Monday, December 08, 2014
Zionism, An Indigenous Struggle: Aboriginal Americans and the Jewish State
In 1968, Palestinian terrorists hijacked an El-Al plane, and got away with it. They used the tactic repeatedly after that, with varying degrees of success. The most infamous incident was the forcing of Air France plane to Entebbe, Uganda, and Israel’s successful rescue of the hostages.Israeli Paper Responds to UNRWA’s Shocking Boycott Call
More such rescue operations are required these days, but not of aircraft. The Palestinians and their Islamist allies have taken to hijacking peoples and causes. For example, in nineteen seventy five Betty Friedan, a feminist trailblazer, led the American delegation to an International Woman’s Year World Conference. She was stunned by the conference’s anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. A 1980 Women’s Conference in Copenhagen had a huge portrait of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, a man at the forefront of the oppression of women, decorating the conference chamber.
Although Israel is the only place in the Middle East where homosexuals are legally protected from persecution, Toronto’s annual gay pride parade has frequently featured the participation of “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.” That homosexuals would promote a movement that brutally oppresses them points to the effectiveness of Palestinian hijacking techniques.
The collection of articles in this publication examine the relation between Native American and Jewish issues, focusing on the perceived attempt to hijack the Native American struggle for rights and recognition into the framework of Palestinian suffering. Native Americans are viewed as the quintessential victims, having suffered genocide, theft of lands and consequent marginalization. This fits into the casting of the Palestinians as victims of colonialism and oppression.
In a response which is now posted on his Facebook page, Linde wrote that Gunness’s campaign against the Post “represents an unacceptable breach of protocol and neutrality he is supposed to uphold.”NGO Monitor Accuses Amnesty of Faulty Data over Gaza War
“An attack of this kind by a senior staff member of a UN body that employs as many as 30,000 people and provides aid to millions of Palestinians is unbecoming,” Linde said.
An op-ed is not a news article. It is an opinion piece written by someone with either expertise or other first-hand knowledge or is credible and has a view not widely covered elsewhere in the media.
The Post‘s op-ed editor, Seth Frantzman, shot back at the petulant claim that Gunness was boycotted simply because he was not quoted – in an op-ed.
“We have a long track record of publishing op-eds from diverse voices on a wide range of issues and will continue to subject all groups to robust critique, despite this intimidation,” Frantzman wrote. “UNRWA’s call for a boycott over an article published by a Palestinian activist who critiqued UNRWA contravenes the concept of open debate and has a chilling effect on free speech.”
Amnesty International's data on Operation Protective Edge in Gaza is "faulty and incomplete," the head of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor organization noted Monday - and organizations and journalists should not use Amnesty as a source.Standing athwart lies: Why I left Open Hillel
"By Amnesty's own admission, its methodology in Gaza is faulty and incomplete," said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "The 'evidence' is internally contradictory, and cannot sustain the accusations of 'war crimes' and the recommendations of legal warfare and sanctions against Israel."
NGO Monitor adds that Amnesty has no direct access to Gaza, and is relying on data fed to them by anonymous sources with questionable credibility.
In addition, according to Steinberg, "The individuals who determine Amnesty's Israel activities reflect a highly ideological agenda, as demonstrated in our research."
NGO Monitor also notes that Amnesty's string of publications attacking Israel, including a similar report from November, reflects an intensification of activity before the Schabas Commission delivers its report in March 2015.
Those who lie about themselves are not in a position to judge others.
I used to serve as Campus Outreach Co-Coordinator for Open Hillel – an organization committed to abolishing the Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership. These standards preclude Hillel branches from partnering with groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Besides that, Hillels typically welcome groups on both the left and right ends of the spectrum.
While Open Hillel’s stated aims are open dialogue and inclusiveness—worthy goals—the organization in actuality has something else in mind. The people who claim that Open Hillel’s main objective is to garner support for the BDS movement may not realize just how right they are.
Many Open Hillel leaders have no problem with advocating exclusion and alienation within Open Hillel, even as they preach the virtue of inclusiveness to the Jewish community. While demanding that the pro-Israel community tolerate pro-BDS groups that they find offensive, many Open Hillel leaders are intolerant of pro-Israel voices that they dislike.
