to members to filter out contrary viewpoints. Since in the real world few people turn out to vote on such issues other than committed activists, resolutions can pass without a majority of the entire membership agreeing.
In a letter directed to the executive Board of UAW Local 2865, the California Teamsters have reiterated their opposition to BDS, stating unequivocally that they “cannot conceive of an action more hostile to the interests of [Teamsters] members and more antithetical to the most basic principles of the union movement”Jewish Students Have the Right to Feel Safe on Campus
The letter is reproduced in its entirety at the website of Informed Grads, a group organized in opposition to the Dec. 4th BDS resolution at the University of California
Jewish students have the right to feel safe on campus. They have the right to walk the halls wearing a yarmulke. They have the right to hang a mezuzah. They have the right to host pro-Israel events, and to speak freely about their support for Israel in the classroom and on the square. When he headed the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Brandeis Center President Ken Marcus took the first step by including protection against anti-Semitism under Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights Act. But more must be done to ensure that universities comply with the law.NY Times Again Whitewashes Palestinian Violence
I know firsthand how distressing it is to be a victim of anti-Zionism that morphs into anti-Semitism. I will carry that passion of personal experience with me when helping other students. The Brandeis Center chapters give law students like me a chance to do our part.
Certain traditions die hard. Like camels in the Jordanian police force. And Times' whitewashing of Palestinian violence.Guardian columnist Giles Fraser should know better than to hold Jews to higher standards
Hewing to a well-worn pattern, The New York Times again whitewashes Palestinian violence and responsibility for conflict. This time, though, there's a novel twist to the old, tired formula: the story doesn't involve Israel. In an interesting article about the traditional use of camels in Jordan's desert police force, Ben Hubbard writes (Nov. 29):
"Jordan’s rulers have long seen those descendants of Palestinians, who tend to care less about the monarchy, as a demographic threat to their rule, according to Ora Szekely, an associate professor of political science at Clark University in Massachusetts, who studies Jordan.
This sentiment increased after Black September, the violent battle that began in 1970 between the Jordanian Army and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Thousands were killed, but the monarchy won and expelled the P.L.O. from the kingdom.
“This cemented the decision and convinced the monarchy that the only people they could trust were the East Bankers,” Dr. Szekely said, “and especially the Bedouin.”
What, exactly, convinced the monarchy that it couldn't trust Palestinians? Contrary to Hubbard's muddled reporting and the confusing statement by Dr. Szekely, the violence of Black September was not the cause of the late King Hussein's distrust of Palestinians; it was the result.
In addition, the source of King Hussein's lack of trust was not merely of a demographic nature. In August 1970, Yasser Arafat convened the Palestine National Council in Amman, which openly debated overthrowing King Hussein (Arafat's War, Efraim Karsh). Indeed, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine twice attempted to assassinate the King in early September 1970.
However, the broader point which critics of the proposal to enshrine Israel as the Jewish state miss – and one which we examined in a previous post – is that Israel is not at all unique in these respects. Within the democratic West, there are many nations which maintain codified systems of preference for those claiming a particular religious, ethnic, or linguistic connection with the state.BBC continues to promote the notion of a ‘siege’ on Gaza in report on flooding
We’d also be remiss if we didn’t note that, though he was raised by a Jewish father and a Christian mother, Fraser later separated completely from his paternal religious tradition by becoming an Anglican priest. Of course, the Anglican Church is the official Church of England.
The King or Queen, as “the head of the Established Church”, MUST be Anglican and can never convert to another religion. Additionally, in the Coronation Oath, he or she pledges to maintain the Protestant Reformed Religion as established by law and to be the “Defender” of the Protestant-Christian Faith. Despite the fact that Christianity is so privileged over all other religions, all citizens are, nonetheless, guaranteed equal civil and political rights under the law.
“Of all people”, Anglicans like Fraser should understand that the Jewish state’s firm desire to maintain a state with a uniquely Jewish character does not in any way undermine the fundamental rights of non-Jews, nor is it at odds with the bible’s insistence that Jews and non-Jews must be equal under the law.
