Monday, December 22, 2014
Buzzfeed: Top 10 Worst U.N. Decisions Of 2014
8. U.N. Creates Biased Inquiry into Hamas-Israel War, Declares Israel Guilty in AdvanceTerror victim hid Arab Zionist teen during Gaza war
5. As 9/11 Truther Richard Falk Exits, U.N. Names His Wife and Co-Author to Top Human Rights Post
4. UNRWA Hands Rockets in Gaza Schools Back to Hamas Terrorists
3. U.N. Names Anti-Israel Judge to Head Gaza Inquiry
1. U.N. Adopts 20 Resolutions on Israel vs. 4 on Rest of World Combined
In 2014, the U.N. General Assembly adopted 20 resolutions condemning Israel, and only four on the rest of the world combined, being one on Syria, North Korea, Ukraine and Iran.
There were zero UNGA resolutions condemning gross and systematic abuses committed by China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, nor on many other major perpetrators of grave violations of human rights. (h/t Yenta Press)
It sounds like the plot of a novel. A Jewish tour guide who survived a Palestinian terror attack that left her Christian friend dead helped shelter an Arab teen who got death threats after voicing support for Israel’s summer operation in Gaza.Police detain Gideon Levy of Ha'aretz in Samaria
British-born Kay Wilson said that she helped hide Mohammad Zoabi throughout the summer war in Gaza, before he was able to flee to the United States in fear of his life.
Seventeen-year-old Zoabi, an Israeli Arab from Nazareth, was forced to leave the country after receiving death threats for posting a YouTube video harshly condemning the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers by a Hamas-affiliated terror cell in June.
In the YouTube video, Zoabi, wrapped in an Israeli flag, called for the release of the three teens and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop negotiating with Palestinian terrorists.
Zoabi, who is a distant relative of controversial Balad MK Hanin Zoabi, describes himself as an Israeli Zionist Arab Muslim. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Two Ha'aretz journalists – columnist Gideon Levy and photographer Alex Levac – were detained in the West Bank after they entered area A and allegedly cursed and spit at soldiers, the Judea and Samaria district police said on Monday afternoon. The pair were released after about three hours of detention.
According to police, at 1:04 p.m. officers received a call from the IDF saying that soldiers manning a checkpoint at the entrance to Tulkarm said they had detained Israelis who entered Area A, where the Palestinian Authority has full security and civil control, without a permit and while being checked by the soldiers they “confronted them, causing a provocation and spitting and cursing at them.”
A police cruiser was dispatched and officers detained Levy and Levac, taking them for questioning at Samaria subdistrict headquarters, under suspicion of violating the ban on entering area A and for attacking soldiers.
Israelis have been banned from entering area A since the beginning of the second intifada, under an IDF order, but Israeli Arabs typically come and go freely, especially on weekends, and the ban is for the most part not enforced on journalists traveling to the area for work. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Michael Lumish: The Palestinan-Arab National Sport
The truth of the matter is that the conflict, as we see it today, is an extension of the conflict as it emerged out of millennia of Arab-Muslim majority persecution of the stunted Jewish minority, grounded in Koranically-based theocratic bigotry toward all non-Muslims. The reason that the conflict goes on is not out of some alleged historical injustice against Arabs by Jews, but because of rank and long-standing Arab bigotry against Jews.A Guide to NYT Advocacy Journalism: Focus on Jodi Rudoren
Period.
And, you know what? If the local Arabs would teach their children to treat their Jewish neighbors as human beings they would find no better friend to themselves anywhere on the planet. In fact, it is their fellow Arabs who view them with unveiled contempt and who have done more to make their lives miserable than the Jews ever did.
It is not Jews who keep Arabs in camps, but Arabs who do so.
