Friday, January 30, 2015
Sarah Honig: The wrong end of a municipal drain-pipe
The Charlie Hebdo massacre (as distinct from the subsequent slaughter at the Jewish supermarket) turned the spotlight on Muslim proclivities for righteous rage. Instantly the West’s elected headliners fell over themselves to declare that Islam is a peace-loving religion whose meek adherents only aspire to win a modicum of respect.Must Watch: Baroness Deech Pulls No Punches In Opposing UK Recognition of “Palestine”
As part of our urgent re-education and re-immersion in the cult of multiculturalism, the mantra that the bloodshed “has nothing to do with Islam” was drilled into us nonstop. This, it was repeatedly chanted, is the correct way for us to think. Deviations from the prescribed diktat would be sternly denounced in the name of freedom.
Perhaps that’s why the dismal fate of Saudi citizen Raif Badawi didn’t much move the agenda-setters who so warily safeguard our inalienable right not to veer from their infallible guidelines.
Badawi, 31, fell victim to precisely the same Muslim muzzling as did the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, but he is geographically distant and, therefore perhaps, his pain is less in the enlightened faces of opinion-molders.
But the fact still remains that he suffers appallingly only because he dared take an independent stand.
That’s his one and only crime.
In the latest parliamentary debate in the House of Lords on UK recognition of palestinian statehood, Baroness Deech tells it like it is.
Britons loathe Israel more than Iran, survey finds
Britons feel more “unfavorable” to Israel than any other country worldwide except North Korea, a survey found.
The survey — taken in August and published Thursday by Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs — showed a massive surge in negative attitudes toward Israel since the previous such study, two years earlier. Thirty-five percent of Britons said they “feel especially unfavorable towards” Israel in the 2014 survey, compared to 17% in 2012.
That figure meant that Israel is regarded more unfavorably by Britons than Iran — 33% in the 2014 survey, compared to 45% in 2012. Only North Korea fares worse — regarded as especially unfavorable by 47% in 2014, compared to 40% in 2012.
Commenting on the dramatic rise in hostile attitudes to Israel, the compilers noted that, “The survey was conducted in August 2014 at a time when … Israel was engaged in a military operation in Gaza against Hamas that caused large numbers of civilian casualties.”
Dear Ahmed…
You have been jailed for your Pro-Israel activism. Then again you wore a shirt with the word peace written in Hebrew on TV in Egypt…so you must of seen that one coming–fair or not. You lost your family, your friends, you have been called a traitor…and your response: “To try and fail. Then to try and fail, and fail again. They will call you stubborn. Then try again and succeed. They will call you determined. While they are busy calling you names, you are busy improving. This is Israel. This is the Jewish people.”‘Show me evidence Israel wasn’t behind 9/11’, asks vicar Stephen Sizer
I think what struck me most when we spoke was that you are a proud Muslim. You don’t see religion as the problem or let’s say the force behind the fighting, terrorism and wars…you see the issue with religious leaders that must take responsibility for today’s hate.
You and I are so similar. We like to laugh. Except you smoke which is gross. I told you to stop. After all death threats and being pro-Israel is really enough to get you…I refuse to finish that sentence.
I know it is really late Ahmed, but I hope you write back. Just so you can tell me something good. Or funny. Or comforting.
And just when I felt too tired to hit refresh one more time…the most refreshing thing happened. A response from Ahmed:
“Please lets rock the world together and try to give people hope that PEACE is right around the Corner. Trust me all we need is for one to take the step towards the other instead of avoiding and Hating each other.
Just a Step dear Molly.”
However Sizer seemed to defend his actions in an email to the Jewish News, saying: “I would welcome articles you can recommend refuting the allegations.” Noting that many Americans feel 9/11 was “an inside job,” Sizer added: “It is essential the public become convinced of what happened before and after 9/11. Inevitably the truth will upset many people if it is shown by further investigation that the official explanations are shown to be deficient.”Michael Lumish: “Palestinian” Cartoons
He added: “Encouraging research and debate on all aspects of [9/11] is not anti- Semitic… Suppressing discussion on such grounds will fuel suspicion, not remove it.” Arkush said he was “extremely concerned that a Church of England minister could possibly have considered it appropriate or becoming to his position to advertise such racist nonsense”.
