Sunday, March 15, 2015
Douglas Murray: This is no debate but a rally of hate directed at Israel
EARLIER this month we once again saw what hotbeds of extremism and hatred some of our university campuses have become.Edwin Black: Los Angeles Conference Confronts BDS Financing and Tactics
The fact that Mohammed Emwazi (aka “Jihadi John”) had been a student at Westminster university could have surprised no one.
Nor could the discovery that on the very night Emwazi was unmasked his university was due to host a radical preacher who preaches the most hardline versions of sharia.
In the same week as a new video revealed commonplace anti-Jewish hatred on Britain’s streets, the Cambridge University Union Society once again chose to debate the motion “Israel is a rogue state”.
The Cambridge Union – the oldest in the country – enjoys debating that motion more than any other. It is a fixture in its termly schedules.
And once again last week the students of Cambridge decided to hold Israel guilty among the nations. Needless to say there is no record of Cambridge students debating whether Pakistan (created in the same year as Israel) is a rogue state. Despite there being far more reasons to do so.
Nor does the Cambridge Union annually denigrate any of Israel’s neighbours in the Middle East. During last week’s Cambridge debate the notorious anti-Israeli activist and discredited academic Norman Finkelstein explained to the students that Israel is worse than North Korea.
The students agreed with him. Next month the University of Southampton will become the latest university to fix its position on this bandwagon of hate.
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement is said to have ignited in earnest in 2005. It was propelled by significant funding from the Ford Foundation, which poured millions of dollars into anti-Israel NGOs working in Durban, and later by the New Israel Fund (NIF), which financially backed such pro-boycott groups as the Coalition for Women for Peace.LATMA: We'll be the Judge, episode 6
Experts say the BDS modus operendi wields systematic distortion of international law, history, and general fact about the Israel-Palestinian conflict to rally public support. While BDS advocates claim to seek political and economic justice, their actions are increasingly trailed by anti-Jewish actions such as swastika graffiti at Jewish locations, challenges to Jewish student based on their religion, and a general air of anti-Semitic hostility on campus. Today, the BDS Movement stands merely as the leading edge of growing anti-Semitic agitation and anti-Israel mobilization, attracting pure hate elements to their message.
BDS employs such guerrilla tactics as street actions, student harassment, campus disruption, physical assaults, and duplicitous coalition building in moves eerily resembling a Brownshirt playbook. Disarmed and dismayed by the swelling assault, fragmented attempts by Israeli and American Jewish leadership to counter the movement, mainly by assembling bone-dry fact sheets and lifeless statistical arguments, have proven ineffectual.
Now, a number of Jewish organizations are pooling resources and comparing notes to more cohesively combat BDS. To this end, several hundred individuals will gather March 21-23, 2015 in a Los Angeles hotel at the International anti-BDS Conference convened by the leading pro-Israel group, StandWithUs. The diverse list of speakers include famed attorney Alan Dershowitz, Bassem Eid of the pro-co-existence Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, David Renzer of the Creative Community For Peace, Richard L. Cravatts of the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, as well as this writer, bringing insights into financial investigations of BDS groups funded by tax-exempt charities.
The six episode of the Israeli satire program "We'll be the Judge," from the creators of Latma's Tribal Update, Israel Channel 1, March 12, 2015.
Southampton University wants to debate Israel's right to exist. But that right is sacred
In short, what is it about Israel that makes people debate its “legality” so much more often than they do that of other states? Why is it held to such an impossible standard? Why do its critics regard it as unique among newborn states struggling to survive?International Law is on Israel's Side - Why Doesn't it Use it?
