Monday, March 16, 2015
Should the ABC (Australia) have given advocacy journalist Sophie McNeill the keys to its Jerusalem bureau?
There are serious questions that must be raised about whether Sophie McNeill, who has recently been appointed the ABC’s exclusive Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, can comply with the obligations contained in ABC’s Code of Practice.Anti-Israel Efforts Are Anti-Semitic in Intent if Not in Effect
Interviewed by her former professor Victoria Mason in 2011, McNeill said that the journalism she wanted to do was to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering” in a situation. Both the examples she offered referred to Palestinians.
McNeill has acted on her self-proclaimed sympathy for the Palestinians by appearing on a panel at two pro-Palestinian events, including one sponsored by Palestinian groups and speaking alongside two other speakers who called for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the movement to sever all economic, educational and cultural ties with Israel. She has also written for Electronic Intifada, an extremist website that routinely publishes screeds calling for the destruction of Israel and justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.
How could the ABC give such a candidly agenda-motivated journalist the exclusive job of Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, with extensive autonomy?
Yet not without precedent did the academic boycott lobby inside the MLA select their strategy of largely meaningless, if vociferous, denunciation of Israel in particular. Cleverly, like the United Nations itself in this way—no doubt the MLA activists were aware that three-fourths of all UN resolutions that single out a lone country for criticism by the General Assembly have been aimed at the Jewish state—the professors of various literatures knew just where to begin healing the world, by piling on with the “language.” Moreover, not just the UNGA, but a smaller and less important MLA sister organization—the American Studies Association (ASA)—had also recently decided on a similarly cowardly course of action, and even went as far as voting to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. While the problems with a corrupt General Assembly are no secret (its motives for attacking Israel, mostly symbolically and out of all proportion, are well understood by that institution’s observers), the ASA’s weird decision to pick now to get in on the Israel-bashing phenomenon of many years raised a question. Why?Jeffrey Goldberg: Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?
Which in turn gave rise to an answer.
As explained by ASA President, Professor Curtis Marez, in what quickly became an infamous joke—although/because he really was serious (he actually said it), “You have to start somewhere.”
For half a century, memories of the Holocaust limited anti-Semitism on the Continent. That period has ended—the recent fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are merely the latest examples of rising violence against Jews. Renewed vitriol among right-wing fascists and new threats from radicalized Islamists have created a crisis, confronting Jews with an agonizing choice.
The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, the son of Holocaust survivors, is an accomplished, even gifted, pessimist. To his disciples, he is a Jewish Zola, accusing France’s bien-pensant intellectual class of complicity in its own suicide. To his foes, he is a reactionary whose nostalgia for a fairy-tale French past is induced by an irrational fear of Muslims. Finkielkraut’s cast of mind is generally dark, but when we met in Paris in early January, two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he was positively grim.
“My French identity is reinforced by the very large number of people who openly declare, often now with violence, their hostility to French values and culture,” he said. “I live in a strange place. There is so much guilt and so much worry.” We were seated at a table in his apartment, near the Luxembourg Gardens. I had come to discuss with him the precarious future of French Jewry, but, as the hunt for the Charlie Hebdo killers seemed to be reaching its conclusion, we had become fixated on the television.
Finkielkraut sees himself as an alienated man of the left. He says he loathes both radical Islamism and its most ferocious French critic, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s extreme right-wing—and once openly anti-Semitic—National Front party. But he has lately come to find radical Islamism to be a more immediate, even existential, threat to France than the National Front. “I don’t trust Le Pen. I think there is real violence in her,” he told me. “But she is so successful because there actually is a problem of Islam in France, and until now she has been the only one to dare say it.” (h/t Herb Glatter)
Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Should the Jews Leave?
Dr. Iddo Netanyahu, in his play, A Happy End, is asking precisely this question. By setting his affluent, assimilated, and successful Jewish characters in Berlin, circa 1932-1933, he may hope to influence our thinking about this question today.If It’s March, They Must Be Honoring Terrorists
In a talkback after the New York City performance, Netanyahu said: “There is a great advantage to raising things in the past. Current political views allow people to close themselves off.”
As we know, it is politically incorrect—a real Thought Crime—to view Islamic terrorism as a radical threat or to fail to parrot the views of the left-driven “Pravda”s that circulate disinformation on the subject in every language, every day, all day.