Sizer, Vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, has previously been accused by the Jewish community of linking to extremist content and over the language he used. In 2013, the Church instigated disciplinary proceedings following a formal complaint from the Board. Sizer maintained that his views were not anti-Semitic, but directed at Israeli policy towards Palestinians.
We have to somehow make it clear that the malice within the Arab-Israel conflict is not equivalent on both sides.Ryan Bellerose: Even Their Flag is Colonized
That is, there is no morally equivalent “cycle of violence” between Arabs and Jews.
The far larger Arab nation, which gobbled up the entire Middle East shortly after the death of Muhammad, has kept its imperial boot on the head of the Jewish people – thereby keeping our numbers artificially low – in that region for fourteen centuries, until the fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the seemingly phoenix-like establishment of Israel in 1948.
Arab and Soviet propaganda, since at least the 1960s, has slowly convinced well-meaning western liberals that the children of Holocaust survivors are the bad guys and, weirdly enough, use an inversion of a biblical story to do so.
Everyone knows the legend of David and Goliath.
According to the Bible, Goliath was a giant Philistine warrior and David was a kid, but the future king of Israel, and they fought a millennia before the birth of Jesus, and almost two before the birth of Muhammad.
David defeated Goliath with his sling, of course.
You can tell a lot about a people by the flag they choose for their people.Why Is the Islamist Death Cult So Appealing?
My people’s flag is a white infinity symbol on a blue background, which symbolizes the Metis people and our refusal to die. We believe our people are eternal and can never be broken. The infinity symbol shows that our culture will live forever.The colour is important as well – it should be blue which represents the Metis of the Northwest company; if its red it represents the Hudson Bay company.
I also like the Israeli Flag and its symbolism. The color blue comes from a dye called Tekhelet which came from a marine snail. This color is important in Jewish culture, since they have a commandment to have one of the threads of their Tzitzit (tassels) “so that they may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them.” (Num 15:39) The skills to make this dye were lost during one of the many times of upheaval, but seem to have been brought back in recent times.
The Magen David is a relatively new symbol, dating to the 11th century but there are some examples of it from much earlier, such as the ancient Synagogue at Tel Humm, which contains stones dating back to 3 or 4 CE with this symbol on them.
All in all, a pretty interesting flag that displays a love of the culture and tradition of the Nation of Israel.
Last, we have an interesting flag, the one that the Arabs now calling themselves palestinians chose for themselves. Let’s look at this flag.
It is a red triangle with black, white and green stripes on it.
There is absolutely nothing indigenous about this flag. Not one single, solitary piece of it symbolizes anything to do with the land they claim. Not a single thing differentiates this flag from the flags of other Arab Muslim countries. Then again, the palestinians have no distinct “palestinian” culture so it should hardly be surprising that the flag they created and chose for themselves is nothing more than a celebration of Arab colonialism. It is not the only evidence that palestinian arabs are colonizers who celebrate the colonization of indigenous people, but it’s another piece of an obvious puzzle.
They are colonizers. Hell, even their flag is colonized.
Why, then, do people who are not clinically insane throw themselves into this kind of insanity? Why do they do so even in the world’s wealthiest and most peaceful of countries? They do so because the apocalyptic dreams and the cult of hatred and murder and the yearning for death are fundamentals of modern culture. They enlist because they are unhappy, and the eschatological rebellion against everyday morality satisfies them. The Islamist idea, in its most extreme version especially, offers every solace that a mopey young person could desire. It proposes an explanation of unhappiness. It ascribes the alienation to a conspiracy. Its stipulation of Jewish evil justifies the joys of loathing and murder. It promises a radiant future.The Islamophobia myth
Meanwhile, it offers the joys of romantic costuming, which have always figured prominently in the totalitarian appeal. Instead of the black shirts of Mussolini’s men, or the brown shirts of the Nazi paramilitaries, here is the Islamic State’s black uniform, which the Brothers Kouachi went to some trouble to don in order to slaughter the Charlie cartoonists. And the jihad offers the glamour of suicide. It is a sexually marvelous suicide, to be awarded posthumously and preposterously with the delights to be had from 72 virgins. But the jihad issues its call to suicide also by offering something not at all preposterous or false. This is posthumous fame and glory among one’s fellow jihadis, during the interim before their own martyrdom. Le Monde has reported that, at a high-security prison in France, when the news of the Paris attacks penetrated into the cellblocks, some of the prisoners spent two days screaming “Allahu Akbar” in triumph—a news report that would have caused the Brothers Kouachi and their comrade Coulibaly, the third gunman (himself a disciple of Beghal, the disciple of Bin Laden), to weep in joy, if only they had lived to hear about it. Of course they knew this was going to happen. That is why they did it.