Why, looking beyond this conference, is Israel the one country in the world whose critics so often conflate its government and its people - even seeking to punish the former by boycotting the latter? It is perfectly possible to dislike Benjamin Netanyahu and criticise the Israeli state’s actions in Gaza without assuming that Netanyahu speaks for all Israelis or that all Israelis approve of what happened in Gaza. No one would suggest that David Cameron’s austerity programme reflects the views of every Briton or that the British are constitutionally mean because the bedroom tax happened. And yet such obvious distinctions are often forgotten when talking about Israel. People chant that “Israel Must Be Stopped”, that “Israel Has Gone Too Far” and that “Israel is an Apartheid State” - as though its entire people had blood on their hands. When it comes to Israel, there is a unique enthusiasm to call into question its very right to exist. Strange, isn’t it?
Doubly strange when one considers that Israel's very foundations are moral. Oh, the government is often wrong, as most governments are. But, for its people, the country has a sacred purpose.
The creation of Israel was controversial, shaped by terrorism and armed conflict. One might say that the Jewish peoples were not gifted a country by international consensus so much that they carved one out that the world finally accepted. Acknowledging this controversy is important because it reminds us that Israel was born out of acts of resistance – resistance to anti-Semitism, fascism and racism. Whereas once Jews were at the mercy of societies in Europe, now they had won for themselves a homeland in which they were their own masters. Their struggle for self-determination was no different to Martin Luther King Jnr’s against segregation or to Nkruhmah’s against imperialism. And to question the legality of something won out of resistance to historical oppression - to genocide, no less - is to misunderstand the meaning of resistance itself. Resistance by the good against the bad is both necessary and just.
To challenge the right of Israel to exist is, therefore, morally obtuse. It is to forget the flames from which this Phoenix arose. They were the flames of Auschwitz, in to which millions of men, women and children walked and never returned.
Prof. Eliav Shochetman, an expert in international law, states: according to documents of international law accepted by the nations, the rights over Judea and Samaria belong exclusively to the Jewish People and to its national home. So why is it that everyone is convinced that international law is not on our side and why doesn’t Israel use these arguments?US Senate leader: Obama on cusp of 'very bad deal' with Iran
These days, when Leftist organizations are warning about the dangers presented by the court in the Hague and international law, Prof. Eliav Shochetman, a world-renowned expert in international law, listens to the Israeli reaction and cannot understand why Israel keeps repeating security justifications and totally ignores the best card in her hand – Judea and Samaria are areas that belong to it according to any reading of international law, in addition to the historical justification.
It turns out that what the radical Left has managed to embed within the Israeli public’s consciousness during three and a half decades simply lacks any factual basis. And while the average Israeli might define our position in Judea and Samaria by the familiar cliché – occupation- it seems that the international documents state the total opposite: it is not occupation, but Israel standing up for the right of the Jewish People as it was determined by the nations, and yes, even if we have not understood it until now, it relates to Judea and Samaria also, and not just to Tel Aviv and its surroundings.
US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday that President Barack Obama was on the verge of making a "very bad deal" on Iran's nuclear program and made clear that Congress will weigh in on any agreement.France plays role of hawk in nuclear talks with Iran
"Apparently the administration is on the cusp of entering into a very bad deal with one of the worst regimes in the world that would allow them to continue to have their nuclear infrastructure," McConnell said on CNN's "State of the Union" program. "We're alarmed about it."
US Secretary of State John Kerry was resuming negotiations with the Iranians in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Sunday with the goal of reaching a framework agreement by the end of March and a final accord by June 30. Kerry said on Saturday he hoped "in the next days" it would be possible to reach an interim deal.
As the drive to reach an accord with Iran on its nuclear program heads towards a March 31 deadline, France is digging into its role as chief hawk — a position inclined to annoy US allies, but not likely to scuttle an eventual accord, diplomats say.David Singer: Behaviour Change By Iran Must Be On Negotiating Agenda
The French hard-line among its US, British, Chinese, Russian and German partners to hammer out a nuclear agreement with Tehran is rooted in ideological, historical, and even personal concerns that tend to stiffen as Paris recognizes Washington’s increasing pragmatism in seeking to conclude a deal swiftly.