Four Facts That Everyone Should Know About the Palestinian Arab War on Israel
Most Westerners, including many Jews, are unaware of four fundamental facts about the Jewish homeland of Israel that would greatly increase their support for the Jewish State. The burden is on us to make these facts more widely known in the West.If the response to Pearl Harbour had been the same as that to modern Islamic attacks (satire)
#1 – The Jews Never Left: Although most in the West accept that Jewish biblical history happened, most believe that upon vanquishing the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE, the victorious Romans “exiled” Judaea’s surviving Jews – and that Jews did not return to Israel in meaningful numbers until the late 19th century Zionist movement.
Wrong. Solid evidence – Roman-Byzantine era synagogues, the Mishnah and Palestinian Talmud, Roman recognition of the Patriarch as head of the homeland’s Jews, and Jewish military and other aid to the 7th century Persian and then Muslim invaders – establishes that no such “exile” occurred. Archeologists have constructed a map of 9th century Jewish communities of which we have knowledge today. The Crusaders also acknowledged the month-long courageous Jewish defense of Haifa and the fact of Jews defending Jerusalem. We have much evidence of the Jews’ vibrant presence in their four holy cities – Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron – and elsewhere in Israel through the ensuing six centuries of non-Arab Mamluk and Turk foreign rule. According to scholars, this gave the Zionists’ “real title deeds.”
On the anniversary of the Pearl Harbour Attack it is worth considering what would have happened if the response would have been the same as that of the response to the 9/11 (and other) Islamist attacks against the West...“It’s beyond stupid”: Bill Maher responds to backlash against Islam views
The US would have declared a 'war against fighter aircraft' with a clear statement that 'this in no way linked to the great nation of Japan which, like Nazi Germany, is 'a nation of peace'.
To ensure that America did not attack mainland Japan, leftists from all over the world would have gone to Tokyo to form human shields.
There would have been years of appeasement of Japan and Germany, plus massive funding of 'moderate' Japanese and Nazi institutions.
The media would have devoted most of its time on identifying what the US had done to invite the attacks. For example, it would no doubt have focused on the US refusal to help Germany invade Britain, thus stopping the natural hegemony of Nazi control of the whole of Europe.
(Like Israel today) Britain and Singapore would have become the focus of hatred for provoking the Japanese and Nazis by daring to protect their right to exist. The Americans and all the world's free nations would have demanded major and painful concessions from Britain and Singapore to ensure peace with the Nazis and the Japanese.
There would have been a string of documentaries made about how it was physically impossible for the attack to have happened and, in particular, for a ship like the SS Arizona to be destroyed by Japanese aircraft. These documentaries would have been split evenly between those that claim the attack never actually happened and those claiming the Americans and Zionists had planted bombs to explode the ship.
Maher received backlash for his comments, including from religious scholar Karen Armstrong in an interview published on Salon, and from students at the University of California Berkeley who started a petition advocating disinviting the comedian from speaking at their winter commencement ceremony.Europe is Becoming an Israel-free Zone, Again
Now, Maher has responded to the criticism in an interview with progressive commentator Sally Kohn published in Vanity Fair. He is unapologetic, to say the least.
On Karen Armstrong’s remarks that this “the sort of talk that led to concentration camps in Europe. The sorts of things that people were saying about Jews in the 30s and 40s.”
“It doesn’t sting because it’s beyond stupid. Jews weren’t oppressing anybody. There weren’t 5,000 militant Jewish groups. They didn’t do a study of treatment of women around the world and find that Jews were at the bottom of it. There weren’t 10 Jewish countries in the world that were putting gay people to death just for being gay. It’s idiotic.”
On the UC-Berkeley petition:
“The irony of the Berkeley situation is I thought campuses were places where free speech was championed. And one of my problems with Islam is that they are not big on free speech–which so offended the Muslims at Berkeley, they wanted to ban my speech.”
All over Europe, universities are promoting the boycott of Israeli professors. In Spain, a governmental academic program excluded the Israeli academics from Ariel University in Samaria. It happened in the socialist, modern Spain, not during the Spanish Inquisition.Mark Lavie: The State Of “Journalism” In Gaza
It doesn't stop there. That is only a cover up for the rest.
