Monday, February 09, 2015
Sherri Mandell: How Brian Williams (and Tom Brokaw) betrayed my family
After talking about how we came to Israel, we told Mr. Williams that Koby and Yosef had been eighth-grade boys who cut school, went hiking in the canyon behind our home in 2001, and were murdered by Palestinians terrorists, beaten with rocks.Douglas Murray: Obama Makes Up Facts - Again
He sympathized and then asked whether Seth had a gun. Seth said yes—he had one locked in a safe upstairs in the bedroom.
“Would you mind going upstairs and getting the gun so we can film you with it?” his producer asked Seth.
Seth said no. We both realized that they wanted to stage a scene – to reinforce a stereotype, a visual of the angry rifle-toting, trigger-happy settler.
A few days later, we saw the interview on the Internet. I was furious. I wasn’t upset by what Seth and I had said. We were distraught about the way our story was framed. To open the segment, NBC interviewed an Israeli – an English speaker from Tel Aviv – about her views on the intifada. She sat on the couch in her Tel Aviv apartment and said: The settlers are a cancer on today’s society. They are the reason for all of the problems in Israel.
Then the newscaster said: And here is an example of the people she is talking about: Seth and Sherri Mandell. Settlers from Tekoa. And the camera panned to show us sitting on our couch in our sunroom.
Of course I knew the station wanted to use us to ignite emotion in its viewers. I knew that the media was about conflict, drama and ratings. But how could they malign and betray us like that? How could they mislead us into thinking that they were going to tell our story, our story alone? Nobody had informed us that my son’s murder would be folded into a specious debate about the settlements.
The next morning I wrote to Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw. I sent them an email that said that the way they had framed the broadcast was outrageous, and that they had done us—and the memory of our son Koby — an injustice. They had let the woman from Tel Aviv attack us without giving us a chance to defend ourselves. It was as if she and they had personally called us a cancer.
Tom Brokaw emailed me back. He wrote that the night the program had aired, he had been out to dinner with a Jewish couple, friends of his who had seen the broadcast and thought that it was just fine. A lovely Jewish couple who he had dined with had found the broadcast unobjectionable. Indeed they had felt that we, the settlers, were portrayed very positively.
Since it was President Obama who brought these up, you might have thought he would have had the information to know a little about the background. In particular that the Crusades -- gruesome as they were -- were not some early outbreak of "Islamophobia." They were an effort, by Christian nations in Europe, to defend Christians in the Middle East who were being slaughtered by Muslim tribes, and specifically to take back the city of Jerusalem from the Muslim armies who had conquered it. The question of whom Jerusalem ought to have belonged to is a long and interesting one, but unless you think that Muslim armies should have been allowed to conquer Jerusalem and wipe out Christians across the Middle East a millennium ago, it is hard to see why the Crusades should be regarded as a particular sin of Christians. And Christian Americans in particular might rightly wonder what guilt they are meant to feel for a religious war that took place centuries before America as a country even existed.Edgar Davidson: Obama: Nazis were not Nazis and were no worse than the Jews who slaughtered Amalekites* (satire)
As for slavery, do we really need to keep going around this one? Because while it is true that you can find religious people who endorsed slavery -- in the Bible and elsewhere -- any historian would find it hard to deny that the movement to abolish slavery was also led by Christians. Slavery is still practiced by Muslims in Mauritania and, as recently seen, by Boko Haram. It is a very strange interpretation of history that is willing to put the blame for slavery (a worldwide practice at most times in history) on Christians, but to ignore William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln (a Republican) and other Christians who led the world in fighting to abolish it.
Only someone ignorant would claim that Islam is the only religion in whose name bad things have been done. But only a historian with an agenda would try to kick over the actual complexities to invent his own set of facts. In Britain, this effort to manipulate the facts in order to come to a pre-ordained conclusion is known as the "Whig interpretation of history." Perhaps Americans might rename it the "Obama interpretation of history."