“France has taken the opposite path to that of the United States, which changed strategies with the arrival of Barack Obama,” said Bernard Hourcade, an Iran specialist at the National Centre of Scientific Research, who says France’s current Socialist-led government adopted and defends the wary, intransigent stance towards Iran set down by previous conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy.
“Paris has clearly made the choice of going with Gulf oil monarchies and with a conservative stability” in the region, and frontally opposing Iranian interests and influences that Paris blames for violence and turmoil in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, Hourcade said.
Netanyahu’s solution to preventing this catastrophe occurring requires Iran meeting three conditions in any concluded negotiations – each enthusiastically endorsed by a standing ovation from the Congress as Netanyahu declared:WaPo: War with Iran is probably our best option>
First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East.
Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world.
And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state.
Behaviour change by Iran has thus been firmly put on the negotiating agenda – and overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress – with Netanyahu warning:
If the world powers are not prepared to insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal is signed, at the very least they should insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal expires.
If Iran changes its behavior, the restrictions would be lifted. If Iran doesn't change its behavior, the restrictions should not be lifted.
If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, let it act like a normal country
Significantly Netanyahu stressed that these three conditions would represent:
A better deal that Israel and its neighbors may not like, but with which we could live, literally.
The logical flaw in the indictment of a looming “very bad” nuclear deal with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before Congress this month was his claim that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. The Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating.Do Israelis Really Think the U.S. Will Come to Their Aid?
This gives force to the Obama administration’s taunting rejoinder: What is Netanyahu’s alternative? War? But the administration’s position also contains a glaring contradiction. National security adviser Susan Rice declared at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference before Netanyahu’s speech that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.” So if Iran will accept only a “bad deal,” what is President Obama’s alternative? War?
Obama’s stance implies that we have no choice but to accept Iran’s best offer — whatever is, to use Rice’s term, “achievable” — because the alternative is unthinkable.
But should it be? What if force is the only way to block Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? That, in fact, is probably the reality. Ideology is the raison d’etre of Iran’s regime, legitimating its rule and inspiring its leaders and their supporters. In this sense, it is akin to communist, fascist and Nazi regimes that set out to transform the world. Iran aims to carry its Islamic revolution across the Middle East and beyond. A nuclear arsenal, even if it is only brandished, would vastly enhance Iran’s power to achieve that goal.
Many Israelis seem to think that if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, if Israel could just offer up a more friendly face, the current U.S. Administration would, in a crisis, come to their help. They could not be more wrong.Jon Voight backs Netanyahu, says 'Obama doesn't love Israel'
Many Israelis seem to be counting on some deeply wished-for love from the current U.S. Administration. What they may not want to see is that their unrequited love for the U.S. runs far deeper than any disagreement with Israel's current prime minister. Just ask Syria, ask Iraq, ask Yemen, ask Libya, ask Saudi Arabia, ask Kuwait, ask Egypt. The current U.S. Administration does not even send weapons; it sends meals-ready-to-eat. Israel and the rest of us in the region -- as Iran has already encircled all the oil fields and is now taking over Iraq -- have no more to look forward to than that.
Hard as it may be for Israelis to believe it, Israel's survival most likely does not figure into the current U.S. Administration's calculations at all. No matter who wins the election this week, the U.S. will grant Iran its nuclear weapons. If they end up turned on Israel, no matter who is prime minister, so be it.
No matter who wins the election this week in Israel, if and when Iran has a nuclear bomb, there is not a thing the current U.S. Administration will do to help Israel. To the current U.S. leadership, Israel is just the next Sudetenland. The Israelis will have only themselves to rely on.
American Actor Jon Voight released a message of support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, two days ahead of the Israeli elections.PreOccupied Territory: Arab Head Of Israeli Election Committee Unaware Israel Apartheid State (satire)
"I love Israel," Voight states at the beginning of his video, which was posted to YouTube. "I want to see Israel survive and not be overtaken by the madmen of this world."
He goes on to say that unlike him, US President Barack Obama does not love Israel, and aims to "control Israel, and this way he can be friends with all of Israel's enemies."
