03/12 Links Pt2: Rasmea Odeh gets 18 months in prison; Friedman’s Adelson Derangement Syndrome

From Ian:

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Rasmea Odeh sentenced to 18 months in prison

Immigration fraudster who concealed Israeli bombing conviction also has U.S. citizenship revoked and will be deported.
Rasmea Odeh was convicted in Israel of the 1969 bombing of the Super Sol supermarket in Jerusalem, in which Hebrew University students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner were killed, in addition to the attempted bombing of the British Consulate.
Rasmea served 10 years of a life sentence before being released in a prisoner exchange in 1979 for an Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon. Rasmea later immigrated to the United States, where she has made Chicago her home since the mid-1990s.
In November 2014, Rasmea was convicted in federal court in Detroit of falsely procuring naturalization, by concealing her Israeli convictions and incarceration.
The evidence supporting both the Israeli and Detroit convictions is overwhelming and from multiple sources, as I demonstrated in Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud. Rasmea’s claim that she confessed to the bombing only after several weeks of sexual torture was contradicted by the fact that she confessed one day after arrest, and by corroborating evidence including a filmed interview years later with a co-conspirator. (h/t Bob Knot)

University of Southampton Conference: How to be openly antisemitic in England (satire)

UK Media Watch has obtained the “official”* (*Satire), never-before-seen original program for a three-day conference in mid-April at the University of Southampton examining whether Israel has the right to exist. Though it’s currently titled “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism“, the “original” version of the program (below) was evidently titled “How to be openly antisemitic in England: International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism”. (h/t Yenta Press)

Richard Millett forced to turn off camera at Parliament event with Jenny Tonge & David Ward

Last night I went to Parliament for an event staged by the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK. The event Gaza: Life in an occupied and besieged strip was obviously only concerned with the human rights of one group of Arabs.
It was chaired by the Liberal Democrat David Ward MP and the main attraction was Baroness Jenny Tonge who once said “Israel won’t be here forever”.
Tonge complained that “the Palestinians had been denied democracy because the wrong side (Hamas) won” and that Israel defies international law by denying the right of return to anyone who is not a Jew.
Her main complaint was about “the Israel lobby” which, she said, “has its claws in this country” and she claimed nothing was being done about Israel out of fear of being called anti-Semitic.
She called for a total boycott of Israel, said that Jews had led the struggle against apartheid in South Africa

Hamas 'Should Have Been Allowed To Try' To Run Gaza Says ‘Notorious’ Liberal Baroness

Former Liberal Democrat MP Baroness (Jenny) Tonge has told a meeting in Parliament that Hamas “should have been allowed to try” to run the Palestinian state after they won the election in 2006. Tonge, who described herself as “notorious” at the meeting claimed Britain had denied the Palestinians democracy by not dealing with Hamas.
She was speaking at the launch of a new report into the situation in Gaza, held in a committee room at the House of Commons. Initially Breitbart London was told it could not attend the event because it was full, but in the end only 35 people attended.
Tonge told the audience: “We do have to say – in fairness to Hamas – that they did win those elections, fairly and squarely supervised by the European Union. They won them in the West Bank and they won them in again in Gaza.

Robert Malley and US Policy on Israel

While Robert Malley’s past history might seem typical for a bright young man pursuing a senior Middle East policy position in a future Democratic administration, digging a little deeper reveals something quite untypical in his past. Robert Malley grew up in France, where his Egyptian-born father, Simon Malley, and New York raised mother, Barbara (Silverstein) Malley, were radical publishers of a controversial magazine about Africa and the so-called Third World. Malley’s parents were rabidly anti-Israel and counted Yasir Arafat as a personal friend. Indeed, Arafat was among those “leaders” (for want of a better word) who intervened with the French government to readmit the Malley family to France after they had been expelled for their radical activities.
That is, while in the Clinton administration Malley dealt directly with Palestinian matters, and with Yasir Arafat himself, despite having a huge and hidden conflict of interest: close ties between his family and Yasir Arafat.
Well, hidden from the public – when questioned about it in 2001, Dennis Ross, Clinton’s senior Middle East adviser, said that the Clinton administration knew all about Malley’s past.
While CAMERA did not publish all the facts at the time, we did mention the ties between Malley and Arafat in an article in 2005.
But now, with Malley possibly a Middle East advisor to a major presidential candidate, it seems the full story should be exposed. I will try to minimize repetition of what others have recently published on this subject, while still laying out the facts in a coherent way.
Robert Malley and his family history
In the 1970's the Malley family lived in France, where Robert’s father Simon Malley, published a radical magazine about Africa, Afrique-Asie, which supported various leftist “liberation movements” as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Daniel Pipes: How Americans Fight the Arab-Israeli Conflict