Following his National Prayer Breakfast speech (in which he said Islamist terrorists are not Islamist and that Christians were just as brutal as ISIS) President Obama addressed Jewish prayer leaders today, telling them that the vast majority of those who claimed to be Nazis during World War 2 were not Nazis at all:Palestinian Dictator Mahmoud Abbas Gets a Free Pass
"Everybody knows that 99.9999999999% of all Nazis were peace-loving folk who wanted exactly the same things as leftist, casually anti-semitic American/Kenyans like me. The tiny proportion who murdered people to further the cause of Nazism were, by definition, anti-Nazis rather than Nazis because nowhere in Hitler's Mein Kampf was it written that they had to do this.
Moreover, the so-called Nazis who murdered 6 million Jews actually did far more damage to Nazis than they did to the Jews, because they gave Nazis a really bad name and there was a terrible backlash against normal, peace-loving Nazis. So, basically the real victims of so-called Nazism were in fact Nazis who wanted nothing to do with what those anti-Nazis were doing in the name of Nazism. Had I been President during World War 2 absolutely none of this would have happened because I would have made sure that the word Nazi and all its derivations could never have been used in a negative context."
President Obama went on to admonish Jews who complained of brutal mistreatment under the so-called Nazis who we now know were really anti-Nazis:
"You Jews of all people need to get off of your high horses on this one. It was, after all, less than 4,000 years since the Jews slaughtered the Amalekites and less than 3,000 years since they slaughtered the harmless Persian Minister Haman and his followers at the very same time as diplomats were trying to arrange a peaceful final solution with King Ahasuerus to the Jewish problem in Persia."
Which “moderate” Arab president publicly hugged the genocidal leader of Sudan last week? Which Middle Eastern “reformer” just entered his 10th year of a four-year term? Which Western “ally” days ago ordered an investigation into a cartoonist for possibly drawing Mohammed?
The answer is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
These three stories barely made it into Western press. Why? Put simply, the bar has been set so low that they were not deemed newsworthy. An Arab leader who doesn’t allow elections? Yawn. A Middle Eastern president who embraces one of the worst mass murderers in recent history? Nothing to see here.
There is a tragic disconnect between Western rhetoric and Arab reality. Abbas, if one listens to leaders of the free world, is a moderate, reformer and ally. He is better than Hamas, after all, isn’t he?
From Auschwitz to Islamic State
Why Auschwitz wasn’t bombed is the subject of any tour of a major Holocaust museum. “The failure to bomb has become a symbol of indifference,” writes Michael Berenbaum, who is an expert on the subject. For many years we were told that the world did not know about the Holocaust and that is why very little was done to prevent it.London: Thousands of Muslims Protest Against Charlie Hebdo
However, many disagree. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, even wrote a book called A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide arguing the US has historically put national interests first and not done enough to prevent genocide. But as Islamic State (IS, ISIS or ISIL) continues its campaign of mass murder, begging the world to take notice through broadcasting its crimes, we are left with a clear conclusion: Even if IS opened a death camp and showed people being massacred live on the Internet, no one would do anything.
The latest IS video made waves around the world. Depicting the brutal murder of Jordanian pilot Muath Kasaesbeh, it came on top of the executions of two Japanese men and several other Western humanitarian workers and journalists. The world confronts each IS video with a profound rejectionism. A commentator on France24 said, “I’m shocked at how IS is reacting online [to the video of the burning of Kasaesbeh], it is so brutal and they are celebrating.”
He was shocked? Had he seen the videos IS distributed throughout 2014 showing their men laughing as they gunned down Shi’ites? Had he missed the stories of IS selling Yezidi women and mass raping them? On another France24 debate the commentators expressed outrage that Fox News had put the IS execution tape on its website.
At least 1,000 British Muslims protested in central London on Sunday against the "insulting depictions", as they put it, of the Prophet Mohammed by French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.Man Who Attacked French Soldiers Charged with Terrorism
According to the Reuters news agency, the protesters gathered near Prime Minister David Cameron's office in London's Whitehall government district carrying placards with slogans such as "Stand Up For the Prophet."
The event comes weeks after 17 people were killed in three days of violence last month in France that began when two Islamist gunmen burst into Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices, opening fire in revenge for its publication of satirical images of Mohammed.