New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren does not differentiate between objective reporting and pushing her viewpoint. And her editors do not care. In fact, they seem to prefer advocacy over straightforward journalism. A case in point: On Dec. 9, 2014, they gave front page prominence to a piece by Rudoren about a debate over Israel's Jewish identity. But instead of writing an objective news story providing both sides' arguments, Rudoren skewed the story with editorial comments, misinformation and her own advocacy. The column would have been better suited for the Op-Ed page.Israel’s Critics Shouldn’t Count on Hillary or the Palestinians
Headlined "Israel Struggles With Its Identity," in the online version and "Bill on Status as Jewish State Fuels an Israeli Identity Crisis," in the print version, the article provides an exemplar of the type of propagandistic stratagems Rudoren routinely uses to promote her views on Israel.
1) Using Pejoratives to Discredit
Rudoren refers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others supporting legislation that solidifies Israel's identity as a Jewish state disparagingly as "ultranationalists."
By contrast, Rudoren avoids labeling most opponents of the bill with any adjectives at all and in the one case where she does characterize a group of them, she describes them only as "left-leaning."
Though they lament Israel’s turn to the right, their real problem is with a Palestinian political culture and a Palestinian people that won’t play the role assigned them in the liberal morality play in which the Jewish state can make peace happen by themselves. In other words, their focus on getting Obama or Clinton or somebody else to hammer Israel is pointless since even if the ticket of Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni defeat Netanyahu in March, there’s no reason to think the Palestinians will be any more likely to make peace than with the current government.The new Euro-Muslim states
Just as discouraging for J Street supporters is the fact that they are losing ground among Jewish leftists to less agonized critics of Israel such as Jewish Voices for Peace. JVP has little sympathy for Zionism and enamored the BDS — boycott, divest and sanction — movement that seeks to promote economic warfare against Israel. JVP scorns Israel as a colonial apartheid state. That position has more appeal to some segments of the left where Jewish identity and particularism is also viewed with hostility. Instead of supplanting AIPAC as the voice of the pro-Israel community as they hoped when Obama was elected president, J Street finds itself lacking the clout and support of the mainstream group while being squeezed from the left by open Israel-haters.
In other words, Hillary would be a fool to throw in with a group that is divorced from the political realities of the United States, Israel or the American Jewish community. Though the group and its “liberal Zionist” backers grow more out of touch with the facts on the ground in the Middle East as well as within the Democratic Party they will have to comfort themselves with sympathetic coverage in the Times.
Once again, the "European Union" is forgetting about everything and dealing only with Israel and the Jews – a well-known and popular habit in Europe for hundreds (the Jews) and dozens (Israel) of years.UK Pro-Israel Groups Claim a Victory in Fightback Against BDS
But this time it's different: The distance between the continent and the Muslim world is becoming increasingly shorter, and a new historical term can be coined: "Euro-Muslim states."
Just like the Arab world did all in its power to harm the young Israel, the same trend is taking shape in the European Union as well. While in the past we talked about the Westernization of the Arab world, we are now talking about the Arabization of Europe. The Arab League boycotted Israel from its very first day, and the "European Union" may now follow in its footsteps.
This may surprise many people, but there are already large cities in Europe which will have a Muslim majority within five to seven years. Not just a huge minority, but an actual Muslim majority. And because cities determine reality these days, the coming years are expected to bring an extensive demographic and political change in the Euro-Muslim states.
Pro-Israel groups in the UK are celebrating an "unprecedented" success in fighting back against the anti-Israel boycott movement, with their first annual "IsrACTION Day."“Pigs in a blanket” chanted in #Ferguson long before #NYPD executions
With the slogan "Beat the Boycotts – Help the Homeless," the nationwide campaign was led by Sussex Friends of Israel in Brighton and the Manchester-based Northwest Friends of Israel and timed for the Hanukkah and Christmas seasons.
Local community volunteers spent the day purchasing Israeli-made non-perishable products from supermarket chains and delivering the much needed food to local food banks and homeless shelters at what is the busiest time of the year for them.
"We have been overwhelmed by the global success of IsrACTION Day," said Fiona Sharpe of Sussex Friends of Israel.
"From Cork to Belfast, Australia to America, Brighton, Glasgow and many places in between, individuals and communities have embraced this timely initiative that has enabled people to show their support for Israel and their care for those less fortunate in their communities."