As has been pointed out here before, the definition of the term ‘siege’ does not accurately describe the restrictions on the import of dual-use goods with the potential for use in terrorist activities which is applied to the Gaza Strip by Israel and yet, as we see, that Hamas-favoured terminology is still being used by the BBC.Defiant Hungarian doctor hid Jewish boy as Nazis scoured Budapest during Holocaust
And what of Alkashif’s claim that Israel is not allowing building materials for reconstruction into the Gaza Strip? Let’s take a look at just a few of the recent reports from COGAT.
In December 1941, when Hungary severed relations with the United States during World War II, Maria Madi, a doctor in Budapest, started keeping a diary for her daughter, who had just immigrated to Louisiana.BBC Airs Documentary on Jane Haining, ‘The Scot Who Died in Auschwitz’
Madi did not know if her daughter would ever see her words. But she wrote anyhow: About the war. About the Nazis. About the suffering of Jews. And about the two people she hid in her apartment, at times behind a large mirror when visitors came to call.
By war’s end, Madi, who was not Jewish, had filled 16 notebooks in handwritten English that serve as a grim portrait of the Holocaust in Hungary and of a defiant woman sickened by its cruelty.
BBC One Scotland on Sunday aired a documentary telling the story of a non-Jewish woman who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp and became the only Scot officially honored for working to protect Jews during the Holocaust.Jane Haining The Scot Who Died in Auschwitz
Jane Haining: The Scot Who Died in Auschwitz tells the story of a farmer’s daughter from the south of Scotland who spoke up in defense of Jews after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 and Britain declared war on Germany. At the time, Haining was working in Budapest at the Church of Scotland mission school and taught both Christian and Jewish children. Haining treated all her pupils with fairness and equality, according to the BBC report.
“We never felt we were not equal with each other or with the Christian pupils,” said former student Dr. Zsuzanna Pajzs. “We did not even notice who was Christian and who was Jewish.”
New app offers original writings of Anne Frank
A publisher in Amsterdam released the first smartphone application to contain Anne Frank’s diary in its original language.World’s first artificial cell churns out proteins
Uitgeverij Prometheus unveiled the Dutch-language application, or app, earlier this month at Theater Amsterdam — a 1,100-seat auditorium which was built in the Dutch capital earlier this year for the show “Anne,” about the Jewish teenage diarist’s life.
The app contains the international bestseller “The Diary of a Young Girl,” which is a version of Anne Frank’s writings edited and brought to print by her father, Otto Frank. It tells the story of the Franks’ two years in hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam until their deportation to German concentration camps, where only Otto Frank survived.
Years of intense lab work in Israel have led to the world’s first artificial cell-on-a-chip, an exciting development with many potential applications.AposTherapy, RealView Imaging raise $25 million
“The idea to mimic a living cell is a longstanding dream shared by many,” Weizmann Institute of Science Prof. Roy Bar-Ziv tells ISRAEL21c. “If we can build a primitive model of something so complex, we can possibly understand the dynamics of protein synthesis better.”
Bar-Ziv began this project as independent researcher after his post-doc at Rockefeller University in New York 12 years ago. “It took that long to get it to work,” the physicist says.
He accomplished his goal with Weizmann PhD students Eyal Karzbrun and Alexandra Tayar, in collaboration with his former fellow Rockefeller post-doc, Prof. Vincent Noireaux, now at the University of Minnesota. They recently reported on their achievement in the journal Science
Two Israeli companies geared to the medical treatment market have completed huge financing rounds worth $25 million. AposTherapy, a clinically-proven treatment for knee and back pain using unique calibrated shoes, recently closed a $15 million financing round, according to a Globes report. The same paper reports that RealView Imaging, which develops a 3D holographic interaction system for medical applications, raised $10 million in a financing round led by Chinese fund LongTec China Ventures.New York Hops on $15 Billion Israeli Corporate Bond Boom
The AposTherapy round comes as the company looks to expand to the US market and perhaps China as well, according to reports. The company is in talks with physiotherapy clinics to adopt its method, which it says, can heal back and knee pain without medicines or surgery.
Meanwhile, RealView Imaging’s funding round will be used to take its anatomical hologram system – that makes it easier for doctors to treat a patient and cut down on the time it takes to conduct medical procedures– to the commercial market by 2016.