One of the main characters in A Happy End is Leah Erdmann, who is played by South-African-Israeli Carmit Levité. Leah—who is blonde and dresses glamorously—absolutely refuses to leave Germany. She loves its cafes and cabarets, its thriving culture of classical music concerts and theater and her privileged life, which (recently) includes a non-Jewish German lover. Leah is married to Mark Erdmann, a physicist (played by Curzon Dobell) who is the head of the Atomic Lab at the University of Berlin. They have one son, Hans, who is a teenage poet.
In the talkback, Levité said that the play “is not only about the Holocaust. It is also about everything that is happening today.”
In various cultures, a particular month, day or time is associated with a certain annual activity. For example, here in the United States, November—every other year—is election time. In Israel, every May brings the solemnity of remembering fallen soldiers, followed immediately by celebrations of national independence. And if it’s March and you happen to live in Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled territory, then you know it’s time for publicly praising and honoring one of the most gruesome Palestinian massacres of Israelis and Americans in modern history.Why the Left is Saudi Arabia’s greatest ally
That’s because March 9, 1978, was the day that a squad of 13 Palestinian terrorists, led by Dalal Mughrabi, landed in several small boats on Israel’s shore. They were members of Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). At the time, Yasser Arafat was chairman of the PLO and Fatah, and Mahmoud Abbas was his second in command. Today, Abbas is head of the PLO, Fatah, and the PA.
At the beachfront spot where the terrorists landed, Gail Rubin, a popular American Jewish nature photographer and niece of American Senator Abraham Ribicoff, was taking photos of rare birds. One of the terrorists, Hussain Fayadh, later told the Lebanese Television station Al-Manar what happened: “Sister Dalal al-Mughrabi had a conversation with the American journalist. Before killing her, Dalal asked: ‘How did you enter Palestine?’ [Rubin] answered: ‘They gave me a visa.’ Dalal said: ‘Did you get your visa from me, or from Israel? I have the right to this land. Why didn’t you come to me?’ Then Dalal opened fire on her.”
Leftist environmental groups in the US and Canada have confirmed what was long suspected by admitting that the Saudi’s were their ally in the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline.This odd obsession which distorts how Israel is viewed
Given UK environmental groups' erroneous arguments against hydraulic fracturing, could the same coalition exist here?
Saudi Arabia has an atrocious human rights record. Women and minorities have few rights and public capital punishment occurs frequently, one might assume this would make Leftist groups and the Saudis automatic enemies. But the Saudis and Western liberals have an issue in common that make these two groups unlikely allies -- both despise energy independence.
Environmentalists want to see us move to green energy and OPEC countries would welcome this because it means shutting off domestic taps.When "sustainable energy" inevitably fails to meet demand, we will have to rely on OPEC.
Green groups are winning the fight with scaremongering rhetoric and by frightening local communities with misinformation. Gas companies are not even able to explore for the possibility of shale without being slammed. Green groups are often able to stop exploration by taking advantage of red tape and halting progression through weeks or even months of demonstrations carried out by professional protestors.
The terms "quantity" and "quality" are central to understanding the effect that media coverage of Israel is having on how the country is perceived.Why Has the U.S. Congress Done So Little About UNRWA?
Let's take the Guardian for example: the paper's homepage for Middle East and North Africa (presumably covering more than 30 countries) usually contains approximately 13-15 news items.
On Feb 25-26, six of these items reported on Israel or Gaza, while three out of the seven photographs on the homepage illustrated these items.
A cursory glance at the layout of the page will reveal the worldview that guides it: an analysis piece titled: "Is Netanyahu out to foment war with Iran" sets the stage, and if anyone needed any proof of Israel's warmongering, three pieces on Gaza are on offer, all focused on humanitarian aspects of this summer's conflict. A piece about aid agencies states that Israel bombed Gaza, "claiming that it was reacting to rocket attacks by Hamas". Who knows, perhaps the 4,300 rockets that Hamas fired at Israel over the summer were an Israeli invention, a cunning plot to enable it to bomb Gaza, for no reason at all.
A second piece on UK doctors visiting Gaza manages over 1,200 words without mentioning the word "Hamas" once, meanwhile freely making unproven accusations such as Israel having bombed the Gaza power plant (a statement since corrected following a complaint to the paper).