When, in the midst of the 2014 Hamas-Israel war, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration briefly banned American carriers from flying to Israel, Sen. Ted Cruz (Republican of Texas) accused Barack Obama of using a federal regulatory agency “to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign policy demands.” In so doing, Cruz made an accusation no Israeli leader would dare express.
This is hardly unique: Over the years, other American political figures, both Republican (Dan Burton, Jesse Helms, Condoleezza Rice, Arlen Specter) and Democrat (Charles Schumer), have adopted tougher, and sometimes more Zionist, stances than the Israeli government. This pattern in turn points to a larger phenomenon: The Arab-Israeli conflict tends to generate more intense partisanship among Americans than among Middle Easterners. The latter may die from the conflict but the former experience it with greater passion.
More Anti-Israel than the Arabs
Americans who hate Israel can be more volubly anti-Zionist than Arabs. At a memorable Washington dinner party in November 1984, hosted by the Iraqi embassy for the visiting foreign minister Tariq Aziz, two tipsy American press grandees admonished and even insulted this emissary of Saddam Hussein for being insufficiently anti-Israel. Helen Thomas of United Press International complained that Iraq had not retaliated against Israel after the destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. When Aziz tried brushing off her criticism, she scornfully accused the Iraqi regime of cowardice: “Just yellow, I guess.” Later the same evening, Rowland Evans of the syndicated Evans and Novak column, interrupted Aziz when he called the Iran-Iraq war the most important issue in the Middle East, shouting at him to tell Secretary of State Shultz that the Arab-Israeli conflict was his main concern. The late Barry Rubin, who was present, subsequently commented: “Unaccustomed to being attacked for excessive softness on Israel, Aziz looked astonished.”

South African Jewish Group Raises Concern Over Growing BDS-Linked Antisemitism

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) released a statement expressing concern that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is creating a climate of increased antisemitism in South Africa.
“The SAJBD has repeatedly expressed concern that the BDS, by importing the Middle East conflict into South Africa, is creating a climate that encourages antisemitism while shutting down any possible and rational debate on Israeli—Palestinian issues,” the group said on its website.
On Sunday, BDS supporters threatened to slaughter Jews at a rally outside of the South African Zionist Federation near Johannesburg, which was holding a South Africa-Israeli expo at the time.
“You think this is Israel, we are going to kill you,” one of the BDS protesters said. Other protestors shouted, “You Jews do not belong in South Africa” and “no Zionist conference be held on our soil.”
“The BDS is fueling the flames of a fire that it cannot control,” said the SAJBD. “They base their hatred on the fact that the South African Jewish community and lovers of Israel generally, do not share the BDS’s narrow and skewed view on Israel.”

Response to Oklahoma SAE’s Racist Chant Highlights Lack of Response to Campus Antisemitism

The response by the university has been widely lauded, especially given past incidents of racism involving SAE. In 2013, the SAE chapter of Washington University in St. Louis was suspended after several pledges were asked to make racial slurs toward a group of black students.
Last year, in another notable incident, 15 SAE members at the University of Arizona broke into an off-campus house of the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) and yelled “discriminatory comments at the UA students and physically assaulting them,” according to a letter to the fraternity from the school’s dean of students, reported the Arizona Daily Star. Four SAE brothers were suspended as a result.
In response to the latest incident, AEPi told JNS.org in a statement that the Jewish fraternity “does not tolerate any offensive or demeaning language or behaviors targeted at any groups on campus including women, minorities or other Greek or non-Greek organizations. Actions such as those at Oklahoma detract from the many positive experiences and outcomes that fraternities foster.”
But the University of Oklahoma SAE outrage also brings to mind another incident involving racism directed at a Jewish student at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