Salim Joubran, a celebrated member of Israel’s judiciary who happens to be of Arab descent, remains completely unaware that Israel practices Apartheid against Arabs, excluding them from government positions and denying them democratic rights, human rights groups lamented today.Judean People's Front: Why Arab parties are never in governing coalitions
Joubran, 67, has served on the nation’s highest court since 2003, becoming a permanent member of the body the following year – apparently completely in the dark that Arabs are de facto excluded from all positions of influence in Israeli society, given Israel’s racist, undemocratic character.
Currently Joubran serves as the chairman of the Elections Committee, which regulates and governs the activities surrounding parliamentary elections, scheduled for this Tuesday. In that capacity, he presides over decisions such as what campaign ads are acceptable and which ones violate election rules, as well as which candidates and parties are eligible for office, taking into consideration the democratic process, freedom of expression, and existing regulations and statutes. Despite ample time and exposure to all the evidence, Joubran has apparently not noticed that Israel excludes Arabs from the democratic process.
In our post the other day, we dangerously waded into the current election and predicted that even though it is probable that Labor will win more seats than Likud, since the Right-wing/religious parties will have more seats overall, Netanyahu is more likely form the next government. (We still think this is most likely, but pollsters have had a difficult time getting the numbers for the small parties right recently, we could be in for a disappointment ourselves. Time will tell.)PA Slams 'Judaization' of 'Islamic' Hevron
One of the reasons we gave was that the Joint Arab list has said it will not join a coalition, with party leader Ayman Odeh even saying he wants to lead the opposition. “I believe that whether Herzog or Netanyahu are tasked with forming the government, they will both head to a national unity cabinet. That means we will lead the opposition, which is an extremely important podium.” he said.
The current polls give the Joint Arab list a strong chance to be the third-largest party in the Knesset (albeit with only 13 or so seats), which under normal circumstances would give that party a good opportunity to get the position Odeh desires. But this just simply is not going to happen.
The reason why Odeh will not lead the opposition is not because he is Arab, though that is certainly the reason given by many Arabs and the anti-Israel crowd. The real reason why Odeh or any other member of the Arab parties currently in the Joint List will never head the opposition is because they are not Zionist. It will come as no surprise to the followers of this blog that the Judean People's Front is no fan of the Left-wing parties in Israel, but as much as we disagree with them, we recognize that they are still Zionist parties (however misguided they may be).
The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to adhere to its position which denies the historical and religious rights of the Jewish people in Israel and the connection to its holy sites, after one of its "ministers" denied the Jewish heritage of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron.PMW: Palestinians dedicate monument to murderer of 37
Sheikh Yusuf Aidais, the PA's "Minister of Religious Affairs," condemned the visit of Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett and several other MKs to the Cave last week, claiming that the site is "Muslim."
Aidais claimed that "al-Ibrahimi Mosque" (the Arabic name of the Cave of the Patriarchs) is a pure Islamic place, and that "no one has the right to own it or control it."
Currently, the Cave - which houses the graves of the forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as well as foremothers Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah - is split between Jewish worship sites and Islamic worship sites.
Last week, the Palestinian Authority celebrated the anniversary of Coastal Road Massacre in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 37 Israeli civilians, by dedicating a monument in a square in Ramallah to terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who led the bus hijacking in 1978.
Mughrabi Square is adorned with a large monument in the shape of what the PA tells its people is "Palestine" - a map that includes all of the State of Israel. In the center of the monument, there is an image of terrorist Mughrabi holding a rifle.
PA TV news broadcast the message of a cleric from the event, indicating that the lesson that Palestinians take from the Mughrabi attack is that murder is the way to "liberate the homeland":
"Dalal, God bless her, this female Martyr, she taught us how we can liberate the homeland... We all see her as a model and as a symbol for us."