There are many European areas in the bigger cities where you cannot go outside looking like a Jew. It is the rule, not the exception. Jews are safer sporting a kippa on the roads of Hawara, near Nablus, than in the outskirts of Paris.
This is Europe: while it is becoming an Israel-free zone, it is trying to divide up the land of Israel, to squeeze the Jews into the coastal ghetto and to finally build a Jüdenrein Middle East.
From my experience, there’s something more sinister going on here. When looking for a Palestinian reporter to cover Gaza, there’s not a lot of choice. To stay alive and in business, they all have to walk a narrow line between doing their jobs and staying out of a Palestinian prison — or worse. Not only are reporters threatened — so are their wives and kids. The NYT reporter replaces Ibrahim Barzak, who recently uprooted himself to Malaysia. Ibrahim was a second-generation AP stringer in Gaza. By age 30 he had a heart condition more appropriate to us over-60s. He was under constant threat and pressure from whoever was running Gaza to get his reporting in line with the demands of the rulers. Frequently he asked us to take his bylines off stories and change the dateline to Jerusalem.Iconic Mideast Photo Is a Fake — and Heartbreaking One at That
Ibrahim is a wonderful, warm person who was dedicated to reporting and journalism, taking after his late father, Hikmet. He was twisted into a nervous wreck by the conflicting demands of his profession and the place where he lived. When I wrote this article about intimidation in the Palestinian areas, I did not name Ibrahim, because he had not yet gone public with his decision to leave Gaza, his home, carefully explaining that he did not want his children to grow up hating Israel.
News from, this region is skewed by many factors. The main ones are the Western mindset that equates right with weakness, favoring the underdogs whatever they do; and the distortions that arise from the fact that journalists in Israel have free access to practically everything and no one tries to intimidate them, while that is decidedly not the case anywhere else in the region.
The Israeli boy in the yarmulke is Zvi Shapiro, the son of two secular American-Israelis. The Palestinian boy is Zemer Aloni, an Israeli Jew. The only real aspect of the photo is that the boys were indeed friends and that the picture was taken in their Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor, which straddles the 1949 armistice line and contains both a Jewish and an Arab section. The boys grew up on the Jewish side of the neighborhood, and while they both recall interactions with Palestinians, neither counted close friends on the other side of the line.Don’t Let Palestinian Extremists Hijack Ferguson, Staten Island Protests
The picture was taken by Ricki Rosen, an American photojournalist who has been covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for 26 years. Rosen snapped the photo on assignment for Maclean’s, the national news magazine of Canada, for a cover story about the Oslo Peace Accords. Rosen said that the magazine’s art director was so specific in what he wanted that he even drew her a picture — one boy in a yarmulke, the other in a keffiyeh shot from the back walking down a long road, which was supposed to symbolize the road to peace. He didn’t care whether the boys were actually Israelis or Palestinians, nor did it occur to him that the Palestinian’s keffiyeh would be styled in a way more typical for elderly Palestinian men than for young boys.
“It was a symbolic illustration,” said Rosen. “It was never supposed to be a documentary photo.” She also took other real-life photos for the same article. (h/t Bob Knot)
It would, frankly, be suicidal for those who genuinely want a different, more humane form of policing in America to embrace the strategy of “Palestinianization.” If we end up analogizing African-Americans to Palestinians, then we are condemning them to the status of eternal victims, a useful prop for left-wing radicals to proclaim the hogwash that the world is enveloped by an imperial racism stretching from the American midwest to the heart of the Middle East. Instead of solutions we will have slogans—and if the slogan for the Middle East is that justice requires the destruction of Israel, then shouldn’t the same apply to America also?Majority of a Minority and Academic Boycotts
Above all, let’s remember that we live in a country that gave the world Dr. Martin Luther King. It is his example, rather than the irrelevant agenda of the anti-Semitic murderers of Hamas, that should inform the public debate about policing in the wake of the Brown and Garner cases. All the Palestinian solidarity movement provides are false and offensive analogies that will only deepen the sense of polarization in America, instead of bringing us closer together.