In each of UNRWA's 64 years, Congress has appropriated aid to UNRWA in steadily rising amounts. The cumulative total of American assistance to UNRWA has now reached $5 billion. Nor has Congress used America's status as the leading donor to impose reforms of UNRWA's deplorable practices. While the House and Senate have passed numerous statutory limitations and conditions on aid to the Palestinian Authority, in all these years only a single obligatory limitation has been placed on appropriations to UNRWA—Section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act, conditioning aid on UNRWA's non-involvement with terrorists.Gaza blockade opens door for 'new war': UNRWA
This is not because individual members have failed to propose other legislative initiatives and sense-of-Congress resolutions. Recent proposals included the UNRWA Integrity Act (2006), the UNRWA Humanitarian Accountability Act (2010), the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act (2011), the Palestine Accountability Act (2013), the Palestinian and United Nations Anti-Terrorism Act (2014), and other proposals. (See Appendix of Congressional Resolutions on UNRWA.)
But the little-known truth is that with the sole exception of Section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act, not a single one of these UNRWA reform initiatives has had majority support in the house of Congress in which it was introduced, and only Section 301(c) was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. In fact, only one of the other proposals had as many as 142 House sponsors out of the 435 members in the House of Representatives. Most of the proposals had 30 or fewer supporters. None in the Senate had as many as twelve sponsors. And, most importantly, every single proposed UNRWA reform bill or sense-of-Congress resolution in either house of Congress, except Section 301(c), died after a few months and was not enacted (details in the Appendix).
How could this be? How is it possible that UNRWA, an agency so odious to Israel's friends, enjoys such immunity in the United States Congress? Why did all these efforts to do something about UNRWA die in Congress without enactment? There are several reasons.
Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza Robert Turner said at a press briefing that his agency was extremely concerned over the continued Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip and also delay in the reconstruction of the Palestinian territory.Applying the Lessons of Self-Defense to Anti-Semitism
He described conditions in the Gaza Strip as "very bad."
He said the a "new war" would be inescapable if the blockade was not lifted and the Gaza Strip reconstructed.
Turner went on to assert that UNRWA had sought to improve conditions in the coastal territory and reduce the number of Palestinian refugees seeking shelter at UNRWA-run schools across Gaza.
He also called on donor countries to honor financial pledges they made for Gaza during a conference held in Egyptian capital Cairo in October of 2014.
UNRWA, Turner said, had plans to build 7,000 houses in Gaza. However, he added, only funds for the construction of 200 houses were available. (h/t Yenta Press)
We have to stand up against these bullies and counter their advances of divestment and their apartheid walls. When the future of Jewish life on campus is in danger, we must proactively defend ourselves. That means we must know our facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict, the history of the Jewish people, and the true history of anti-Semitism.Monthly rallies to be held in Buenos Aires for slain prosecutor
If someone tells you that Israel is responsible for the rising anti-Semitism, then you scold that individual for blaming the victims of hate crimes. If a "pro-Palestinian" activist calls you a baby killer, remind him or her that they remain silent when Hamas and the PLO teaches their children to blow themselves up, thus they truly do not care about Palestinian-Arab children. If they call you a racist because you identify as a Zionist, ask them if they cared when Hamas takes part in the black African slave trade. More importantly, if someone claims that Israel is causing the lack of peace, explain to them that every time the Palestinian leadership rejected every single chance to create a legitimate, sovereign "Palestine" side-by-side with Israel.
In the same way that I was trained in martial arts, all Jewish students should learn from the basics of self-defense. For every attack against the Jewish people or the Jewish state, we should be able to block and counter. The moment that we start defending ourselves against the anti-Semitism is when the bigots will fear us. Students for Justice in Palestine can continue to stage their walk outs on our events, write inflammatory articles and spew their racist rhetoric, but they should be warned to never threaten any Jewish student on campus.
We must demand to be treated like everyone else, no double standards or exceptions. As long as we are empowered and as long as we remain proud of our identity, we will ensure that the Jewish community can thrive on campus.
That is how we ensure that Zionism continues to flourish on campus.
Monthly rallies calling for justice for the late AMIA Jewish center prosecutor Alberto Nisman will be held in Buenos Aires.Blurred lines: When BDS becomes blatant antisemitism.