IsraellyCool: The Most Ridiculous Hamas Responses To #AskHamas Questions So Far
As the #AskHamas debacle continues, the terrorists are actually answering some of the questions.IsraellyCool: Max Blumenthal And Ali Abunimah #HeartHamas
Which is only adding to the laughs.
Here are some of the more ridiculous responses I have seen so far.
I have already blogged about the disastrous (to Hamas) #AskHamas initiative on Twitter. While the majority of questions are mocking and deriding the terrorists, some are using it to show their support for them.PreOccupied Territory: Hamas To Host TED Talk On Innovations In Suicide Bombing (satire)
People like the detestable Max Blumenthal.
Meanwhile, Blumenthal’s equally detestable Israel-hating cohort, Ali “Abumination” Abunimah, is trying to help Hamas spread their propaganda, by retweeting theiranswerlie to one of the questions.
One of the world’s leading practitioners in the art of strapping on explosives and detonating them in a crowd of civilians has teamed up with one of the most prominent organizations involved in spreading innovative ideas, in an effort to bring cutting-edge techniques to a wider audience.Cartoonist makes first appearance since Copenhagen attacks
The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) organization announced today that it would hold a series of conferences – its famous “TED Talks” – in the Gaza Strip this fall, featuring at least two dozen speakers from the various militant factions active in the coastal territory. The speakers will share their expertise and vision for the future of suicide terrorist bombings, knowledge and techniques that can be applied far beyond the narrow confines of the Gaza Strip.
While the formal annual TED conferences take place on the west coast of North America, the foundation that runs the conferences also licenses the TED name to qualified applicants around the world under the TEDx label. TEDx licensees must adhere to a specific format – notably that speakers must be dynamic, engaging, and not exceed 18 minutes. But the TEDx Gaza will represent the first time such a series of presentations will be conducted entirely in a language other than English, an achievement that fulfills one of the foundation’s educational goals.
“We’ve been struggling for years to take our materials to other cultures, and we usually pursue that end by translating the presentations into other languages,” said Chris Anderson the Sapling Foundation, which runs TED. “TEDx Gaza will be a watershed event for us, as it will allow TED speakers and materials to directly address audiences in the region and beyond.” For the TEDx Gaza materials Anderson specifically cited potential audiences in the Islamic State, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Nigeria, and disputed regions of India.
On Saturday, Vilks emerged in public to receive a prize awarded by a Danish association promoting free speech called Trykkefrihedsselskabet.Paris Hyper Cacher re-opens after murderous terror attack
The ceremony was held under tight police surveillance at the Christianborg Castle, which also houses the parliament and other Danish institutions, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.
Vilks described himself not as an activist for freedom of speech but as a symbol.
“They say of me: he fights for freedom of expression, he does not give in. But the reality is the opposite: I am the most passive of them all,” he said, according to Ritzau.
“I have now inherited this role of being the symbol of the freedom of expression,” he added.
The kosher supermarket in Paris attacked by a jihadist gunman linked to the shootings at Charlie Hebdo magazine in January re-opened on Sunday.Iran reportedly paid Argentina to get off hook on AMIA bombing
“We were stunned by the attack, but there was never any question that we would re-open,” said one of the managers of the Hyper Cacher store, Laurent Mimoun.
Four Jewish men were shot dead at the supermarket by gunman Amedy Coulibaly on January 9, two days after brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi killed 12 people in an attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve attended the reopening of the shop, which has been repaired after suffering heavy damage during the assault by special forces to kill Coulibaly and free the staff and shoppers he had taken hostage.
Iran financed the 2007 campaign of Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner, in exchange for impunity for Iranians in the AMIA bombing, a magazine reported.From Durban to Los Angeles: The BDS Movement’s Long Trail of Anti-Semitism
The Brazilian magazine Veja on Saturday reported that the deal, brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also provided the Iranians with nuclear know-how.
“I need you to broker with Argentina for aid to my country’s nuclear program. We need Argentinians to share their knowledge on nuclear technology; without this collaboration it is impossible to advance our program,’ the then president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Chavez on Jan 13, 2007, according to the testimony of three former Chavez cabinet members who now live in the United States and are collaborating in the crime investigation.