These steps have played out pretty much intact at AUW grad student union vote I mentioned earlier. And if AAA and MESA are hedging their bets before proceeding with an actual boycott, that’s only because leaders within that organization have yet to figure out a way to implement a boycott in a way that won’t harm them personally.UK media absurd political analogy watch: The Berlin Wall & Israel’s Security Barrier
So if you put aside the emotionally charged nature of a bunch of academic hacks dragging colleagues who don’t put politics before scholarship into messes like the one ASA finds itself in, what we’re dealing with is basically a new target of opportunity (academic associations) and a new tactic (manipulating a majority of a minority vote) that can give the BDSers what they want (the ability to speak in the name of an organization) without having to pay a price for the damage they cause.
And ways of dealing with this particular challenge will be the subject of my next entry.
The 2013 row over revelations regarding Zygier’s incarceration and suicide received saturation coverage at the Guardian, and included this claim by Peter Beaumont – then foreign affairs editor for The Observer, sister site of the Guardian – in a report on Feb. 14th.How Israel “incarcerates” Christian Bethlehem – a Guardian Production
“The latest revelations come amid a growing outcry over the case in Israel, with some comparing the treatment of Zygier to that meted out in the Soviet Union or Argentina and Chile under their military dictatorships.”
The comparison, as we noted at the time, was simply bizarre. Indeed, the very term “Prisoner X”, implying that his identity and whereabouts were mysterious, was itself a misnomer, as Zygier’s original arrest warrant was issued by an authorized court, his incarceration was supervised by the Israeli judiciary, and the proceedings were overseen by the most senior Justice Ministry officials. Zygier was also legally represented by a top Israeli lawyer.
In addition to the fact that that “huge ugly wall” has saved countless Israeli lives, Bradshaw is comparing the country’s prime minister to the former leader of the totalitarian East Germany state, and implicitly comparing Israel’s security fence with the Berlin Wall.CiF Watch follow up: Guardian blogger axed after crazy post about Gaza War
As we noted in a post recently, the Berlin Wall analogy is as ahistorical and dishonest as the suggestion that Bethlehem is “incarcerated”. Whilst the Berlin Wall was constructed by a totalitarian state to keep its own citizens from fleeing to freedom in the democratic West, Israel’s fence was constructed to keep terrorists (that is, non-citizens) from crossing across the previously porous boundary to murder innocent people.
But, as 60 Minutes’ still uncorrected false claim about Israel’s security fence attests to, who needs facts and intellectually honest political analogies when you have a broader narrative of Israeli oppression in the ‘little town of Bethlehem’ which can be used every year – like a holiday tradition – regardless of the circumstances.
During the summer war in Gaza, we posted about Nafeez Ahmed, who published a truly bizarre, conspiratorial-minded post (at the Guardian’s Environmental blog!) claiming that Israel’s war was largely motivated by the desire to steal Palestinian natural gas.Rasmea Odeh is no victim
As we noted at the time, Ahmed’s theory on the “root cause” of the current conflict – which we fisked here - was not at all surprising given his history of such fanciful “truth” telling regarding the evidently “secret”, untold histories of the 9/11 attacks and the 7/7 London bombings.
We didn’t hear from Ahmed since then, and recently learned why.
He was fired by the Guardian.
In a post at a site called Mint Press News, Ahmed explained recently how he was “censored by the Guardian” for writing about “Israel’s war for Gaza’s gas”.
The demonstrable facts show that:Tim Franks on BBC WS Newshour: ‘you make Israel sound like a normal country’
- Prior to her arrest in Israel, Odeh was a military participant in and organizer for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
- Odeh confessed in a highly detailed account just one day after arrest. The timetable of her confession is inconsistent with the multi-week torture narrative. Other co-conspirators also quickly confessed; one of whom directly implicated Odeh as the mastermind in a 2004 film documentary.
- After arrest Odeh was allowed to and did defend herself in the Israeli military court, where she was represented by counsel. Israel called witnesses to rebut the torture allegations.