UCLA students pass motion condemning anti-Semitism

The undergraduate student government of UCLA unanimously passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism.
On Tuesday night, the Undergraduate Students Association Council voted 12-0 for the measure after more than 100 students spoke in support of it, The Daily Bruin student newspaper reported.
The resolution calls on the student government to fight anti-Semitism and condemns recent incidents of anti-Semitism on University of California campuses, including the questioning last month of Rachel Beyda, a Jewish member of the UCLA student government, by fellow members about whether she can be impartial because of her religious ties. It also noted swastikas painted on the door of a Jewish fraternity at UC Davis.
The Jewish Voice for Peace organization in a statement issued after the vote said it was “deeply concerned” that the resolution “further enshrines long-standing political efforts to silence legitimate criticism of the state of Israel by codifying its inclusion in the definition of anti-Semitism.”
Also Tuesday, the student government voted to make the video of the February 10 hearing that included the questioning of Beyda available on YouTube.

Suissa Tells Campus Jews To Stop Being Conciliatory

In an article for the Jewish Journal, David Suissa takes on the impotent response of pro-Israel groups to the threat of the BDS movement targeting Israel and other assorted anti-Israel movements on college campuses. Suissa notes that there are three possible responses to someone punching you in the face: punching them back, complaining to authorities, and driving them crazy. He then states bluntly, "Unfortunately, pro-Israel groups on U.S. campuses are very good at complaining, but very bad at punching back or driving our enemies crazy."
He continues, "And let’s not mince words — the BDS movement is an enemy movement. Groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have no interest in promoting peace between Israel and Palestinians. What they want to do is punch Israel in the face. Forget anti-Semitism — it’s bad enough that these groups are single-mindedly focused on crushing Israel any way they can."
Suissa notes that pro-Israel groups are choosing to complain, rather than the other options.
He points out that the Jewish groups attack their own for a different response, pointing out, "When one Jew — David Horowitz of the Freedom Center — tried punching back recently at UCLA, he got attacked by…other Jews. 'We don’t fight like that!' was their message. 'We don’t stoop to their level!'” Suissa explains, "Horowitz fought back with a nasty poster campaign that ridiculed the word 'Justice' in the name Students for Justice in Palestine. By showing the horror of what a Palestinian group like Hamas can do to other Palestinians, he was basically saying: Now THIS is an injustice against Palestinians worth fighting. He was exposing SJP’s hypocrisy. Whether you agreed with the posters or not, they were a punch in the face."

Guardian profiles ‘non-violent’ Palestinian activist…who won’t condemn Hamas violence

On March 10th, the Guardian published a first person essay (on their Global Development page) by Issa Amro, a Palestinian who heads a group called Youth Against Settlements and claims to champion a Martin Luther King style non-violent campaign for Palestinian rights.
However, what Guardian readers aren’t told is that, when asked recently about the violent actions of Palestinian terror groups, their protagonist sang a different tune.
Here’s Amro’s response to a question about Hamas, in an interview published in Tablet last August.
“I disagree with some points for them, I agree with some. Hamas is trying to end the occupation in their method. If the occupation ends, I won’t accept Hamas at all. But as long as the occupation lasts, I can’t tell them not to use weapons. Settlers have guns. Settlers are shooting. Soldiers are shooting. Occupation is the main feeder for violence. I need to end the occupation to have something for my people to convince them how to be non violent.”
So, it would be more accurate to characterize Armo’s putative support for non-violence not – as Martin Luther King saw it – as an absolute moral imperative, but merely as one legitimate “method” to end the occupation. The other “method”, killing innocent Israeli civilians, appears to be equally valid in the eyes of this Palestinian activist.
Indeed, Armo’s refusal to condemn Hamas violence wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with polling data indicating overwhelming Palestinian support for terrorist attacks – including suicide bombings.

BBC World Service amplifies UNRWA’s political campaigning yet again

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) long since ceased to confine its activities to humanitarian work and frequently acts as a political campaigning group, with one focus of its efforts being the issue of the border restrictions imposed by Israel as a means of curbing Hamas terrorism. Notably, UNRWA’s approach to that issue dovetails with Hamas’ standpoint as seen in the terrorist organisation’s ceasefire demands made during last summer’s conflict.
The BBC has frequently used its various platforms to amplify UNRWA’s political campaigning on that topic – examples can be seen here, here, here and here. UNRWA employees are also not infrequently given unchallenged airtime to promote their messaging on additional subjects – see examples here and here – and as we know, UNRWA’s spokesman (and former BBC employee) Chris Gunness successfully pressured the BBC last August to get the content of an article about casualty figures in the Gaza Strip amended to be more to his political tastes.
Recently UNRWA employed the six month anniversary of the ceasefire which brought last summer’s hostilities to an end to promote further campaigning. Coincidentally – or not – that anniversary also saw the appearance of a series of reports by Lyse Doucet on the topic of reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, some of which included contributions from UNRWA employees.