Last time I checked, there was no widespread Western movement that sought to destroy the Islamic way of life, or to convert the Moslems to Christianity or any other religion. Even the neoconservatives who sought to redeem the world through democracy did not seek to disrupt Islam in the process.Lost Violin of Auschwitz Plays Again
To be sure, some Muslim groups may see the temptation of Western society as a threat to their way of life much the same way Haredim view the modern and integrated society as a threat. The Haredi response is to maintain insular communities that protect adherents from external influences. It is not to seek to impose their standards on Jewish communities across the world. Live and let live.
At the heart of this conflict are two opposing fears: the paranoid fear of Islamists that the West wants to destroy their way of life when no such sentiment has ever been expressed, and the fear of the West that Islamist terrorists will attack symbols of their modern society and kill thousands of innocents, given half a chance, with the stated aim of transforming the entire world.
Now, whose fear is the irrational one?
A violin thrown some seventy years ago from a train transporting French Jews to the Nazi Auschwitz death camp will sound in the concert hall of the Berlin Philharmonic on Tuesday night, along with other instruments once played by victims of the Holocaust.HuffPo Posts Anti-Semitic Screed on Holocaust Remembrance Day
A French railwayman caught that unknown passenger’s violin and gave it to his daughter to play.
Years later it found its way into the hands of Israeli violin-maker and restorer Amnon Weinstein, whose extraordinary collection comprises violins embodying their former owners’ tragic histories and stories of survival.
Tuesday marks 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. Around 1.5 million people, mainly European Jews, were gassed, shot, hanged and burned at the camp in southern Poland during World War Two.
Tuesday’s concert will also feature one of Weinstein’s violins that had belonged to a member of Auschwitz’s prisoner orchestra.
The orchestra played while inmates were marched to work and to entertain guards. The ability to play often saved lives.
Yes, the article contained scare quotes around the number six million. Because it’s not like we’re certain that there were that many dead Jews, right? The awkwardness of this open Holocaust pooh-poohing led the Post to issue a rare editor’s note:IRGC-Affiliated News Agency: The Holocaust Lie Is Gradually Being Exposed; Those Who Claim It Happened Will Be Shamed
"This blog previously contained quotation marks around the six million figure on Holocaust deaths. The author did not mean to cast doubt over the figure, it was meant as a quotation. We apologise for any offence this caused."
What, exactly, was the author quoting? Nobody knows. Unless it was Norman Finkelstein.
The author continued in this vein. After dismissing Jewish worries about rising European anti-Semitism resulting in mass exodus from France (“it’s heartening to see the number of Jews that have pointed out the economic circumstances tied to these departures”), Eribo then turns to the Jewish conspiracy more broadly:
"Let’s not forget that nowadays, Jewish lobbying and interest groups are quite powerful in the UK and the US. Israel, the country viewed as the Jewish homeland, is a powerful country with even more powerful world allies."
Well, guess that means the Holocaust doesn’t matter any more. Clearly, anti-Semitism has been stamped out, as evidenced by this author suggesting that the Jews are supremely powerful and that Israel is the supposed Jewish homeland rather than the actual Jewish homeland.