In other words, despite the fact that the background to the next elections in Israel is primarily made up of domestic issues of little or no interest to the outside world, the BBC is going to frame the story according to its own agenda, which of course places ‘the conflict’ at the centre of attention. That theme continued in Franks’ first interview with Israeli journalist Tal Schneider who, in her response to his question about why the elections had come about, says:How to win a Walkley Award
“There is, you know, really bad sentiment coming out from the crowds, specifically on economic issues. Whereas, you know, the cost of living here is very expensive and there is a huge housing crisis going on for years, so…and we don’t see end of sight. So actually the specific bill that, you know, they’re fighting on – the VAT zero bill, what we call it – was supposed to solve the real estate issue – the housing problem.”
To that, Franks replies:
“You make Israel sound like a normal country when you’re talking about economic problems, about value added tax, housing and so forth. But of course the reason the outside world is so interested in Israel is because of the wider issues with the conflict, with the Palestinians and so forth.”
The 2014 Walkley Awards [Australia] were held last night and not only has nothing changed, things have gotten worse.Newsweek Falls Off Abyss With Sarah Helm's Hatchet Job
The first award of note was to Ruth Pollard, Fairfax’s Mid East Correspondent, who won the Walkley for Feature Writing Short (under 4,000 words) for her article entitled ‘Grief grips Gaza’. Pollard spent some time in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital and the morgue and reported what she had seen.
The judges commented that
“through her careful observation and vivid description we experience the human side of the Gaza conflict. It is a compelling read, and reflective of the courage Pollard demonstrated in securing access to this war zone morgue”.
Again the word “courage” has just been bandied about. But there is nothing courageous about a journalist filing a story from the Shifa Hospital and leaving out one of the most important facts about this hospital – which is that down in the basement, it serves as a de facto headquarters of Hamas. This fact has been widely documented over the years, including an article entitled
“Top secret Hamas command bunker in Gaza revealed: And why reporters won’t talk about it”, which appeared online just four days before Pollard’s piece went to print.
It's hard to understand what calculation editors had in mind when days ago they decided to print Sarah Helm's Dec. 4 totally tendentious and error-ridden article, "The Young Woman at the Forefront of Jerusalem's Holy War."A response to Grahame Morris MP on the ‘root cause’ of antisemitic violence
Helm's article depicts a brigade of defiant young Muslim women, led by the dynamic Latifa, who confront "Israeli police in bulletproof vests, with truncheons and guns" in order "to protest about the Jewish 'incursions' on to the [Temple Mount] mount." As Latifa puts it: "We are women. It is they who are scared. Look their weapons. We only have our voices."
"Latifa was a mathematics teacher in a Jerusalem school before she lost her job for 'inciting' pupils by telling them not to sing the Israeli national anthem, she says. Now she studies the mathematical complexities of the status quo, telling people when they can come and go, when the Jews might try to get in and pray, and when the women can cry 'Allahu Akbar' in an attempt to frighten them away," Helm intones.
Of the "mosque's protectors," Helm avers: "They come here because they feel safe, they say." The Newsweek writer goes on to quote the "tall, elegant" Latifa: "It is the only place we have left. It is ours." The intrepid journalist ignores the fact that Latifa has likely found another source of income since leaving her teaching career and that she and her cohorts have an additional, less spiritual motivation for harassing Jews and Christians who come to the holy site: The Muslim guards, or "Mourabitoun" in Arabic, are "funded by various Islamist parties, including some extremist groups in Israel," Haaretz recently reported. Haaretz's Amos Harel detailed:
Who is responsible for this state of affairs, and in particular for the mindset that can result in a history of wholly indiscriminate attacks on Jews in Israel and beyond, launched from within the Arab world? On 13 October Graham Morris, the Labour MP for Easington, sought to argue in the House of Commons that the root cause of Palestinian hostility to Israel was that whilst the Jews had a state of their own, the Palestinians did not. He therefore put before the Commons a motion – eventually passed after amendment – calling for British recognition of “the state of Palestine” alongside the state of Israel “as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution.”French PM Says Last Week's Anti-Semitic Attack is 'Not France'
It may come as a surprise to Comrade Morris and his political friends to be told that there already is a Palestinian-Arab state. It’s called Jordan and it occupies virtually the entire East Bank (of the Jordan River) that formed part of Palestine over which the British ruled under a Mandate from the League of Nations. What’s more, Jews are, under Jordanian law, it is nearly impossible for Jews to buy land in Jordan or become Jordanian citizens. But we can perhaps partially forgive the Jordanians, because this astonishingly racial legislation actually followed a precedent set by the British mandatory authorities, who prohibited Jews from settling anywhere on the East Bank whilst at the same time permitting them to establish communities throughout the West Bank.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Sunday said he was "surprised" there were not more demonstrations on the streets against anti-Semitism and racism, in response to a brutal anti-Semitic attack on a young couple in Paris last week.French officials call for national fight against anti-Semitism
"What happened in Creteil, this abominable crime, this violence, the rape of a young woman, (the attack on) a family because they are Jewish. That's not France," stressed Valls, who spoke on French television and was quoted by AFP.