Sunday's protest organizers condemned the Paris attacks, but said the magazine should not publish cartoons of the prophet.
Imams delivered speeches and the crowds paused to pray before handing in an online petition to Cameron's office signed by over 100,000 Muslims.
The petition, organized by a group called Muslim Action Forum, denounced those who had produced cartoons of the prophet, calling them "an affront to the norms of civilized society", according to Reuters.
A knife-wielding man accused of attacking three soldiers outside a Jewish community center in the south of France was on Saturday charged with attempted murder in connection with a terrorist operation, a judicial source told AFP.French police detain six in new anti-terror raid
Moussa Coulibaly, 30, who was arrested immediately after Tuesday's broad daylight attack in the French Riviera city of Nice, was also ordered to be held in pre-trial detention, the source added.
During questioning earlier this week, Coulibaly told investigators of his hatred of France, Jews, the police and the military, a source close to the investigation said Wednesday.
Two of the troops received knife wounds in the attack and a third managed to wrestle the assailant to the ground.
French police detained six people Sunday suspected of recruiting potential jihadists, just days after another operation saw five charged on similar grounds, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.Argentine lawmaker accuses president of cover-up
France is slowly recovering from the January 7-9 Islamist attacks in Paris that left 17 people dead, but remains jittery after incidents such as Tuesday’s knife attack on three soldiers outside a Jewish community center on the French Riviera.
Cazeneuve said in a statement that anti-terrorism magistrates in Paris had ordered Sunday’s raid following a probe opened in January last year into a “conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and financing of terrorism.”
A source close to the probe said five people were held in the southern city of Albi and another in the southwest of France.
An Argentine opposition lawmaker filed a court case Friday against President Cristina Kirchner, accusing her of a cover-up in the mysterious death of a prosecutor investigating a 1994 Jewish center bombing.U Cal student body urges divestment from Israel, US
Congresswoman Elisa Carrio accused Kirchner, attorney general Alejandra Gils Carbo, army chief Cesar Milani and other officials of obstructing the investigation into the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.
Nisman was found in his apartment with a gunshot wound to the head on January 18, on the eve of a Congressional hearing at which he was expected to accuse the president of shielding Iranian officials from prosecution over the bombing.
Kirchner, whose government is struggling to downplay suspicion of involvement in his death, has suggested Nisman was manipulated by disgruntled former intelligence agents who then killed him to smear her.
“The president puts forth her claims about the murder of a prosecutor without filing a formal complaint in accordance with the constitution,” Carrio wrote in a document filed with prosecutor Viviana Fein, who is leading the investigation into her late colleague’s death.
The University of California Student Association passed two resolutions Sunday calling on the institution to “withdraw investments in securities, endowments, mutual funds, and other monetary instruments” from several governments, including Israel, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, and the US.U Cal Student Gov’t votes to divest from most of world, including U.S.
The resolutions both passed with 9 in votes in favor, 1 against, and 6 abstaining. In one of the resolutions, the student body demanded that the university “maintain the withdrawal of investments, in accordance with trustees’ fiduciary duty, until these governments are no longer engaged in the violation of human rights and other behavior that fail to adhere to the University of California endorsed Principles of Responsible Investment.”
According to the student body, the aforementioned governments, as well as the governments of Sri Lanka, Brazil, and Indonesia, have violated the universal right “to life, liberty, and security of person; to education; to privacy, family [and] home; to own property, and… [not to] be arbitrarily deprived of property.”
The resolution stated that the US “is engaged in drone strikes that have killed over 2,400 people in Pakistan and Yemen, many of them civilians.” The student body also singled out the US mass incarceration system, noting that the “government oversees, by far, the highest rate of imprisonment in the world, and racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement agencies, particularly for drug-related offenses.”
The anti-Israel movement had another success today, at the University of California system-wide Student Council, where two divestment motions passed, 9-1-6.James Blunt plays his first-ever concert in Israel to an adoring crowd
The first Resolution was the usual divestment from Israel, and the Israel motion was the focus of heated protest.