The gatherings, set to begin on Wednesday, called “Memoria Nisman,” or Nisman Memory, will take place at 9 a.m. in front of the Palace for Justice of Buenos Aires, on the 18th of every month. Nisman was found dead on January 18.
The first meeting will be led by philosopher Santiago Kovadloff, who also spoke at Nisman’s funeral, journalist Nelson Castro, and Sergio Bergman, a rabbi and lawmaker.
Bergman launched the invitation to participate in the rally during his Shabbat address three weeks ago, one week after a rally was held on February 18 organized by Argentinian prosecutors.
Advocates of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS) often argue that their campaign is not antisemitic, despite the fact that openly antisemitic statements come up frequently among activists and forums associated with the movement (see past examples documented by AIJAC here, here, here and here.) Once again, examples of where BDS activists have crossed the line into explicit antisemitism are piling up, including in Australia.IsraellyCool: Is BDSHole Jake Lynch Telling Porky-Pies?
According to reports, an apparent example was Wednesday’s fiasco at Sydney University, when retired British army Colonel Richard Kemp’s lecture on military ethics, was disrupted by protesters that included students and Professor Jake Lynch, the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), who publicly advocates for BDS. Lynch is pictured holding money up to the face of a Jewish student (Lynch denies having an antisemitic intention), and is reported to have shouted in the faces of students and screamed that attempts to remove the protesters by security guards were an attack on free speech. Never mind that Lynch denies Israeli academics free speech, as he endorses BDS for CPACS. AIJAC’s Glen Falkenstein was also there and you can read his report on what happened here, and can watch a video of the protest here.
Moreover, the protest began with a young woman stating:
“We are here to highlight amongst other things the absolute disgraceful hypocrisy of this university which recently banned Hizb ut-Tahrir, an outspoken Islamic organisation that is critical of… Australian, American foreign policy in the Middle East…”
Hizb ut-Tahrir has been in the news recently for its hate speech against Jews.
With pressure mounting on BDShole professor Jake Lynch to be sacked for his ostensibly antisemitic gesture of waving money in the face of a Jewish woman, he not only doesn’t think he did anything wrong; he thinks he should be praised for his restraint.BDS motion fails at McGill with help from MP alum
SYDNEY University academic Jake Lynch is under renewed pressure over his support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, with calls for his sacking following a BDS protest last week.
University vice-chancellor Michael Spence has launched an investigation into a fracas that broke out on Wednesday when students stormed a public meeting on campus and disrupted an address by former British army colonel Richard Kemp. When security guards tried to remove the protesters, Professor Lynch criticised the guards; he says he was then attacked by a woman.
While Professor Lynch has written a letter to Dr Spence asking him to discipline the security guards, Mr Kemp wrote to the vice-chancellor claiming that Professor Lynch and another pro-BDS academic “were both apparently leading and encouraging the protesters”.
“At one point I observed Associate Professor Lynch waving money in the face of a Jewish student, a clearly aggressive and insulting act that seemed to invoke the stereotype of the ‘greedy Jew’,” Mr Kemp wrote.
Professor Lynch, who is the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, said he held up the bank notes to warn a woman who he said kicked him in the groin that he would sue her if she didn’t desist. He denied the action was anti-Semitic.
He said he had shown “almost heroic restraint” against the woman, while the security guards had, he said, shown no interest in curbing her actions.
A March 15 boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) vote brought to Canada’s McGill University Student Society found unexpectedly high-profile opposition this weekend in the form of McGill alum MP Justin Trudeau.Thomas Mulcair met with a Canadian Palestinian activist who praised the Jerusalem massacre and called the murderers “role model” and "pride of our nation"
Ahead of Sunday’s vote, Liberal Party leader Trudeau turned to Twitter on March 13 and posted, “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses. As a @McGillU alum, I’m disappointed. #EnoughIsEnough.”
Whether Trudeau influenced Sunday’s vote, which defeated the McGill Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights’ motion calling for a divestment from companies in business with Israel, it is clear from the ensuing conversation on his Twitter feed that the son of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau finds his stance hardly universally supported by his constituents.