The Iranian regime consistently denies the Holocaust, and utilizes its Holocaust denial to claim that Israel's existence is illegitimate. This view is shared by the regime's officials, headed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and by their media mouthpieces.Clash On Al Jazeera: Egyptian Writer: The Entire World Recognizes Holocaust 'Indisputable' Why Can't Arabs
On January 28, 2015, the day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year was also the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Fars news agency, which is affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), published an article titled "The Holocaust – An Example Of The West's Rewriting Of History Based On Superpower Interests." The article stated that the "Holocaust lie" was slowly being exposed worldwide with the help of today's rapid communications, which allow deniers to disseminate their views. It further stated that those who insist that the Holocaust really happened base their arguments on falsified and unsubstantiated documents that fail to prove any mass extermination of Jews or any decision by the Nazis to carry out such a move. Another claim presented in the article was that the number of crematoria barely sufficed for incinerating the bodies of those who died from disease, let alone the bodies of millions of Jews. The founders of Zionism, it said, saw Hitler's antisemitism as an opportunity to concoct a myth of the Holocaust in order to promote the establishment of a state for the Jews. Furthermore, the judges in the Nuremburg trials relied on documents that they had not verified.
The U.S.-based Egyptian author Magdi Khalil and Tunisian scholar Shakir Al-Sharafi recently clashed in a heated TV debate on freedom of speech, following the January 2015 Paris attacks. "The Jewish Holocaust is an indisputable and irrefutable fact," said Khalil. "Why is it only the Muslims who deny the Holocaust?" Al-Sharafi, for his part, cited French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, said that Germany and Europe were still "paying the price for this imaginary Holocaust, and added that the Charlie Hebdo attack had been a conspiracy, filmed in advance. The debate aired on Al-Jazeera TV's show "The Opposite Direction" on January 20, 2015.Pew: Sharp racial split on whether it’s okay to publish Mohammed cartoons
Fascinating but frustrating, as asking if it’s “okay” is just about the vaguest way to phrase a question related to blasphemy. The “not okay” group could include people who think it’s impolite but tolerable to publish; people who think publishers should choose not to publish, whether out of sensitivity or fear; and people who think there oughta be a law.Arab Media Reactions To Paris Terror Attacks – Part IV: Conspiracy Theories – The Paris Attacks Are The Work Of France, The French Right, The Jews, Israel
However the question is being processed, though, the racial split keeps showing up in polls like this.
Note the gender gap too. This is the second major poll I’ve seen on Mohammed and blasphemy since the Charlie Hebdo massacre and there are noteworthy differences by race, sex, and party in both. When YouGov asked a few weeks ago whether the media should publish satires of religion generally, they found Republicans at +14 and Democrats at -9. When asked whether Charlie Hebdo behaved responsibly by publishing the cartoons, men were +34 and whites were +27 while women were just +6 and blacks were -16. On the follow-up question of whether publications should publish satires of a particular religion, men were +25 and whites were +10. Women were -16. Blacks were -34. That YouGov poll was taken immediately after the Hebdo shooting, though; the racial and gender gaps in today’s poll, taken several weeks later, are a bit smaller, with women now +19 on the question of whether it’s okay to publish. So there’s a hopeful note in an otherwise depressingly divided result. It could be that the Charlie Hebdo slaughter is reorienting American public opinion towards greater support for free speech.
As with the 9/11 attacks, conspiracy theories concerning the January 2015 terror attacks in Paris, at the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and at a Jewish supermarket, spread throughout the Arab world and Iran; they claim variously that the attacks were the work of France, the French right, the Jews, and/or Israel.New French Anti-Jihad Campaign: 'You Might Be A Terrorist If...'
Among the conspiracy theories – which were published alongside numerous articles condemning the attacks – were those that claimed that France was behind the attacks, with the aim of justifying a military invasion of Libya, just as the U.S. had carried out 9/11 to provide a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Some propagators of this conspiracy theory urged Muslims not to apologize for the attacks because they were in no way responsible for them.
Others stated that the French right had carried them out, seeking to embarrass the French government and increase its own power in parliament. Articles blaming the Jews and Israel, which included anti-Semitic themes, argued that the attacks were intended to undermine Arab/Muslim-Europe relations, rein in Europe's current pro-Arab drift, and, most of all, block official European institutions' support for a Palestinian state.
These conspiracy theories were harshly criticized by some Arab writers, who argued that they disregarded reality and called on Arabs and Muslims to recognize that some Muslims had indeed committed and were still committing terror operations and that this was rooted in economic, social and cultural factors that needed to be addressed.