On October 25, 2014, I wrote about how anti-Israel activists attempted to co-opt and hijack the Ferguson protests and riots and turn the anger towards Israel, Intifada Missouri – Anti-Israel activists may push Ferguson over the edge.Ferguson Protester After NYC Shootings "Pigs in a blanket" (NSFW)
The activists gathered under the “Palestine2Ferguson” banner and Twitter hashtag.
One of the key anti-Israel activists was Bassem Masri, a Palestinian-American who attempted to instigate confrontations between police and protesters, as he livestreamed the protests.
Fast forward to the execution of two NYPD police officers, Wenjian Lu and Rafael Ramos, on December 20, by Ismaaiyl Brinsley.
The killer wrote on Instagram in his final post:
“I’m Putting Wings On Pigs Today. They Take 1 Of Ours…Let’s Take 2 of Theirs,” “This May Be My Final Post … I’m Putting Pigs In A Blanket.”
After the killing, Masri attracted attention because he tweeted and was on video chanting, with others, “Pigs In a Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon.”
Masri denies that she supported the killing, but seems to like the chant. (h/t Effect)
The Higher Education Hypocrisy Award for 2014 Goes to …
It’s a close contest, and there is a bit of 2014 left, but this year’s award for higher education hypocrisy surely must go to eight signatories of the latest anti-Israel petition to emerge from our universities. The petition itself, signed by members of the faculty of New York University, is the standard call to punish corporations that can be connected in some way to Israel’s activities in the West Bank or Gaza. What’s striking about this one is that eight of the signatories, more than ten percent of the present total, are affiliated with NYU’s satellite campus in Abu Dhabi. NYU’s Abu Dhabi outpost, “wholly bankrolled by the oil-rich Abu Dhabi government,” opened in 2010, and its permanent campus, located alongside an “idyllic resort” under development on Saadiyat Island, was completed in 2014.Shmuley Boteach: The coming boycott of Jewish businesses
So I wonder when these eight faculty members, who pompously stand on NYU’s “long and proud tradition of demanding that the university live up to its professed values,” will be renouncing their affiliation with the government of the United Arab Emirates. As Freedom House observes in its 2014 report, the UAE bans political parties, and “criticism of the government, allies [and] religion” is prohibited by law.
I saw a nasty thing walking with my children in New York City on the Sabbath. On Madison Ave in the mid-sixties, we saw a group of people, chanting, singing.Hannukah Greetings From The New York Times
Was it Christmas carolers? As we got closer we saw it was a protest. An anti-Israel protest.
But this one was not outside an Israeli Consulate or Embassy. It was outside a commercial, retail store. A diamond store. Owned by Lev Leviev, the Israeli billionaire businessman and philanthropist.
“Glitz and glam. He steals Palestinian land.”
I was appalled. I got closer. The protesters were accusing Leviev, a private Jewish citizens, of stealing Palestinian land, persecuting Palestinians, and supporting an imperial Israel.
I asked the protesters who Leviev was and why they were protesting him. Was he Israel’s Prime Minister or Foreign Minister? At least the Ambassador. How else to explain why they would be protesting outside a business simply owned by a Jew.
The New York Times, owned by Jews named Sulzberger ever since Adolph Ochs purchased the floundering newspaper in 1896, might have passed along Hanukkah greetings to its Jewish readers and to the world’s only Jewish state. Yet within five days it launched a three-article fusillade, supplemented by an editorial, castigating Israel. No surprise that each article was written by a Jew.BBC’s flawed Second Lebanon war narrative crops up again
Predictably, Thomas Friedman launched the assault (12/16). Still mired in the left-wing Peace Nowism of his undergraduate years at Brandeis, when he was a student leader of Breira (the ideological antecedent of J-Street), Friedman warned against “West Bank settlers and scary religious-nationalist zealots.” Sounding rather zealous himself, he offered his dire forecast that the new government to be elected in March “will lead Israel into a dark corner, increasingly alienated from Europe, America and the next generation of American Jews.” Its best policy option is to embrace the “Israeli-designed traffic management application Waze.com.” Check it out.