Monira Kitmitto, resident of Oakville, is a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) and until December 2014 served as a board member of The Palestine House in Mississauga (Ontario). She has worked in Palestinian refugee camps Lebanon and was an active member in the Union of Palestinian Women.Deconstructing Israel: Academics Meet to Question Israel’s Right to Exist
Following the news reports on the massacre carried out by Palestinian terrorists in Jerusalem synagogue, Monira Kitmitto posted (November 18, 2014) the following on her Facebook page (translated from Arabic):
“In al-Quds like in the Galilee, the [West] Bank, Gaza and the Negev, in spite of the consecutive tragedies there is a spirit of manhood in the air and heroism on the ground. Ghassan and Udai Abu Jamal [the Palestinian cousins who murdered with a handgun, an axe and a knife 4 rabbis and wounded 8 in Jerusalem massacre], you are role model and an example [for others]. Glory to both of you and to all [others who committed similar operations].”
Monira Kitmitto also posted a poster featuring a man brandishing a long knife and the pictures of terrorists with the caption: [Ghassan and] Udai Abu Jamal, you are the pride of our nation.”
Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s quip that “some ideas are so stupid they could only have been thought of by intellectuals,” faculty at the University of Southampton in England will be sponsoring a three-day conference in April, “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism,” conceived of to “explore the relatedness of the suffering and injustice in Palestine to the foundation and protection of a state of such nature and asks what role International Law should play in the situation.”Anti-Israel boycotters tighten grip on American Studies Association
Not content with the way history and law have worked out independent of their intellectual meddling, the conference sponsors claim that the event will have great scholarly value and “. . . is unique because it concerns the legitimacy in International Law of the Jewish state of Israel” and “will focus on exploring themes of Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism; all of which are posed by Israel’s very nature.”
What does that elevated and academically-inane doublespeak actually mean? Obviously, it is clear, both by the questions posited as the themes of inquiry of the conference, not to mention the list of toxic intellectuals who will present papers at the event, that the purpose and end product of the conference is yet another formalized indictment of Israel—nicely disguised as a bit of academic inquiry and brave new scholarship.
The ASA’s 2015 Election Results solidified the grip of the BDS movement on the supposedly educational tax-exempt organization.CUFI Denounces Journalist for Article Attacking Pastor John Hagee
The current President-Elect (based on last year’s elections) is David Roediger, University of Illinois, an endorser of the academic boycott of Israel.
The next in line President-Elect will be Robert Warrior, Director of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign American Indian Studies Department. Warrior is a proponent of the BDS academic boycott of Israel. Warrior participated in an anti-Israel Red Washing conference at the American University in Beirut, opposed a Navajo leader’s visit to Israel, and criticized the Native American writer, poet and musician Joy Harjo for serving at a Writer-in-Residence at Tel Aviv University.
Warrior continues the recent succession of anti-Israel BDS advocates in the ASA President position, starting with Curtis Marez (Ethnic Studies Dept., UC-San Diego), who helped push through the 2013 boycott resolution, and infamously justified singling out Israel because “one has to start somewhere.” After Marez came current President Lisa Duggan, whose use of faculty power at NYU to push the BDS agenda has been the subject of extensive press coverage.
Also elected was the controversial Steven Salaita, whose contingent offer to join the UI-UC Department headed by Warrior (who was Salaita’s Ph.D. dissertation adviser at the University of Oklahoma) was rejected by the UI Board of Trustess and is the subject of litigation. In addition to his Twitter controversy, Salaita was the author of a Guide on how faculty could use their position within academia to advance the academic boycott of Israel (which of course is ironic considering his lawsuit is based on him allegedly being unfairly boycotted).
In an article published by The Huffington Post, Wilson claims that Hagee believes it is “half-breed Jews” who are responsible for the Holocaust, and goes on to cite several passages from Hagee’s books and sermons to back up claims that Hagee believes Jews are “responsible” for the antisemitism they suffer.Hamas PR department invokes BBC’s Bowen
“The sum total of the arguments Wilson makes in his 1,600-word screed against Hagee involved his quoting random phrases—and even random words—taken blatantly out of the context in which Hagee wrote or spoke them,” CUFI said in a statement.