In the weeks since the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the country’s government has spent $480 million to stop Islamic radicalization. One of its new materials: a checklist of the “first signs” a person may be becoming a terrorist sympathizer, including “suddenly changing eating habits,” “not listening to music” and “rejecting family members.”Muslims Gloat at Paris Kosher Market 2 Days After Attack
Other symptoms listed in the handy infographic include frequenting extremist websites, changing their clothing habits and dropping out of school.
The hitch is that many of French government’s alleged symptoms of jihadi behavior mimic the behaviors of socially withdrawn young men, including those who are most prone to recruitment by terrorist cells.
The Daily Caller News Foundation entered several of the checklist’s symptoms into the popular online self-diagnosis tool on WebMD, and found possible conditions ranging from adult depression to bulimia to mononucleosis.
Islamist terrorist Amedy Coulibaly murdered four Jews at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris earlier this month while taking hostages and later being shot by police - just two days after the heinous attack, Muslim youths were outside the store gloating.BBC to investigate presenter’s Israel questions at Paris protest march
A group of French Muslims posted photos of themselves in front of the supermarket to Facebook just after the attack, making rude gestures with their middle fingers in the pictures, reports the French-language Le Monde Juif which provided screenshots.
In the caption of the photos posted by user "Abdellah du Futur" reads vile messages such as "Charlie's a mother (expletive)." The statement is a reference to the "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) campaign of support after Islamist terrorists murdered 12 at the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo for making cartoons of Mohammed, founder of Islam, two days before the supermarket attack.
Another caption reads in French "Allahu Akbar ratatatata ahhhh," mimicking the shouts of Allah is Greater shouted by Muslim terrorists, the sounds of gunfire and the victims' cries of pain.
The complainant alleged that Willcox’s questions were “misleading in that it linked the Paris killings in a kosher supermarket with events in the Middle East,” and that the “question displayed bias against Israel.”StandWithUs: Shutting Down Free Speech on Campus
Andrew Bell, director of the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit, said the network was happy to investigate, and he confirmed that its editorial guidelines stipulated that the channel’s portrayal of people “should avoid careless or offensive stereotypical assumptions.”
Bell, who said the BBC had received a large number of complaints on the subject, added that the outcome of the investigation would be published by February 23.
Meanwhile, former Welsh Nationalist Party leader Lord Dafydd Wigley issued an apology on Wednesday for comparing the deaths at Auschwitz with possible fatalities that might result from Trident nuclear submarines.
The issue in question was the government’s reported plans to move the Trident submarine base in Faslane, on Scotland’s River Clyde, to Pembrokeshire on the coast of Wales. The government subsequently denied such plans.
In a BBC interview, Wigley said that his party would have been “tremendously opposed” to the move. Asked if such a move might bring jobs to the area, he replied, “Look, this week we have been remembering what happened in Germany before the war. No doubt there were many jobs provided in Auschwitz and places like that, but that didn’t justify their existence, and neither does nuclear weapons justify having them in Pembrokeshire.”
Northeastern Univ. Professor Abuses Platform To Preach Anti-Semitism
An alarming video posted by Americans for Peace and Tolerance on YouTube shows Muhammad Shahid Alam, a Northeastern University professor, boasting about violating free speech of pro-Israel students at the university. Toward the end of the video, Alam is recorded stating, “if there are one or two people who want to say it [pro-Israel comments], they don’t because they sense that they will get no support from the class.” Pleased to have stifled free speech in the classroom, he proudly states that the “young people know the truth” -- or perhaps, are too intimidated to contradict his version of it.M Shahid Alam Brags about Violating Free Speech of Northeastern Pro-Israel Students
Unsurprisingly, many Jewish students have reported feeling targeted and intimidated in his classroom, not feelings typically associated with an allegedly open academic environment. This is not the first time that a professor has silenced a pro-Israel student in campus. CAMERA’s past article, Anti-Israel Professors, delved into the significance of this serious problem that pro-Israel students are facing throughout the country. In fact, due to the increase in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic attacks made by professors, the AMCHA Initiative was created. The organization recently published a list of over 200 anti-Israel Middle East Studies Professors.
Stephen Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, wrote an article for Campus Watch in which he noted that Alam denies the continuity of Jewish history and, therefore, the Jewish association with the land of Israel, to justify the destruction of the Jewish state.