The comments followed a vow by France's interior minister earlier Sunday to make the fight against anti-Semitism a "national cause".
Speaking at a rally in the Paris suburb of Creteil, where the attack took place on Monday, Bernard Cazeneuve said, "We need to make the fight against racism and anti-Semitism a national cause by getting all bodies concerned involved."
France’s interior minister vowed Sunday to make the fight against anti-Semitism a “national cause” after the country was rocked by an attack on a couple apparently because the man was Jewish.France: 8-Year-Old Jewish Girl Harassed, Taunted by Muslim Classmates; Interior Minister Says Fight Against Antisemitism Should be ‘National Cause’
Speaking at a rally in the Paris suburb of Creteil, where the attack took place on Monday, Bernard Cazeneuve said: “We need to make the fight against racism and anti-Semitism a national cause by getting all bodies concerned involved.”
“The Republic will defend you with all its force because, without you, it would no longer be the Republic,” he added.
Speaking at the same rally, Roger Cukierman, the head of the France’s main Jewish organization (CRIF), said that “Jews feel in danger. Some are already leaving France.”
Cazeneuve said anti-Semitic acts and threats have more than doubled in the past 10 months and called for the authorities to ensure that “none of them goes unpunished.”
The girl’s father, Matthieu Zerbib, told French journalist Jonathan-Simon Sellem that the 8-year-old was approached by two boys who asked about her religion at the school’s canteen and explained, “Islam is at war against the Jews, no?”Israeli flag not omitted from Qatar swimming championship
“She went to see six different adults in the school including a teacher and a woman that worked in the kitchen,” according to Sellem. “She asked for help and nobody wanted to help her.”
Later, in the school’s playground, the instigators prompted others to taunt the victim about her Jewishness and even tried to beat her. The violence was prevented when, after the young girl ran away, two Christian students at the school intervened and hid her in the playground. The girls also located the victim’s younger sister and hid her safely away as well.
According to the French-Jewish blog JSS News, the perpetrators, aged between 9 and 10 and their parents likely won’t face any sanctions besides possible expulsion from the learning institution.
The victim’s parents have complained to school officials and the BNVCA, France’s National Bureau of Vigilance Against Antisemitism, which is headed in Lyon by Zerbib, has asked the mayor of Mions to investigate the affair.
Unlike last year, organizers of the World Swimming Championships in Doha, Qatar, did not erase the Star of David from the Israeli flag from computer graphics accompanying the official state broadcast of the races.Walgreens pulls wrapping paper after Jewish customer shopping in Hanukkah section spots SWASTIKAS in the design
An earlier report based on a Facebook post — since erased — by Israeli swimmer Guy Barnea, said the broadcast showing Barnea’s first-place finish in the men’s 200-meter butterfly stroke qualifiers, on Sunday, featured the Israeli flag as just a plain white banner with two blue stripes running along its sides.
Barnea uploaded to Facebook a screenshot of the electronic screen at the competition which appeared to show the omitted Star of David, rhetorically inquiring in the image’s caption about the missing star. He later deleted the post, but it was picked up and circulated on social media sites.
A reporter for Israel’s Channel 1 uploaded his own image of the broadcast moment which shows the (faint) Star of David, alongside another image of the televised competition showing a clearer Israeli flag next to Barnea’s name. (h/t Bob Knot)
Walgreens has removed a roll of gift wrap from its stock after a Jewish customer spotted swastikas in the design.Hungary and Israel Partner on Joint Science Society
Cheryl Shapiro picked out the silver and blue paper in the Hanukkah section of her local store while shopping for presents with her grandson.