Pro-Israel students walked out in protest
Outside, the pro-Israel students sang the U.S. and Israeli national anthems
Inside, the anti-Israel students also voted to support a boycott of the U.S., among other countries, through a second Resolution calling for divestment from American, Mexican, Russian, Turkish, Indonesian, Brazilian, Sri Lankan, and Egyptian government bonds.
British crooner James Blunt had his thousands of adoring fans alternately crying, laughing and dancing at Tel Aviv’s Nokia Arena Saturday night.Roger Waters lobbies fellow rocker Alan Parsons to cancel Tel Aviv gig - without success
In his first-ever concert in Israel, the 40-year-old, tousled-hair singer played his best hits and some lesser- known works to a cheerful crowd.
“Shalom Tel Aviv!,” he shouted out to the appreciative throng, following it up with “ma nishma?” “It’s a thrill to be in such a special country that I’ve heard so much about from so many friends,” he said.
Blunt is currently on a global tour for his fourth studio album, Moon Landing, which was released in 2013, but none of his recent music has come close to topping the success of his first album, 2004’s Back to Bedlam. That CD – and its most-famous single, “You’re Beautiful” – launched Blunt, a former officer in the British army who served in Kosovo, into the spotlight, and he hasn’t looked back.
[Former] Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters unsuccessfully lobbied fellow British rocker Alan Parsons to cancel his planned Tel Aviv concert in the name of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.Taylor Swift to take the stage in Israel?
Waters, who has been the most vocal artist in recent years advocating for a cultural boycott of Israel as a means of protesting its policies over the Green Line, posted a note he sent to Parsons on his Facebook account.
“While I know you don’t want to disappoint your fans by canceling this gig, you would be sending a powerful message to them and the world by doing so,” Water wrote to Parsons.
Parsons rebuffed Waters, tweeting that he was “happy to be in Tel Aviv.”
At least four event producers and managers have been in talks over the past few weeks with Taylor Swift's representatives, Calcalist reported Sunday, in an effort to bring the starlet to Israel.The next big anti-Israel food fight? GreenStar Coop (Ithaca)
The producers are looking to score a performance slate in the music sensation's upcoming 1989 World Tour, set to take place this summer. At this stage, they have yet to sign a contract with Swift.
According to sources in the music industry, the highest bid thus far stands at $2.5 million, Calcalist said.
Should talks come to fruition, it is probable that the singer would perform at Hayarkon Park come June, when her tour is expected to set across Europe.
As mentioned in a prior post, an upstate New York group calling itself Central NY Committee for Justice in Palestine just launched a campaign to convince GreenStar Food Coop in Ithaca to boycott Israeli products, Ithaca (NY) anti-Israel group starts food co-op boycott drive with Sabra Hummus blood libel.Ex Florida University professor deported over ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad
GreenStar’s governing Council is neutral on the issue, but by its bylaws may have to let the issue go to a full membership vote next October, though the bylaws present several grounds on which the Council can reject the boycott and avoid a membership fight.
I appeared tonight on WRFI Ithaca Community Radio to talk about the GreenStar effort and BDS in general.
This whole fight is a shame. GreenStar is a good place, and doesn’t deserve to be used as a political pawn by local BDS activists.
A former Florida university professor was deported this week, ending years of legal battles over accusations that he aided a Palestinian terrorist organization.Greek Prime Minister: No Change in Relations with Israel
Sami Al-Arian left on Wednesday night on a commercial flight out of Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, the US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
He was headed to Turkey, according to a blog post by his criminal attorney, Jonathan Turley.
The case against Al-Arian, formerly a computer science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, received international attention as a test of US government's powers under the Patriot Act.
Greece’s new Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, has assured the Israeli ambassador to Athens that Greek-Israeli relations will not change following his election, Kol Yisrael radio reported on Friday.OFCOM’s response to complaints about remarks from BBC’s Tim Willcox
According to the report, Tsipras met this week with the Ambassador, Irit Ben-Abba, and made clear to her that his government is determined to combat anti-Semitism in Greece and that it will continue to prosecute the leaders of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.