Christian Century’s Response to Algemeiner Article is Beneath Contempt
Two days after The Algemeiner published my article detailing how James M. Wall, former editor of the Christian Century (CC) joined the editorial board and started writing for Veterans News Now- a website that promotes anti-Semitic propaganda, the CC’s executive editor, David Heim, issued a statement entitled, “On the Century‘s relationship with James Wall.”BBC pot calls the Russian media kettle black
The statement, issued on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, reads as follows:
James Wall is listed on the Christian Century masthead as a “contributing editor” along with other former editors and staff members. He has not been involved in editing the magazine since his retirement in 1998.
James Wall did a lot for the Century as editor, but he doesn’t speak for the magazine now. His title “contributing editor” reflects our appreciation for his contributions here but is not an endorsement of what he writes elsewhere.
Those observations may indeed be accurate and justified, but one does have to note the irony of the fact that the BBC finds it worth pointing out to audiences that the Russian state media’s failure to report that “insurgents frequently fire from residential areas” is one method used to influence the public’s perception of the hostilities in Ukraine.The BBC and the Houthi logo
After all, it took the BBC itself no fewer than thirty-six days to get round to telling its audiences that “at times” terrorists in the Gaza Strip “have operated from civilian areas” in its coverage of last summer’s conflict between Hamas and Israel. And when members of the public complained about the corporation’s failure to report adequately on the issue of terrorist missile fire from residential areas, they were informed that “[i]t was very hard for journalists in Gaza to get to see rockets being fired out”.
If the BBC is serious about safeguarding its reputation as an accurate, impartial and independent reporter of news, it might care to examine how – and why – its own reporting of the conflict between Hamas and Israel was tailored to influence public opinion in ways apparently not all that different from those used by Russia’s non-independent media outlets.
Seeing as no attempt was made to explain that logo in Safa Al Ahmed’s report, audiences might perhaps have turned to the BBC News website’s profile of the group titled “Yemen crisis: Who are the Houthis?“. There they would have found that same logo appearing in a picture captioned “Houthi supporters took part in weeks of protests calling for fuel price cuts and a new government”.BBC double standards on terrorism surface yet again
So does that logo have anything to do with fuel prices or demands for political reform in Yemen? Well, no – and its recurrent appearance is not coincidental because that banner is actually the official emblem of the Houthis, as explained by the New York Times:
“It includes the words “Death to America, death to Israel, damnation to the Jews.” Houthis shout it when they march, wear it on arm patches, paint it on buildings and stick it onto their car windows. When pictured, those words are rendered in red, framed by “God is great” and “Victory to Islam” in green, on a white background.
Sometimes the red words are shown dripping blood.”
In the ‘through the looking glass’ world of the BBC, a UK-based organization which was proscribed by the British government on the basis of its engagement in the glorification of terrorism can be described as a “Terrorist organization” (with a capital T, no less) whilst other groups appearing on the same list of proscribed organisations but operating elsewhere are regularly described in BBC content in euphemistic terms such as “the Lebanese militant movement” or “the Palestinian Islamist militant group, Hamas“.My Sympathy to Jewish People When I Read the Constitution of 1814
The Charlie Hebdo terrorists carried out an attack not only directed at the staff of that particular publication but also with the intent of sowing fear and self-censorship in the wider Western media. They sought to terrorise journalists – and Western society in general – into complying with their particular politico-religious demands just as terrorists of all stripes do the world over. Tarik Kafala’s claim that the correct terminology for those who gunned down seventeen people in cold blood is “loaded” means that the BBC cannot tell this story accurately and impartially to its audiences.
That fact will come as no surprise to anyone who has been monitoring the BBC’s inconsistent use of the word terror and its habit of hiding behind the smokescreen of “value judgements” it claims are implicit in that word’s use and may “raise doubts about our impartiality”.
In less than five minutes the second paragraph of the constitution which was written in 1814 catches my attention. In 1814, the Norwegian constitution was written to declare an independent Norway out of the hands of Denmark.Anti-Semitic Politician Becomes Greek Defense Minister
The following is what the second Article -paragraph- of the first edition of the constitution says:
“The Evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State. Those inhabitants, who confess thereto, are bound to raise their children to the same. Jesuits and monastic orders are not permitted. Jews are still prohibited from entry to the realm.”