To her horror, she realized the geometric lines crossed to form numerous little Nazi symbols.
In order to advance scientific cooperation between Israel and Hungary, the Hungarian-Israeli scientific society was formally established at Bar-Ilan University this week.Mobileye rallying as Deutsche Bank declares tech supreme
Through scientific, cultural, and social programs, the society’s members will seek opportunities to exchange ideas, network, and promote joint science education programs. Both Hungary and Israel have among the highest numbers of Nobel laureates per capita in the world.
Another key objective of the Society will be to strengthen ties between Israeli and Hungarian researchers in order to better utilize knowledge and resources that are available in the two countries and in the European Union.
In his speech, Hungarian Ambassador to Israel, Andor Nagy, referred to the Hungarian phenomenon that changed science and the course of technological development.
Even after suffering a 15 percent stock rout (MBLY:US) last month, Mobileye NV’s valuation is six times richer (MBLY:US) than industry peers. That’s cheap enough for Deutsche Bank AG, which upgraded the shares to a buy last week.Elliott Abrams: Pivot to Asia is a success
Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based maker of driverless car software, trades at 120 times (MBLY:US) 12-month projected earnings, compared with an average ratio of about 20 for global auto-part suppliers (MBLY:US). Bullish reports from Deutsche Bank and Barclays Plc triggered a 14 percent rally in the last three days of the trading week in New York after they touched a three-month low (MBLY:US) of $39.70 on Dec. 2.
Mobileye is rebounding after Barclays downplayed competitive threats and praised the company’s contract wins with auto-parts makers while Deutsche Bank declared its computer vision software, which helps drivers avoid collisions, superior to rivals. The stock plunged in November as investors grew skeptical of shares that had doubled in value since the company’s initial public offering on July 31.
The pivot to Asia is a great success. Trade with China and India has risen rapidly and relations keep improving.Rome’s Jewish Museum shows ghetto in 1880s
No, not the U.S. pivot, which is imaginary.
Consider this report in The Diplomat:
"A convergence of commercial interests have led the People's Republic of China and the State of Israel to develop an increasingly integrated bilateral economic partnership that is poised to flourish over the next decade. Bilateral trade has experienced a 200-fold increase since diplomatic ties were formally established in 1992, surging from $50 million to $10 billion in 2013, with plans to double that figure in the next few years. ...
Israel is also building its economic ties to India. Trade is now over $4 billion, and mostly weaponry: India is now the largest purchaser of Israeli arms. But that may change: Reuters reports that "Israel Ports Co. is partnering India's Cargo Motors to build a deepwater port in Gujarat, and Israel's TowerJazz is teaming up with India's Jaiprakash Associates and IBM with plans to build a $5.6 billion chip plant near Delhi."
Visitors to Rome’s Jewish Museum can now “walk” streets as they were before the ghetto neighborhood’s demolition in the 1880s.Vienna to host Kindertransport museum
Tucked behind Rome’s main synagogue, the museum on Thursday evening unveiled an interactive table that enables people, with hand movements, to simulate strolling the Old Ghetto.
Researchers studied watercolor landscapes from the times, city property records as well as photographs taken before the district was demolished during Rome’s makeover to be modern Italy’s capital.
The neighborhood is home to one of the world’s longest continuously-inhabited Jewish communities. Sixteenth-century Pope Paul IV ordered Jews confined there; papal edicts enforced the Ghetto’s duration until the mid-18th century.
Vienna will be the home of what organizers are calling the world’s first permanent museum dedicated to the story of the Kindertransport.
The memorial museum known in German as “For the Child” is set to open in the center of the Austrian capital on Wednesday.
The December 10 opening is on the 76th anniversary of the departure of the first group of Jewish children from Vienna as part of the Kindertransport — the German-language name for the organized shipment of Jewish children, often by their own parents, to save them from the Holocaust.
The museum is dedicated to the stories of the people who helped organize the shipment of approximately 10,000 children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland to England between 1938 and 1939.