Four days later Jodi Rudoren, following in Friedman’s ideological footsteps as Jerusalem Bureau Chief, contributed a feminist propaganda piece. Ostensibly celebrating retiring Maj. Gen Orna Barbivai, the highest ranking woman in IDF history, Rudoren took cheap pot-shots at the “testosterone-driven institution” that carved out a “pink ghetto” – while winning every war foisted upon it since 1948. Israel, she conceded, is “the only nation with a gender-neutral draft,” quickly adding: “but that may sound more equal than it is.”
Of course Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser were not only kidnapped, but also killed. Significantly, the BBC makes no mention of the fact that Hizballah’s cross-border raid was accompanied by missile fire on Israeli communities before going on to describe the Israeli response and neither does it clarify that well over four thousand missiles were launched at civilian targets in Israel during the 34-day conflict. No mention is of course made of the fact that Hizballah is an Iranian-backed terrorist organisation.New York Times Corrects Mosque "Arson" Claim. Will CNN?
Not for the first time we see the BBC claiming that the Lebanese casualties in that war were “mostly” civilians without providing any factual and independently verified evidence to support that claim.
Following communication from CAMERA's Israel office, The New York Times commendably corrected a news analysis which had stated as fact that a fire in a West Bank mosque last month was due to arson. As we noted last week, an Israeli investigation had recently concluded that the fire resulted from an electrical malfunction, and did not involve arson.Czech Jews protest invitation of Putin to Holocaust memorial
In response to correspondence from CAMERA, The New York Times and Associated Press last week published articles about the Israeli findings, and Associated Press as well as Haaretz corrected photo captions which had identified arson as the cause of the fire.
The Czech Jewish community is up in arms over its government’s decision to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to a national Holocaust commemoration being held in Prague next month, citing opposition to Moscow’s actions in neighboring Ukraine.'Racist' Respect leader a serving JP
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has already agreed to attend the event marking the 70th anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of Auschwitz, which is being organized in collaboration with the European Jewish Congress.
“The regime Putin established and embodies doesn’t respect international treaties, is aggressive and uses its power to occupy the territory of a neighboring state,” the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic said in a statement cited by Bloomberg on Friday.
Putin’s invitation would be inappropriate given the current political situation, the community explained, in an apparent reference to Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March and its continuing support for pro-Russian separatists in that country’s industrial east.
A man expelled from George Galloway’s Respect party for racism and anti-Semitism is serving as a magistrate in London’s most multiracial borough.The Palestinians who ventured into the line of fire for Israel
Abul "Abz" Hussain describes himself as a "follower of David Icke," the conspiracy theorist who believes that the world is ruled by a race of giant lizards and that global leaders, including George W. Bush and the Queen, are the descendants of extraterrestrial reptiles.
On his Facebook page, Mr Hussain, a British Bangladeshi, condemns "ignorant" people who "want me to ‘integrate’ into a decadent [Western] lifestyle."
As a sitting Justice of the Peace (JP) at Stratford magistrates’ court in Newham, east London, Mr Hussain is called upon to enforce British law, a key tenet of the society he appears to question. Sitting with two other magistrates, he passes verdicts and sentences in most criminal cases, with the power to impose up to six months’ imprisonment. More serious cases are also first heard by magistrates, who can grant or deny bail.
The story almost got lost among the clouds of smoke billowing across northern Israel during Hanukkah of 2010. Among the hundreds of firefighters from around the world who came to offer assistance to Israel during the tragic Carmel Fire, 19 were volunteers from the Palestinian territories who fought hard for the right to assist in Israel.Intel to spend $550 million in Israel through 2020
The fire ultimately killed 44 people as it blazed for 77 hours. There was so much going on that the presence of Palestinian firefighters was one blip in the news cycle, a shot of four red fire trucks leaving the checkpoint on their way to fight the fire.