A Greek politician who claimed that Jews "don't pay taxes" has been elected as Defense Minister, Greek media reported Thursday night, amid already-high concerns over rising anti-Semitism in the country that is only expected to worsen following recent elections.Austrian anti-Semitic attacks nearly doubled in 2014 — watchdog
Panos Kammenos of the Syriza party made the comments during an interview with Greek Ant-1 TV, according to New Greek TV, on December 18 - just days after the drive-by shooting at the Israeli Embassy in Athens.
Local Jewish leaders were outraged at the comments.
"It is a disgrace that a leader of a party in Parliament does not know that Greek Jews are equal citizens and subject to the all the rights and obligations of every citizen," the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece stated in response at the time, noting that Jews pay the same taxes as Greek Christians.
The Forum Against Anti-Semitism recorded 255 incidents last year, compared to 137 in 2013, the watchdog group reported earlier this week.A start-up’s 21st-century upgrade to a $4-trillion business
It was the highest figure recorded since 2008, surpassing the previous record year of 2009 by more than 22 percent, or 55 incidents.
Similar increases have been recorded in Belgium and France during and following Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Of the 255 incidents documented in Austria, nine were physical attacks and 57 were cases of vandalism. Threats and insults that occurred on the street or in public spaces numbered 21 and cases online hate speech deemed by the watchdog to be of a criminal nature totaled in at 83.
Today, travelers can get quotes for airline travel online; taxi passengers can order rides with an app; and drivers can get up-to-the-second data on what routes to take and which ones to avoid. But in the international shipping industry — a business worth about $4 trillion — things are done today as they were decades, even centuries, ago.Israel’s Wix Web Platform Company Unveils Super Bowl Ad [video]
“It’s totally inefficient,” said Zvi Schreiber, CEO of Israeli start-up Freightos. “Unlike with air travel, for example, where passengers can get quotes on multiple airlines and order tickets in a matter of minutes, it takes days to get a price quote on shipping cargo. Agents are the go-between to locate ships, determine routes, figure out pricing, etc.”
There’s no reason why shipping, like so many other things, can’t be automated, Schreiber believes — so he started Freightos, a company that is determined to bring shipping into the 21st century.
The Israeli–based web platform company Wix has unveiled its commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl football game this Sunday.Israeli Geneticist Wins Norwegian Prize for Cancer Research
Wix’s message is that it offers a web solution for every business or even individuals who want to create a website.
The 30-second spot will cost Wix approximately $4.5, and a longer version of the commercial can be seen below.
It features former Green Bay Packer Brett Favre, four other retired football stars and actor Rex Lee
Norway’s largest charitable organization, the Olav Thon Foundation, has announced that its first international research award in medical and natural sciences will go to Prof. Yosef Shiloh of Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Prof. Judith Campisi of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California. The two scientists will split the prize money of approximately $660,000.Rare Einstein postcard from Jerusalem fetches 56K
The foundation, which invests heavily in medical research, recognized Shiloh, the Myers Professor of Cancer Genetics and Research Professor of the Israel Cancer Research Fund at TAU’s Sackler School of Medicine, for his pioneering research on the mechanisms that maintain the survival of human cells and the stability of human genetic material
“A prize means scientific recognition,” said Prof. Shiloh. “Scientists do not work in order to get prizes or any other monetary benefits, but the award of a prize means that our work is recognized by our colleagues, and this is probably the true reward of a scientist.”
Just a few photographs and postcards exist from Albert Einstein’s sole visit to pre-state Israel in 1923, and what might be the most quirky of them was just sold at auction for $56,250.
Boston-based RR Auction conducted last Thursday’s sale of Einstein memorabilia, including a postcard he wrote to Zionist leader Authur Ruppin during Einstein’s twelve-day tour of the Holy Land. Sold to an anonymous bidder, the postcard recalls Einstein’s deepened commitment to Zionism following the completion of his theory of general relativity in 1915.
In his brief postcard note to Ruppin, Einstein wrote of “unforgettable days” and “cheerful company” while staying in Jerusalem. Throughout Palestine, Einstein was greeted like a beloved statesman, the target of swarming crowds and — outside the home of British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel — a cannon salute for the world’s first celebrity scientist.
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