“To cite just a few of the numerous examples of Wilson’s distortions, Hagee never directly states that Hitler was a ‘half-breed Jew’ in the provocative way Wilson claims,” said CUFI. “Rather Hagee engages in an extended discussion of the lineage of Esau, whom God ‘hated.’ (Romans 9:13). Hagee goes on to discuss Esau’s descendent, Haman, who sought to kill the Jews of Persia and those other of Esau’s descendants who have plagued the Jewish people for centuries. Hitler is mentioned as a possible descendant of this antisemitic line. Countess rabbis have engaged in similar speculation. Agree with this speculation or not, such thinking has nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism.”
Wilson has a history of attacking Hagee. According to his bio on the Huffington Post, Wilson claims to have played a role in US Sen. John McCain’s decision to distance himself from Hagee during the 2008 presidential campaign by posting a video of a Hagee sermon about the Holocaust in 2005.
Hagee has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Jewish community and was honored in 2013 by leading Jewish organizations for his “years of support and humanitarian endeavors on behalf of Israel,” including more than $80 million in donations by John Hagee Ministries to Israeli charities, which is a separate entity from CUFI.
Readers may have heard about the Hamas social media campaign which recently invited Twitter users to ‘#AskHamas’. It is safe to say that the results of that PR drive did not exactly meet the terrorist organisation’s expectations and the topic was picked up by the mainstream media – see for example here, here and here.Law of Armed Conflict, Gaza and the BBC
Whilst Hamas did not answer most of the Tweets sent its way, here is one which did receive a reply:
Clearly the BBC Middle East editor’s efforts to whitewash Hamas’ use of human shields during last summer’s hostilities did not go unnoticed by that internationally recognised terrorist organisation.
The civilian population of the Gaza Strip might, however, be somewhat less appreciative of that politically motivated reporting from the man supposedly responsible for ensuring the accuracy and impartiality of the BBC’s Middle East content.
As readers know, less than 24 hours after the commencement of Operation Protective Edge on July 8th 2014, the BBC began to promote the notion that Israel was committing ‘war crimes’ in the Gaza Strip.Luvvies line up to star in Jihadi John apologist film
That theme, along with related ones such as ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘deliberate targeting of civilians’, continued to be advanced throughout the 50-day operation and after its conclusion, in large part by means of amplification of claims made by political NGOs such as the PCHR, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
In addition, BBC audiences were fed amateur commentary from journalists with no credentials in the field of the Law of Armed Conflict, with Jeremy Bowen’s frequently proffered ‘diagnoses’ being particularly notable.
In a new report on last summer’s conflict written by five American Generals and commissioned by JINSA, the topic of amateur commentary on the legality of IDF operations is addressed.
Two of Britain’s most distinguished actors are set to star in a £6million film ‘co-written’ by a leading figure of the Jihadi John apologist campaign group, Cage.EU Considering Continental Task-Force to Fight Anti-Semitism
Sir Ben Kingsley and Emily Watson will be working alongside an award-winning team in ‘The Secret Evidence’.
Golden Globe-winning producer J Todd Harris is said to already be on board, and the film has commitments from Emily Watson, Sir Ben and Lily Collins.
Federica Mogherni, who has headed the foreign policy department of the European Union (EU) for only five months, has recommended the formation of a EU task-force against anti-Semitism.Latvian veterans who fought alongside Nazis hold parade
“I transferred the idea as a policy recommendation to EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans," Mogherni declared last week. "[He] has the formal authority in this issue, and we are already working on various initiatives."
It was not made clear what authorities the task-force would hold. Some European groups, however, have called for the formation of such a body.
Some also want the position of "European Commissioner responsible for fighting anti-Semitism" to be created, based on the model of the U.S. Special Representative for Combating anti-Semitism in the State Department.
Anti-Semitic violence and incitement has been on the rise throughout the continent in recent years. It came to a dramatic head two months ago with the murderous attack in a kosher deli in Paris by an Islamist terrorist in which four Jews were killed, followed soon after by the terrorist murder of a guard at a synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Latvian veterans who fought on Nazi Germany’s side against the Soviets in World War II staged a controversial march in Riga on Monday to mark the anniversary of a 1944 battle.Greek Jews remember transport to Nazi death camps
Around 1,500 people took part in the annual parade through Riga’s Old Town amid massive police security, Latvia’s deputy chief of police Artis Velss told AFP, with no arrests reported by midday.