“Don’t worry about the expenses required for this operation. Iran will support everything necessary to persuade the Argentinians. I have another issue. I need you to discourage the Argentinians from insisting that Interpol capture the authorities of my country,” added the Iranian president, according to the report. Chavez agreed.
If the BDS movement was born in 2001 at the Durban Conference and NGO Forum, it came of age in 2005 with the Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, which virtually all subsequent BDS campaigns—including anti-Israel divestment resolutions on U.S. campuses—have acknowledged as their source and guiding light. Although it was signed by more than 100 Palestinian NGOs, the main group behind the Palestinian Civil Society Call and the subsequent Palestinian BDS National Committee, which facilitates coordination of BDS campaigns worldwide, is the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine. The council is a coalition of Palestinian political factions founded by Yasser Arafat at the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, for the purpose of opposing Israel and coordinating terror attacks against it. Not surprisingly, many of the council’s organizational members are linked to terrorism against Jews in Israel and worldwide. The council’s chief sponsors and major partners, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, were recently indicted in a U.S. federal court for sponsoring terrorism, and at least three other organizations in the council are on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the PFLP General Command.Israel boycott movement 'isn't working' says top trade envoy Amit Lang
Whether they have terrorist affiliations or not, all of the signatories to the 2005 Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS—along with all of the groups that have established BDS campaigns in response to that call, including campus organizations like SJP—are committed to the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state and see BDS as an excellent means to that end. This is reflected in the demands of the Civil Society Call, particularly that Israel end “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and permit all Palestinian refugees and their descendants “to return to their homes and properties.” The fulfillment of those demands would require Israel to commit territorial and demographic suicide. It is important to point out that denying Israel’s right to continue as a nation-state in which the Jewish people expresses its right to self-determination is a core element of the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism.
Those who monitor global anti-Semitism agree that the number and intensity of attacks against Jews worldwide are at levels not seen since the Holocaust. Given the BDS movement’s anti-Semitic nature, its clear ties to terrorist organizations committed to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, and the anti-Semitic effects of the BDS movement on Jewish students, it is reasonable to ask: Why are BDS campaigns allowed on college campuses at all?
Israel's top trade envoy says the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – which calls for banning Israeli products over the country's treatment of the Palestinians – is having no effect on Israel's trade with the outside world.Syria enters fifth year of shifting civil war
Amit Lang, director general of the Israeli Ministry of the Economy, told IBTimes UK major investments by US billionaire Warren Buffett and tech giants Intel and IBM show the BDS was not persuading investors to shun Israel or Israeli companies.
His comments come soon after the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) broke ties with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in an academic boycott and European lawmakers called for the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement in November 2014.
But Lang, who was in London meeting with major investors and fund managers in March, argued that in business money talks, and the BDS movement had had no real impact on Israel's trade links with Europe or the wider world.
"It is a challenge but I would remind you that the government of the UK is opposed to this movement. We deal with it, we fight it. We try to explain that this is not the way to achieve anything in the political arena," Lang said.
"It is making a lot of noise, it is in the media a lot – it is sexy. But at the end of the day if you have a good product, businessmen want to make money... I have not seen a deal that was [abandoned] because of the BDS. I see the numbers and they speak for themselves."
Syria’s conflict enters its fifth year on Sunday with the regime emboldened by fading international attention and a growing humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the rise of the Islamic State terror group.Amid rise of ISIS, Kerry says US may have to negotiate with Syria's Assad
More than 210,000 people have been killed and half of the country’s population displaced, prompting rights groups to accuse the international community of “failing Syria.”
The country has been carved up by government forces, jihadist groups, Kurdish fighters and the remaining non-extremist rebels.