The meeting comes amid concerns among Greek Jews that the election of Tsipras could jeopardize the relationship between Israel and Greece.
Two members of Tsipras’s Syriza party had been aboard the Mavi Marmara flotilla which attempted to break the "siege on Gaza" in 2010.
One of the places where such education is apparently lacking is the partially government-funded communications regulator Ofcom which recently addressed complaints concerning remarks made by the BBC’s Tim Willcox during coverage of the march held in Paris on January 11th.PreOccupied Territory: Haaretz, NY Times To Stop Reporting Antisemitism (satire)
In its initial response:
“The broadcasting watchdog ruled that the comments was “justified by the context in which they were presented.” “
Subsequently, Ofcom issued further clarification:
“…in a new statement issued a day later, Ofcom said it had “carefully assessed complaints about alleged antisemitic comments” and “decided not to take the issue forward for further investigation.”
It explained: “While the comments clearly had the potential to cause offence, Ofcom considered a range of factors, including the live nature of this coverage and the need for an appropriate degree of freedom of expression, especially in news coverage of such a significant event.”
Clearly Ofcom is neither familiar with accepted definitions of antisemitism nor appreciative of the consequences of the propagation of pernicious antisemitic tropes beyond “the potential to cause offence”.
Common sense would suggest that Mr Pickles and his colleagues might find it effective to begin their education drive by remedying the ignorance obviously prevalent among the people responsible for regulation of the mass-media in the UK.
Two major international daily publications announced this morning (Monday) that they would no longer publish news stories involving incidents of Jew-hatred.Another Nazi memorial vandalized in Austria
The New York Times and Israel’s Haaretz daily published a notice in their print editions today announcing the change and explaining the reasoning that went into it. The policy will go into effect next week for Haaretz, and the following week for the New York Times.
For the Times, Executive Editor Dean Baquet gave several rationales. “Our primary concern as a journalistic organization is the objective coverage of important issues. While we have been satisfied at our balance in handling such items, the Times editorial board concluded that in the end, stories of Jews getting attacked or otherwise abused are simply not newsworthy in the way that, for example, our readership needs to know about an email criticizing an angry basketball fan.”
“Second,” continued Baquet, “giving coverage to attacks on Jews would only encourage more such attacks, whose whole purpose is to generate attention and fear. And third, we as an organization have adopted the view that ethnicity-based definitions in news coverage are no longer relevant, which is why we also recently decided to stop looking for stories about race.”
The plaque on a church recalling the first public burning of books following the Nazi annexation of Austria was “daubed with a tar-like substance,” police spokesman Michael Rausch told AFP.British MPs Recommend Prevention Orders Used for Sex Offenders to Tackle Antisemitism on Social Media
The memorial, mounted in 2011, includes the famous quote by German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856): “That was only a prelude — When you burn books, ultimately you will also burn people.”
In the past two years there have been a spate of similar incidents of vandalism in Salzburg in western Austria believed to have been carried out by neo-Nazis.
This has included around 60 cases of plaques in the pavement — so-called “Stolpersteine” (“stumbling stones”) — that contain the names of Jews murdered by the Nazis being defaced.
A report following a British parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism released Sunday proposes that those spreading racial hatred online should be treated like sex offenders and served anti-social behavior orders or “Asbos” restricting their online access and possibly banning them from social media sites, various UK media outlets reported.Warsaw’s Jewish cemetery defender
The orders could also prevent them from hiding behind fake identities online.
The All Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into antisemitism, which was initiated after shocking levels of antisemitism were recorded in the UK during and after Israel’s summer war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, said that social media platforms have “increasingly been used for the spread of antisemitism”.
According to the report, the words “Hitler” and “Holocaust” were among the top 35 key words used on Twitter during the summer, and the hashtag “Hitler was right” was trending in July.
The report said: “There is an allowance in the law for banning or blocking individuals from certain aspects of internet communication in relation to sexual offences.
The report also recommended that the government establish a fund to pay for security at synagogues, and called for the creation of guidelines for teachers on how to address the Middle East conflict in classrooms.