Friedman’s Adelson Derangement Syndrome and Democracy

Regular readers of Thomas Friedman’s column in the New York Times are aware of the fact that he doesn’t like the fact that a bipartisan pro-Israel coalition predominates in the U.S. Congress. Friedman is stuck in the conspiratorial world of the Walt-Mearsheimer “Israel Lobby” thesis that falsely alleges that backing for the Jewish state is purchased by the cash of pro-Israel donors. And the most conspicuous of those donors is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who seems to be occupying a rather large space in Friedman’s head these days. Last week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, Friedman repeated the slurs against the pro-Israel community and Adelson that he first lobbed in 2011. That he doubled down on those charges in today’s column is of little interest. But what is worth noting is Friedman’s attack on Israel Hayom, the Israeli newspaper Adelson owns. According to the columnist, the paper is subverting Israeli democracy in the manner that Adelson and other donors are supposedly undermining American foreign policy. But what we really learn from this piece is that Friedman likes neither democracy nor freedom of the press.
Friedman believes the ovations Netanyahu received from Congress in 2011 and last week were “bought and paid for by the Israel Lobby.” This is a profound misunderstanding of the way American democracy works. Members of Congress are pleased to accept contributions from pro-Israel donors, but those relationships help solidify the alliance. If that stand were not popular with the overwhelming majority of Americans, of whom more than 98 percent of are not Jewish, no amount of money could purchase it. That doesn’t please liberals like Friedman who would like Congress to be more like President Obama when it comes to a predilection for unreasonable pressure on Israel and support for détente with Iran. But the fault lies not so much with Adelson as with the basic sympathy of most Americans for Israel and their skepticism about the Palestinians and Islamist regimes like that in Iran.
But, as Friedman notes, stringent Israeli campaign-finance laws prevent Adelson or anyone like him from having much say in their elections. That those laws, like the attempts of American liberals to impose campaign-finance rules on our elections, are aimed at suppressing political speech rather than enhancing democracy is an argument for another day. But Adelson is not voiceless in Israel. He owns Israel Hayom, the largest circulation paper in a country that is addicted to newspapers.

Will WaPo's Liz Sly Admit Error in Light of Tablet Article?

As it turned out, Badran was right, and to his credit, Noe said so. Noe admitted that Badran “found and pointed to a link to the FULL speech by Nasrallah in October 2002 where he says roughly what PM Netanyahu says he said.” Noe admits that “Nasrallah has made a handful of anti-jewish [sic] comments over the last three decades, an aspect of Hezbollah’s history in general that is vital to understand clearly.”
In response to Badran’s challenge, Sly responded by stating that the quote was “highly contentious” and had been “refuted by Hezbollah.” In another tweet she linked to a 2012 article in Mondoweiss that stated the quote was likely a fabrication. (Mondoweiss relied on a 2006 article that appeared in the London Review of books for its information.) Here are the tweets in question, which appear to be her last word on the subject.

PreOccupied Territory: Ynet Reports Fake Stock Exchange Figures; No One Notices (satire)

The popular Hebrew news website Ynet has been using completely random figures each day in its breaking news feed to report on securities trading, but readers have not paid any attention, an editor at the site disclosed today.
Ynet’s homepage news ticker features updates several times per hour with breaking stories, in addition to the full-length articles and opinion pieces linked there. To help maintain the frequency of updates in keeping with the purpose of an online, real-time news source, the site depends on certain regular items to report in the scrolling section where those items appear, among them the latest developments on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Instead of putting in actual news of the TASE’s movement, Ynet has been inserting numbers that bear no relationship to the actual trading data, but not a single reader has reacted to the inaccuracies.
Hayim Metikha, Business Editor at Ynet, told PreOccupied Territory that the use of fictitious numbers began six weeks ago amid certain shifts in the newsroom aimed at cutting costs and increasing efficiency. “We found that a single simple computer script was able to produce the figures we need, instead of having a paid employee pay attention to stock market movements,” he explained. “Anyone who is in a position to know or care that our numbers are a crock doesn’t use Ynet for business news anyway.” For those purposes, says Metikha, Hebrew-speaking users tend to consult sources such as Globes and The Marker, not sites of Ynet’s ilk that are essentially online supermarket tabloids with an anti-Netanyahu ax to grind.