The Carmel Fire of 2010 was also an exercise in humility for Israel. The country rarely finds itself on the receiving end of international disaster aid. The incongruity was highlighted even further in this instance, because the Palestinians were the ones providing the assistance.
Three years after the fire, Israeli and Palestinian documentary filmmakers released a new documentary about the Palestinian firefighters called “Fire Lines.” Though the movie was released almost a year ago, it is now available online for free.
Intel has promised to spend at least $550 million in Israel in the next five years. The sum is part of a commitment by the company to spend a total of $6 billion to upgrade its Kiryat Gat plant for the manufacture of new advanced chips for its next generation devices. Intel and the Economy Ministry’s Industrial Cooperation Authority announced the deal on Sunday.Novartis invests $10 million in pharma developer BiolineRX
The $550 is part of Intel’s offset purchase arrangement with the state, which is providing the company with grants of up to $600 million over the next five years as well as a major tax break through 2023. Intel is set to receive two $300 million grants, distribution of which will be spread over five budget years. More valuable for Intel is likely to be the fact that it will have to pay a corporate tax of only 5% through 2023 (the standard rate of company tax in Israel in 2014 was 26.5%). In return, Intel committed to hiring at least 1,000 new employees, at least half of whom will be residents of communities in southern Israel. In addition, the company promised to spend at least $550 million over the period.
Some might point out that Intel is basically committing to spend what it is getting from the government in direct grants, but statements by Economy Ministry officials were enthusiastic about the benefits of the deal to the Israeli economy. “This arrangement will have a very positive effect on hundreds of small businesses and suppliers,” said Ziva Eiger, director of investments at the Industrial Cooperation Authority.
Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis has signed a deal to acquire 12.8% of Israeli drug development firm BiolineRX. Under the arrangement, Novartis will invest $10 million in Jerusalem-based company, developing and commercializing drugs developed in Israel.Israeli company develops smartphone for disabled
Under the deal, Novartis and BioLineRx will jointly evaluate both clinical and pre-clinical stage projects presented by BioLineRx, with Novartis deciding which projects to develop further. Upon selection of a project, Novartis will pay BioLineRx an option fee of $5 million, as well as fund 50% of the anticipated remaining development costs associated with establishing clinical proof-of-concept, in the form of an additional equity investment in BioLineRx. Novartis will have an exclusive right of first negotiation to license from BioLineRx each selected project upon establishment of clinical proof-of-concept. The contract calls for up to three projects to be funded in this manner.
Wheelchair bound for nine years, quadriplegic electrical power engineer Giora Livne is determined not to be left behind by technology.Israeli-Developed TalkITT Gives New Voice to People With Speech Impairments (VIDEO)
Keen to use a smart phone, Livne joined forces with app developer Oded Ben Dov to create a device that responds to head movements.
And this is the result.
The Sesame Phone is customized to the user's face and allows them to select applications and move the curser.
"I can do everything with the phone. I can call, I can receive calls, I can use SMS, WhatsApp, I can play games and in the very, very near future I will be able to operate a lot of things at home," Livne said.
And Livne has big plans.
"The next step will be driving the car with the iphone, or with the telephone, and of course, my aim is to get to the moon with the phone."
Sesame has tested the phone on 10 different users with different forms of paralysis.
Danny Weissberg in 2012 co-founded VoiceITT, maker of the TalkITT software, shortly after his grandmother had a stroke. He describes her as “the center of our family” and says it was “painful” to know she wanted to talk, but was being prevented by her stroke from communicating.Israeli Students Take Top Prize in International Robotics Competition
Weissberg, who obtained degrees in civil engineering and computer science and had been working in the hi-tech industry for more than 15 years, began consulting with speech therapists and other related experts. Quickly, he realized the need for TalkITT—given that as many as 1.5 percent of the world’s population has a speech disability or impairment—and decided that with enough innovation, a solution could be created.