The report follows the release of figures last week by Britain’s Community Security Trust, the official body dealing with security for the British Jewish community, showing that there were more antisemitic incidents in 2014 than at any other time since the organization began maintaining records in 1984.
When a Warsaw Jewish cemetery was vandalized earlier this week, Anna Chipczynska, president of the Jewish Community of Warsaw, spoke out, noting that it had occurred less than a week after the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and that “it is an invitation to violence and threats to which we should all be vigilant.”Morocco’s Jewish cemetery project lauded at Paris event
Dynamic, straight talking and a sharp dresser, Chipcyznksa knows about vigilance when it comes to Polish Jewish cemeteries. Two weeks earlier, the 36-year-old community leader — whose organization fulfills a broad array of religious responsibilities and sponsors many social, educational and cultural programs — gave me a tour of another Warsaw Jewish cemetery.
I first met Chipczynska last fall, when I was in town for the opening of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews. At the time, she contrasted the celebration of the museum’s opening with the less glamorous, enormous responsibility her organization faces in preserving and maintaining the many Jewish cemeteries in cities and villages across Poland.
The preservation efforts, launched in 2010, have restored at least 167 Jewish burial sites and were celebrated during the Feb. 1 opening of the “Contemporary Morocco” exhibition at the French capital’s Arab World Institute, the news site leconomiste.com reported Wednesday.Spielberg Sis in Bizarre Battle with Son of 'IAF Godfather'
Serge Berdugo, president of the Council of Moroccan Jewish Communities and a special envoy to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, said the project was part of “a vision and practice which have been applied, for tolerance, dialogue and respect which are the exact opposite of extremists’ schemes.”
Berdugo spoke during a showcase, “Rehabilitation of Morocco’s Jewish Cemeteries – Life Houses,” attended by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Jack Lang, the Jewish former minister of culture and currently the head of the Arab World Institute.
Jim Winters, a Florida neon designer and amateur photographer whose father Charles has been called “the Godfather of the Israel Air Force” for his crucial and heroic contribution to the IAF at its inception, says he is being harassed by producer Nancy Spielberg and by a Florida rabbi.Taditel opens new production plant in China
Spielberg – sister to famed director-producer Steven Spielberg – is getting set to release her film, “Above and Beyond,” about the volunteers from abroad (known as “Mahal”) who played a key role in establishing the IAF during the 1947-49 War of Independence. Jim Winters thinks his father is not mentioned in the film – but he does not know for sure, because he has been prevented from seeing it.
The organizers told Winters that they believe he poses a security threat, because of an acrimonious exchange between Winters and the organizers, and the fact that Winters has pictures of guns on his Facebook page.
Jim Winters told Arutz Sheva he thinks he is being hounded maliciously.
Israeli automotive electronics company Taditel recently announced its new production plant in China. The production facility is located in the CI3 industrial incubator Initiative in the city of Changzhou, Wujin Economic Zone (WEZ).2 Million-Strong CUFI Seeks to Double Down on Christian Support for Israel
The entry of Taditel, of the Ha’argaz Group, into the incubator completes phase one of a unique endeavor, launched to provide Israeli companies with the opportunity to conveniently manage production in China, reducing the investment and risks associated with penetration into a complex, unfamiliar market.
“The Chinese-Israeli collaboration, growing stronger all the time, is backed by a series of agreements signed in recent years in order to broaden the scope of commerce and economic ties,” said Arnon Perlman, Consul-General of Israel in Shanghai. “The CI3industrial incubator in WEZ, Changzhou, is an example of a successful creative application of these agreements, for the benefit of the Israeli industry. The phase one occupancy of the incubator indicates that it does indeed meet a real, important need.”
Taditel says it opened its plant in response to both the challenge of global competition and the needs of its direct clients, such as Bosch, Delphi, Remy, Valeo and others. These clients are suppliers of car manufacturers all located in China, as a global production center of the automotive industry.
Taditel’s advanced voltage regulators can be found in the vehicles of the leading manufacturers, including: GM, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Toyota, Audi, Fiat, Peugeot, Citroen, Ford, BMW, Honda, Volvo, and many others.