Jews in Baltics fear creep of anti-Semitism

Jews in the Baltics fear a series of disturbing events in the three-nation region of Eastern Europe may be signaling a revival of the Holocaust-era hatred that once nearly wiped out their numbers.
Across the countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Jewish leaders say their communities are feeling increasingly uncomfortable as anti-Semitism once again appears to be on the rise. An Estonian museum exhibition mocking the Holocaust, a stage musical celebrating the life of a notorious Latvian Nazi mass murderer and the repatriation of the remains of a Lithuanian leader long linked to Nazis have all contributed to a climate of hate that has Jews on edge.
“We have to say that the support of Hitler and rewriting history to turn Hitler into a liberator of this area is not a western value,” Yiddish scholar Dovid Katz, founder of the DefendingHistory.com website, told FoxNews.com. “If you’re repatriating Nazi war criminals to be re-buried and honored as part of national history, that is not behavior compatible with western ethics and values.”

Man tells Miami Jews he will behead them

Miami police arrested a man twice who stood outside a Miami Beach synagogue and allegedly threatened the congregants.
Diego Chaar, who said he visited the Ohev Shalom Synagogue to convert its members, was arrested Sunday and faces charges of assault and stalking. He was released but was rearrested on Tuesday after returning to the synagogue, according to reports.
Chaar reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is greatest,” and told an Ohev Shalom congregant sitting in front of the synagogue on Saturday night at the end of Shabbat that “I will cut your head off.”
Police questioned Chaar on Sunday before releasing him.
It is not known if he also will be charged with a hate crime.

Dutch mayors condemn ‘Jew stickers’ in Amsterdam suburb

Two Dutch mayors condemned the appearance of stickers featuring a cartoon nose on shops in a heavily Jewish suburb of the Dutch capital.
The stickers were spotted earlier this month on the shop windows of several businesses in Amstelveen, a municipality just south of Amsterdam, which is home to approximately one third of the 50,000 Jews living in the Netherlands, the Jewish news website jonet.nl reported Monday.
Amstelveen Mayor Mirjam van ‘t Veld told the news website metronieuws.nl that the stickers were “unacceptable,” adding: “As the Jewish community is right to expect, we are looking into the case.” Rotterdam’s mayor, Ahmed Marcouch, on Tuesday wrote on Twitter: “Wrong! Police and prosecutors [to] find and punish Feyenoord hooligans posting ‘Jew stickers’ on shops.”
The stickers found in Amstelveen, jonet.nl reported, are available for sale on a website offering memorabilia for fans of Rotterdam’s Feyenoord soccer team, who often call fans of Amsterdam’s Ajax team “Jews” and have chanted anti-Semitic slogans at matchers and directly after them to provoke Ajax fans. Several dozen stickers cost about $7.

Canadian MP rapped for Jewish refugees-Muslims comparison

A Canadian Jewish group rebuked the Liberal Party’s leader for comparing Ottawa’s poor record in admitting Jewish refugees in the 1930s and 1940s to the intolerance facing Muslims today.
In a speech in Montreal on Monday, Justin Trudeau attacked the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper for deliberately stoking fears and prejudice about Muslims in Harper’s introduction of anti-terror legislation.
Canadians “should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a ‘none is too many’ immigration policy toward Jews in the ’30s and ’40s being used to raise fears against Muslims today,” Trudeau said, referencing the title of a book that documented Canada’s dismal record on admitting Jewish refugees before and during World War II.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, or CIJA, said in a statement that Trudeau’s remark was “unfortunate, distracting from the important message he was trying to convey. We view this comparison as inaccurate and inappropriate.”

Prague unveils Holocaust memorial

A monument dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust was unveiled in Prague.
Called “The Gate of No Return,” the sculpture unveiled Monday — the 71st anniversary of the mass murder of 4,000 Czech Jews in Auschwitz — is the first part of a planned remembrance site in the Czech Republic’s capital.
Some two dozen survivors attended the ceremony along with Czech officials and the ambassadors of the United States, Israel, Germany and other countries. The Czech minister of culture, Daniel Herman, unveiled the sculpture.
The monument is located at a former railway station in the Bubny district, where tens of thousands of Czech Jews were herded onto trains between 1941 and 1945 and deported to the Terezin concentration camp. Most were later murdered in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.