“The solutions that exist today, none of them actually uses personal or normal speech,” Weissberg, who serves as CEO of Ramat Gan-based VoiceITT in Israel’s Tel Aviv District, tells JNS.org. “They all bypass speech. Some even monitor head and eye movements. But none of them allows people to communicate in the most natural way: their voice.”
A group of students from the southern Israeli city of Yeruham won the top prize at the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition, held in Chicago last week.Holocaust film ‘Ida’ makes Oscars shortlist
The Israeli team—which calls itself the “Y Team” and comprises some 30 students for the Yeruham Sci-Tech school—was represented by Racheli Amar (10th grade), Itai Seif (9th grade), and their mentor, Reuven Stahl.
Competitors in this year’s competition were asked to build and program an 18-inch by 18-inch robot that would pick up scattered whiffle balls and place them in tubes of varying heights of up to 35 inches. The robot had to move autonomously for 30 seconds, after which the team could control it for two minutes.
The Israeli team developed a creative solution—a robot that holds the tallest tube, which provides the highest points, and suctions the balls in.
The Israeli entry is out, but a Polish Holocaust-related film is still in the running, as movies from nine countries were shortlisted Friday in the Oscars race for best foreign-language film.French Jew Pioneers World's Third Kosher Vineyard Outside Israel
“Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem,” Israel’s entry, did not make the cut. The film depicts the five-year legal struggle of an Orthodox wife to obtain a divorce from her reluctant husband.
However, “Ida,” an early favorite, made the shortlist. The sparse but powerful Polish movie traces the evolution of a young novitiate in a Catholic convent, who, about to take her vows, learns that she is the daughter of Jewish parents killed during the Holocaust.
It was a visit to Jerusalem that inspired French Jew Alexandre Sartene to start the world's third kosher vineyard outside Israel which, despite a rocky start, now exports as far as Brazil.Thanking the Soldiers in Hevron on Hanukkah
"I find the idea of kosher wine divine," says a proud Sartene, with a touch of the same humor that has seen him nickname his domain in southern France as his "kibbutz."
And his vineyard, Parnassah, which means prosperity in Hebrew, is living up to its name, with all wine made strictly in line with the ancient Jewish tradition dating back more than 3,000 years.
However, Parnassah vineyard - located north of the city of Nimes, an area whose rich history goes back to the Roman Empire - is still facing hurdles, though Sartene is unfazed.
A moving Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony was held on Sunday at the rest station set up for IDF soldiers by residents in Hevron, the city of the Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and adjacent Kiryat Arba located in Judea.Post-IDF Volunteers’ Next Mission: Help Indian Street Children (VIDEO)
The ceremony was attended by Hevron-Kiryat Arba Regional Council Chairman Malachi Levinger, residents of the city and, of course, IDF soldiers.
Sources in Kiryat Arba say the ceremony is part of the wide array of activities meant to show gratitude to the soldiers at the rest station, which is named after Yehezkel Mualem hy''d who was murdered in 2001 by Arab terrorists.
At the station soldiers can find hot drinks, cookies and other snacks that are offered every day as an expression of thanks for the role the soldiers play in defending the lives of the Jewish residents.
Some 30 young Israelis, backpackers who recently completed their mandatory army service, have returned from a trek to India on the premier mission of the “Helpers Without Borders,” NGO, Israel’s NRG News reported Sunday.
The group aims to bring altruism to the time worn Israeli tradition of post-army travel.
“Every year, many young Israelis travel across the world after completing the (mandatory) army service,” project co-ordinator Gilli Cohen told The Times of India in September.
IDF Blog: 8 Miraculous Moments in IDF History
#MiraculousMoment 6: Airlift of 14,500 Ethiopian Jews to Israel
Operation Solomon, 1991
Seven years after the success of Operation Moses, which brought the first wave of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, the IDF embarked on the largest areal expedition in Israel’s history. 14,500 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel within 36 hours, on board 34 Israeli Air Force flights. The bravery of the Ethiopian Jews, alongside the commitment of the IDF’s soldiers, made this operation truly miraculous.