“Usually after the first event, it’s like a firestorm,” said Pastor Scott Thomas, the Florida state director for Christians United for Israel (CUFI). “The excitement hits, the understanding settles in.”European clients look to Israel for private security
That, in short, illustrates the process through which CUFI has become America’s largest pro-Israel organization in less than a decade of existence. In January, CUFI announced that its membership surpassed the 2-million mark. (The organization defines members as email-list subscribers whose addresses do not produce bounce-backs when messaged.)
Since its founding in 2006, CUFI has held more than 2,100 pro-Israel events, sent hundreds of thousands of advocacy emails to government officials, and trained thousands of college students to make the case for Israel across the U.S.
Pastor John Hagee, CUFI’s founder and national chairman, said that when he called 400 Evangelical Christian leaders to San Antonio in 2006 to pitch them on the idea of CUFI, he thought his concept of pro-Israel programming that would “not be conversionary in any sense of the word” might deter the leaders. Instead, when he asked them to raise their hands if they accepted his proposal, “400 men raised their hands with an absolute unity that was breathtaking.”
The recent surge of terror-related incidents in Europe is pushing demand for security. Europe's schools, companies and religious institutions looking for trained, experienced high-end security personnel are turning to Israel to meet demands.IDF Blog: Girls & Guns: Caracal Battalion’s Newest Combat Soldiers
At a recent training session, private security contractors from the Israeli firm Tactical Zone carried out a simulation that involved guarding a client who was under attack. In the wake of recent extremist attacks in Europe, the scenario as one security industry experts predict may play out more frequently in the future.
"Today the world is less innocent, people start to understand the threats and the dangers, and start to demand security," said Robby Said, general manager of security firm "Israel Special Forces."
The IDF prides itself on being an institution of nation and social cohesion. In 2004, the IDF continued in its tradition of innovation and established a unique mixed-gender infantry unit: the Caracal Battalion. Soldiers from both sexes train and serve together in this unit on the Israel-Egypt border. The IDF Blog followed the battalion’s newest recruits during their last week of training and took an exclusive look at what makes this unit extraordinary.IDF Blog: Behind The Scenes: Training IDF Paramedics
The Caracal Battalion’s training base is located in the Negev Desert, in southern Israel. After seven months and three weeks of training, the Caracal recruits face another 7 days and 21 kilometers of a final march before they can call themselves combat soldiers.
“We have gone through a lot together,” explains Pvt. Shalev. “We all came here with different backgrounds. Since the beginning of the training one goal has connected us: we all chose to serve in this unit because of the symbol it represents.”
In many situations, quick medical intervention can save lives, and in many cases, military paramedics are the first to arrive on the scene and provide emergency treatment. This is the story of how young Israelis become certified, capable paramedics in the IDF.Adelsons donate $40 million to Taglit-Birthright
IDF paramedics have a tremendous amount of responsibility. They have to be prepared to perform field operations and stabilize wounded soldiers until they are evacuated to a hospital. As part of the fighting force, they have to be as well-versed in combat as they are in medicine. Corporal Labiv Voby, the second ever Druze paramedic in the IDF, and Corporal Tigisat Yatmano, the first ever Ethiopian paramedic in the IDF, are two of the forty paramedics who recently completed their 15-month training.
Corp. Voby will never forget the event that sparked his interest in becoming a paramedic. Before enlisting in the IDF, Corp. Voby witnessed a catastrophic car accident. He rushed to the vehicle and attempted to help the passengers, but since he lacked medical experience, there was not much he could do. When they arrived at the hospital, one of the passengers was pronounced dead and the others were gravely injured.
Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson have announced they will donate $40 million to this year's Taglit-Birthright program, bringing their total contribution to the program to more than $250 million. Taglit-Birthright provides free 10-day educational trips to Israel for young Jewish adults.
Of the latest donation, $30 million has already been transferred to the program, while the other $10 million will be given during the course of the year.
As part of a funds matching program, the Adelsons matched the donations of other contributors abroad, and thanks to their combined efforts, an additional 25,000 young Jews this year will be able to make their first visits to Israel.