In Kenya’s highlands, a Jewish community struggles for recognition

A stone’s throw from the Equator, near where the hippos play in Lake Naivasha, the wind roars up from the Great Rift Valley to the Kenyan highlands. Up in the hills — 8,000 feet above sea level and miles from paved roads — a synagogue built from plastic sheeting snaps to and fro in the gusty air. The frame is made of rough-hewn wood, as are the benches. The doorway is an old shawl, and the floor, like all of the surrounding houses, is hard-packed dirt. Outside, someone has painted a Jewish star and the words “Beit Midrash” on the plastic near the door in blue.
The 60 members of the Kasuku Gathundia Jewish community are sprinkled across these Kenyan highlands, eking out a living as subsistence farmers during the week by raising cows and maize. On Saturday mornings they unwrap an old United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism humash — a bound copy of the Torah (not a scroll) — from a canvas bag and read the weekly parsha, partly in Hebrew and partly in the local Kikuya tribal language.
“The synagogue is small, but it is a place of shechinah,” said Yehuda Kimani, using the Hebrew word for “God’s presence.” The 26-year-old Kimani is a passionate leader of Kasuku’s Jewish community, dedicated to connecting the few members to the wider Jewish world.
Local African Jews are not a new phenomenon on the continent. The Abayudaya Jews of Uganda have gone from a struggling, isolated outpost of Judaism to a vibrant Jewish community. Almost every Shabbat they host visitors from around the world, and they’ve recently exhibited the best indication of a healthy and growing Jewish society: dividing into competing synagogues.

How Czech President Zeman Told the Entire Story of History With One Word

One surprising and exhilarating expression uttered last week by a President of a small European country defines a watershed moment in history.
On Monday Czech President Milos Zeman addressed the annual AIPAC conference in Washington DC, expressing his unprecedented support of Israel. If you haven’t heard his speech make sure to listen to it.
It is startling to hear a European leader — in glaring contrast to other European and world leaders — stand in unwavering solidarity with Israel and Jews with such pride and lack of apologetics. Simply extraordinary — an act that will go down in history when future generations look back at this time.
But there was one word that he used in his passionate support that takes his commitment to an entirely other level: That word was “yehudi.” “I am a Jew. Ani Yehudi.

Land of the rising sun savors its hummus moment

Serving up Middle Eastern staples, eight Israeli restaurants have opened in Japan in the past five years
At the end of his 13-hour workday, Hidehiko Egata takes a seat at the bar at his regular eatery in this city’s upscale Shibuya neighborhood.
A senior adviser at a local financial firm, Egata sips sake and nibbles on traditional Japanese pickles as he chats with the owner in Japanese. Then he orders his usual dish: hummus topped with warm chickpeas, tahini and olive oil.
“I first ate hummus a few years ago on the other side of town,” said Egata, a slender man in his 50s who keeps fit by practicing Japanese martial arts daily. “I found that it was more healthy than my usual dinners then. It was filling, but it didn’t make me tired the way a noodle dish would. When this place opened, it became my regular spot.”

Closing in on treatment for narcolepsy

Falling asleep without warning, anywhere, anytime, is one of the hallmarks of narcolepsy. And for the three million narcoleptics worldwide, these bouts of sleepiness and sleep attacks are a severe disruption to daily life. Now, a new Israeli study may finally offer a path to treatment.
The world’s leading autoimmune disease expert, Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Yehuda Shoenfeld, has found that narcolepsy bears the trademarks of a classic autoimmune disorder and should be treated accordingly.
The research, led by Prof. Shoenfeld, the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Chair for Research of Autoimmune Diseases at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Head of Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases at Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, and conducted by doctoral student María-Teresa Arango, points to a particular autoimmune process as the trigger for the specific loss of orexin neurons, which maintain the delicate equilibrium between sleep and wakefulness in the brain.