The United States will have to negotiate with Syrian President Bashar Assad for a political transition in Syria and is exploring ways to pressure him into agreeing to talks, US Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS News in an interview.Report: Hezbollah to send forces to fight alongside Iraq in Mosul, against ISIS
Washington has long insisted that Assad must be replaced through a negotiated, political transition, but the rise of a common enemy, hardline militant group Islamic State, appears to have slightly softened the West's stance towards him.
In the interview broadcast on Sunday, Kerry did not repeat the standard US line that Assad had lost all legitimacy and had to go. Syria's civil war is now into its fifth year, with hundreds of thousands killed and millions of Syrians displaced.
"We have to negotiate in the end," Kerry said. "We've always been willing to negotiate in the context of the Geneva I process," he added, referring to a 2012 conference which called for a negotiated transition to end the conflict.
Hezbollah will send 800 men to fight alongside Iraqi forces against Islamic State for the control of Mosul, the London based al-Arabi al-Jadeed newspaper reported Sunday.Evidence that IS used chemical weapons, Iraqi Kurds say
According to sources, following the battle over Tikrit, Tehran turned to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a joint Iraqi-Iranian request to support the fight against ISIS in Mosul with trained fighters. An unnamed source told al-Jadeed that Nasrallah agreed to send about 800 men from elite units to participate in the anticipated battle.
The source cited the similarity between the topography of southern Lebanon and the mountainous terrain of Mosul as an advantage in the integration of Hezbollah forces into the fighting in Mosul, saying that the Lebanese men are already familiar and experienced fighters in both open areas and narrow streets.
The fighters, according to the report, will enter Iraq equipped with light gear and arms. Once there, Iran will equip the men with heavy weapons.
A statement Saturday from the Kurdistan Region Security Council claimed that the purported chemical weapon attack involved chlorine gas used in a January 23 suicide car bomb attack in northern Iraq.US shutters Saudi embassy over security fears
It said the alleged attack took place on a road between Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and the Syrian border, as peshmerga forces fought to seize a vital supply line used by the Sunni militants. The Kurds said samples were analyzed by an unnamed lab in an unnamed coalition partner nation, which found chlorine traces.
The Islamic State group has been suspected of using chlorine in previous attacks in Iraq and Syria.
Earlier an activist group and a Kurdish official said Kurdish fighters were making gains against the group in northeastern Syria, amid airstrikes by the US-led coalition.
The US Embassy in Saudi Arabia said it had suspended consular services in the kingdom for two days due to “heightened security concerns,” after warning of threats against Western oil workers.Sweden's Middle East Policy in Ruins
All services in Riyadh and at the consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran have been canceled for Sunday and Monday, it said in a statement posted on its website Saturday.
The embassy warned US citizens to take extra precautions and keep a low profile if they were out in public.
“All US citizens are encouraged to be aware of their surroundings, and take extra precautions when travelling throughout the country,” it said.
As a result of recent developments, Sweden has now lost influence in the Middle East and probably most of the Islamic world.Muslims harass mourners at Jewish cemetery in Sweden
Through its recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state, and following years of anti-Israeli propaganda, Sweden has made itself terra non grata in Israel -- and now Saudi Arabia does not like it either.
An EU member state that sees itself as the universal purveyor of peace and love, without understanding what is actually going on the world, will of course lose credibility and influence where real policy is made: Washington, London, Berlin, Brussels, Moscow, Beijing, Cairo and so on.
One wonders where the Swedish government will go next to find takers for its uninformed, idealistic world policy.
Police in Malmo, Sweden, have issued an order to post officers near a Jewish cemetery during funerals following a series of incidents in which Muslim youths gathered in a nearby building and harassed mourners.Michael Douglas finds Judaism and faces anti-Semitism
This week, the brother of deceased Jewish man stayed at the cemetery to guard the body. A group of youths tried to break into the building.
"This is a difficult situation for us," the man said. "Instead of mourning, we have to deal with harassment from outside. I am sorry that people are trying to scare us, and am even sadder that many times they succeed."