U.S. real-estate developers are joining the largest wave of local debt issuance on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange bond trading platform since 2007, capitalizing on yield-starved investors to obtain financing.‘Remote control killer’ uses gestures, not buttons
Companies have sold $14.6 billion of bonds this year through Nov. 20, up from $8.7 billion in the same period of 2013, according to bourse data. New York real-estate firms, including Extell Development Co. and Zarasai Group Ltd., have joined the boom, issuing a total of $436 million. It’s now about 0.12 percentage point cheaper for borrowers to sell bonds in shekels and convert to dollars than it is to issue in greenbacks directly, data compiled by Bloomberg show. A year ago, shekels were about 0.69 percentage point costlier to borrow.
Attractive borrowing costs and investor demand for higher-paying debt securities are luring foreign issuers. Buyers have responded by pouring into Israel’s $86 billion corporate bond market, driving the Tel Aviv Bond 40 Index to near a record. New York-based companies benefit from Israeli traders’ familiarity with that market and increased interest for deals that may be considered small in the U.S., according to Israel Shimonov, founding partner at Shimonov & Co. Advocates.
Remote controls may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a new system by Israeli gesture start-up eyeSight. The onecue control center lets users communicate with just about any connected device in the home – from TVs to air conditioners – with the swipe of a hand.Tel Aviv designated UNESCO creative city for media arts
“Every device in our homes, from the TV to the cable box to the thermostat, has its own control system and remotes, cables or apps for operation, resulting in lots of clutter and fragmentation,” said Gideon Shmuel, CEO of eyeSight. “To solve this problem, we developed onecue, a control center to bring together all of these devices through a natural, easy-to-use interface that leverages our years of experience in gesture recognition technology to let you experience your home through your fingertips.”
It’s a system, said Shmuel, that will provide a major boost to the Internet of Things and smart home technologies by making it easier to interact with networked devices.
Tel Aviv was among 28 cities UNESCO designated as new members of its creative cities network Monday, with a focus on media arts.Sacha Baron Cohen in Israel for granny’s funeral
The network aims to develop cooperation between cities that have made creativity a strategic priority, and promotes partnerships in creative projects, studies, training and policy linked to creative development.
The media arts designation, previously shared by Lyon and Enghien-les-bains in France and Sapporo, Japan, looks at how digital technology and media can improve urban life and how digital platforms can enhance cultural access. Other cities designated in the category Monday included Dakar, Senegal; Gwangju, South Korea; Linz, Austria and York in the UK.
Comic filmmaker Sacha Baron Cohen was in town this past weekend for the funeral of his 99-year-old grandmother, Liselle Weiser.Holocaust Survivor: ‘I’m Thankful’
The well-known grandson is reported to have sent flowers every week to his maternal granny who lived in Bat Yam.
The funeral took place at the Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv.
The Ali G, Borat and Bruno creator is a regular visitor to Israel. His mother, Daniella Weiser, was born here, and Baron Cohen volunteered at two kibbutzim before breaking out onto the world stage.
He was also a member of the Zionist youth movement Habonim-Dror in Britain and started his acting career by appearing in Habonim theater shows.
I’m thankful for the last conversation I had with my father inside the concentration camp before we were separated and he was later murdered. “You are young and strong, and I know you will survive,” he told me in a quiet moment our first night at Auschwitz. “If you survive by yourself, you must honor us by living, by not feeling sorry for us. That is what you must do.”
I’m grateful for those words. They echo in my heart even still. It was a gift only a father’s wisdom could give. It gave me a reason to go forward, a reason to be. It does still. And I’m grateful.
I’m thankful that in the winter of 1945, the stupid-looking wooden clogs the Nazis made me wear did not give out in the unrelenting snows we encountered over many miles during the Death March from Buna to Gleiwitz. Even as the German soldiers turned our column into a moving shooting gallery, for some unknown reason, God kept their guns off me, sparing me the fate of the scores of frozen frames that lay littered across the land, embalmed in glacial graves.
I’m grateful. I’m grateful for the hundreds of thousands of American boys led by Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower—whom I later made suits for—and their willingness to fight and die to destroy Hitler’s death machine.
I’m thankful.
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