Self-styled anti-fascist groups were due to hold their own demonstration immediately after the main parade had concluded, according to an agreement with police.
Veterans of the Latvian Legion have paraded in Riga every March 16 since Soviet rule ended in 1991. The date marks a failed 1944 battle to repel the Soviet Red Army, paving the way for nearly half a century of occupation.
Residents of Greece’s second-largest city on Sunday placed flowers on train tracks and inside old cattle wagons in solemn remembrance of nearly 50,000 local Jews who were transported to Nazi death camps during World War II.Politics won’t dampen ties with Israel, UK’s top scientist says
About 2,000 people joined together at Thessaloniki’s Freedom Square for the 72nd anniversary of the roundup and deportation of the Jews. Some held banners that said: “Racism Kills, Let’s Learn from History,” and “Never Again.”
The crowd then marched to the northern city’s old railway station, where the first of 19 trains departed for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex on March 15, 1943.
A locomotive believed to have been used to transport Jews, and four carriages that normally would carry cattle and in which people spent nine days locked up on their way to the extermination camps, were at the station. The crowd laid flowers on the wagons and the tracks.
Israel is among the best countries to collaborate with, UK Chief Scientist Sir Mark Walport told The Times of Israel in an exclusive interview, thanks to its high level of research and entrepreneurial talent. The UK, said Walport, is anxious to work with Israeli institutions of all kinds to develop the technologies that will improve the human condition.Israel quenches Marshall Islands thirst
Part of his job is to seek out scientists around the world to collaborate with British researchers to discover new and better ways of treating the sick, protecting infrastructure and improving lives.
Politics, as far as he is concerned, will not stand in the way.
“I want to be very clear about this,” said Walport. “There is no pressure on us to halt or hamper our relationship with Israel. There seems to be a misperception of this point, and we all know that some loud voices have been advocating this. Like Israel, the UK is a democracy, and like Israel, we would never want to muzzle political voices, whatever their opinions – and that is especially true for universities.
For more than 20 years, Israel’s G.A.L. Water Technologies managed to stay under the radar as it quietly provided its water-treatment products on a humanitarian basis to African nations through Israel’s Foreign Ministry.Start-up signs deal with Japanese giants for IoT tech
Now the Caesarea-based company is in the spotlight as it sends its latest solution — a unique water-purification system loaded into a vehicle — to the Marshall Islands, which suffer a serious lack of drinking water despite being surrounded by the vast saltwater northern Pacific Ocean.
Israel has gained a worldwide reputation for sharing its advanced desalination and water-tech products. Just in the past year, the Israeli company IDE Technologies constructed a ship-based desalination operation in Japan.
Therefore it was understandable that at a recent Samoan summit for heads of small developing island states, Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak appealed to Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi for assistance with the water shortage.
IQP, an Israeli start-up that lets users create apps without any programming knowledge, has teamed up with three Japanese giants — Fujitsu, NEC Engineering and KDDI — to develop applications for the Internet of Things.British colonel finally granted wish: Burial in Israel near soldiers he led
The IQP graphical user interface-based platform will allow developers to build apps for a plethora of Internet-connected devices, from refrigerators to washing machines to cars. The apps are built using drag-and-drop actions, and can be easily added to devices to record and upload information about use and customer needs.
According to a Gartner report on the growth of the Internet of Things, by 2020 there will be 26 billion objects connected to the Internet, excluding PCs, tablets and smartphones. Due to the typically large investment of both time and money involved in developing and commercializing IoT applications, American and international companies still find it difficult to develop profitable business models around IoT.
On a crisp February morning in this community near the Mediterranean Sea, the sound of Israel’s flag whipping in the wind likely pleased the soul of John Henry Patterson, whose ashes were buried a few yards away.
Patterson was a lieutenant colonel in the British military, and during World War I he commanded the Zion Mule Corps and the Jewish Legion — the first Jewish military units in two millennia.
Although he was Christian, Patterson had expressed an interest in being buried in Israel alongside the men, many from pre-state Israel, he had commanded. Patterson had been reared on the Bible and a love for the Jewish people and their land. But his family could not afford to transport the body to Israel when he died 67 years ago in Los Angeles.
In December, his wishes were finally honored: his remains and those of his wife, Frances, were moved to the cemetery at Avichail, a moshav founded by many of his soldiers.
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