A spokesperson for the Skane County Police, which has jurisdiction over Malmo, confirmed the incident and said two police officers guarded the cemetery, and that police were present during the funeral itself on Friday.
Last summer our family went to Southern Europe on holiday. During our stay at a hotel, our son Dylan went to the swimming pool. A short time later he came running back to the room, upset. A man at the pool had started hurling insults at him.Revolutionary New App Allows Surfin' the 'Net with Peace of Mind
My first instinct was to ask, “Were you misbehaving?”
“No,” Dylan told me through his tears.
I stared at him. And suddenly I had an awful realization of what might have caused the man's outrage: Dylan was wearing a Star of David.
After calming him down, I went to the pool and asked the attendants to point out the man who had yelled at him. We talked. It was not a pleasant discussion. Afterward, I sat down with my son and said: “Dylan, you just had your first taste of anti-Semitism.”
In my opinion there are three reasons anti-Semitism is appearing now with renewed vigilance.
The first is that historically, it always grows more virulent whenever and wherever the economy is bad. In a time when income disparity is growing, when hundreds of millions of people live in abject poverty, some find Jews to be a convenient scapegoat rather than looking at the real source of their problems.
Netspark, a pioneer in the field of developing technologies to filter harmful Internet content, has created a revolution that will make the Internet a place that is safe for your family.Israeli Wine Industry Leaving France and Italy in the Dust
Surfin’ the ‘Net is no longer an exotic vocation for computer nerds. It is a given. For many of us, it is even hard to imagine what life would be like without the Internet. And for our children, born into a world in which the Internet is ubiquitous, they indeed cannot imagine life without the Internet!
And yet, for all of the wonder and convenience that the Internet provides, we cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that the Internet does not also carry with it significant challenges.
If so, our choice is not whether we should use the Internet or not. The essential question is: Will we choose to continue to use unfiltered Internet, thereby exposing ourselves and our children to unwanted and potentially offensive material; or will we take the easy and sensible precaution of protecting ourselves?
In Israel, Netspark, and their subsidiary Internet Rimon, are popular brand names that have become synonymous with surfing the Internet safely.
Netspark has created a new mobile app called Netspark Mobile. This app transforms any Android-based Smartphone or Tablet into a safe, child-friendly device.
In 1987, the Golan Heights Winery won Israeli wines their first major international award in competition with the 1986 Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon 1984 at the International Wines & Spirits Competition in London. Eli Poch, the Founder and CEO of the Jerusalem Wine Club and proprietor of the Club's full-service wine shop in Efrat, says the industry has never looked back.JBricks: Lego takes a nontraditional, Jewish twist
In the nearly 30 years since the industry was revitalized by that one award, the number of wineries has gone from a handful to between 250 and 400. Mr. Poch said he could not give an exact number because new wineries on preparing to open their doors all the time.
Mr. Poch got involved in wines at a young age in Toronto, pairing up with a local wine shop as part of a pre-Passover fundraiser when he was in 9th grade. He later got a warehouse job with that business and then took his enthusiasm further when he started exploring the emerging industry in Israel.
Yitzy Kasowitz of Minnesota has turned every Jewish Lego-enthusiasts dream of having a custom-made Jewish-themed Lego set into a reality, turning his passion and small scale project into a small business. He's raised funding for JBricks through crowd-sourcing on Jewcer, an online platform for Jewish crowdfunding; With a goal of $20,000 in sight, he's raised a little over $5000 thus far.
JBrick sells Lego sets at a retail price of about $40 a box. Sets can be found featuring brand-new, original Lego blocks which can be constructed into a dreidel, a tzedakah box, a menorah, an IDF soldier, or a Passover Seder plate.
Kasowitz already has the support of The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik, who posted on her official Facebook page: "Am I dreaming? Jewish-themed Lego sets? I can get behind this Jewcer campaign 1000% and can't wait for my incentives to come: an IDF Lego man and a Lego tzedakah box! (there's also a Lego Seder plate!)."
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