Israeli American Council marks stellar year, raises $23.5 million

More than 1,000 leading members of the Israeli community in the U.S. attended the seventh annual Israeli American Council gala in Los Angeles on Monday and celebrated the community's achievements in the passing year. During the gala, the IAC raised $23.5 million for its various programs, including a $12 million donation from Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson.
Businessman and philanthropist Haim Saban donated $1.2 million.
The past year marked significant growth for the activity of the Israeli community in the U.S. The IAC, initially founded in Los Angeles, launched five new branches this year -- in New York, Miami, Boston, Las Vegas and New Jersey.
CEO of the IAC, Sagi Balasha, remarked that "our growth process in the U.S. began exactly one year ago. We knew that we were embarking on an adventure, but we didn't know how quickly we would succeed in recruiting American-Israeli communities across the country to join our journey."
IAC National Chairman Shawn Evenhaim announced that the IAC plans to build a new American-Israeli community center in Woodland Hills, California.
Pro-Israel nonprofit StandWithUs founders Raz and Jerry Rothstein were honored at the event.

Why Israel could be the next cybersecurity world power

There are plenty of cities in the U.S. that want to lay claim to becoming the "next" Silicon Valley, but a dusty desert town in the south of Israel called Beersheva might actually have a shot at becoming something more modest, and more focused. They want to be the first place you think about when it comes to cybersecurity research, education, and innovation. If things go right there, it may well happen.

Israel is a hotbed of tech startups, a self-proclaimed Silicon Wadi. It is ranked near the top of several recent Bloomberg innovation metrics. Particularly when it comes to cybersecurity, you almost have as many firms as there are Starbucks in Seattle – seemingly they are everywhere. In fact, Inc. magazine lists nine different Israeli security startups to watch. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Until most recently, most of the tech firms have been located in the Tel Aviv suburbs, which is about an hour or so north of Beersheva and where most of the country's population and businesses reside. It is also the location of the international airport. Major US-based tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, Intel, and others all have invested heavily in Israeli offices, and again, these could be found near Tel Aviv. But that is changing, and the pull towards the southern desert is becoming more powerful.
I spent the better part of a week visiting the town and meeting with more than a dozen different business, government, and industry leaders there. It was enlightening and interesting. I came to Beersheva initially for family reasons – my daughter is a teaching fellow there – but quickly found out that there was something going on in the city worth more scrutiny.

At Bar-Ilan, robots box, play soccer – and maybe soon, drive cars

For over a decade, robots developed by Bar-Ilan University students, led by robot tech pioneer Prof. Eli Kolberg, have represented Israel in contests around the world – playing soccer, boxing, and performing other autonomous activities. Now, that technology will be used to make drivers safer with robot-like capabilities in cars warning drivers of dangers ahead.
And eventually, said Kolberg, that technology will be used to make self-driving cars that behave better on the road.
Similar to the MobilEye safety system, which uses cameras and sensors to warn drivers if they are getting too close to vehicles ahead of them, the Bar-Ilan system will use its robot tech – based on cameras, a computer, gyro and accelerometer sensors, and independent motion capabilities – to warn drivers of EVE (Electric Vehicle Evolution) cars when they get too close to the vehicles ahead of them.

NY Jews honor Druze cop slain in synagogue attack

A US Jewish community has raised tens of thousands of dollars on behalf of the widow a Druze policeman who was killed when he faced off against two terrorists at a Jerusalem synagogue last year.
Rabbi Hershel Billet, from the Young Israel synagogue in Woodmere, New York, presented Rinel Saif with $34,000 in cash at her home in the Galilee town of Yanuh-Jat on Wednesday, the Hebrew new site Walla reported.
Saif, who had marked her 22nd birthday just two days earlier, was moved as Billet pulled an envelope containing the money from his pocket, describing it as a gesture of appreciation from the Jewish people.
“This week it was my birthday, and it was a day of mourning,” she said. “There is no joy, no celebration, there is nothing. Although I am only 22, God knows how much I’ve been through in my short life. The embrace from the Israeli people helps a lot and warms the heart.”

Fogel Family Remembering

Four years.
Four years ago I walked to the funeral of the murdered Fogel family.
There was one bus for tens of thousands of people. The only way to get to the cemetery was to walk. Thousands of people did walk in the hot mid-day sun.
It was overwhelming. So many people coming together. So many people who did not know the Fogels, but had to come.
It was so quiet. So respectful. So sad.
Crowd at Fogel funeral Jerusalem Israel 2011
It makes me angry that the names of killers get publicized, while victims names are not mentioned and forgotten.
Yet, it is four years, and I needed to be reminded of the date.
And the victims names, who remembers?
Udi, Ruti, Yoav, Elad and baby Hadas