The West's Romance with Iran and Islamists
The West seems to have lost the will to criticize political Islam. Not speaking out or taking action against Islamists is a sickness not only of the current U.S. government; many intellectuals also seem to suffer from it. In the West, there are goodhearted intellectuals who also apparently wish to deny what an all-enveloping role religion -- and particularly Islam -- plays in shaping and influencing how people think and act.Douglas Murray: Why Are These Christians Dying?
The Marxist view holds that religion is just a placebo in the face of economic oppression. So, the thinking goes, if there is a problem in a Muslim society, it must mainly stem from poverty, inequality and class conflicts, as well as "Western imperialism." Many people influenced by this view therefore tend to believe that after the overthrow of capitalism and imperialism, the "oppressed" will cast off religion, to which they cling merely for consolation and the hope of a better future in an afterlife. Those who maintain this view remain silent on viciously repressive governments such as Hamas, Iran and North Korea, even as they claim to fight "imperialism" alongside regimes that hate Jews, Christians and women, and, in their effort to expand, are often themselves "imperialist."
In the meantime, many of these intellectuals, who include government leaders, seem to fantasize about the future of the Western and Muslim worlds as if once "capitalism," "American imperialism" and "Zionist occupation" were abolished, these despots would suddenly discover they no longer need violence or Islamic radicalism, and that a sunny new era of peace would begin. So, their view seems to go, if you criticize Islamism, you are an intolerant, hard-hearted "racist" or "bigot," and your remarks are obviously "hate speech."
It seems painful for many intellectuals in the West to understand or accept that a religious ideology which permits enslaving girls, beating "disobedient" wives or chopping off the heads of infidels can exist. They come up with supposed explanations for these acts, including poverty, "American imperialism," or mental illness.
Although the world may once again have briefly turned its attention to Kenya, it is turning its back on the victims of this violence. In the same way that the President of the United States does not want to admit the religious impetus that leads to "random folks" being shot dead in a kosher supermarket in Paris, the entire Western world is reluctant to admit the reason why Christians are at the front line of this global conflict. When Boko Haram kidnapped 300 schoolgirls in Northern Nigeria last year, almost none of the world's press -- and none of the Western world's leaders -- identified the simple fact that these schoolgirls were kidnapped because they were Christian.Ben-Dror Yemini: From liberty to slavery
Likewise, when ISIS paraded 21 men along the shoreline of Libya in February and cut off their heads, allowing their blood to stain the Mediterranean Sea, most of the world's press and almost all of the world's leaders -- including the leader of the free world -- referred to the victims as "Egyptian." But what singled these men out, and singled them out in the eyes of ISIS, was not that they were Egyptian, but that they were "Copts" --- that they were Christians. What would the President of the United States say if the blacks lynched in America's old South were referred to as "random folks" or "Americans"?
It is unlikely that the world will hear this emphasised in the wake of the latest Kenya massacre. Al-Shabaab of course has no problem emphasising the fact. This week, its spokesman boasted clearly about the religious motivations of the Garissa attack, even while the atrocity was still ongoing, "There are many dead bodies of Christians inside the building," he said. "We are also holding many Christians alive."
As the Arab world battles jihadism, the free world - with Europe at its forefront - has found itself paralyzed in the face of Islamic extremism on its soil.
The free world is now in midst of a struggle for freedom. It might ignore it, it might be blind, it might be in denial. But the battle is underway.
The problem is that the West is unable to protect its own values. Its submission is also characterized by its attitudes to the Muslim radicals in Europe. Saudi-style Islamism has taken over the mosques and educational institutions, but that's okay. After all, it is all about a "variety of cultures and understanding the other."
Only months ago, thousands marched in Europe under the banner "Je suis Charlie." It was a protest by the free world against terror and tyranny and for human rights and freedom of expression. Wallstrom's story shows clearly that the aroma of freedom and liberty itself was short-lived. The darkness is winning.
The people of Israel are about to celebrate the exodus from slavery to liberation. The free world is now experiencing the opposite - from liberation to slavery.
The Middle East: In the Shadow of the Gunmen
Post "Arab Spring," the Middle East is in chaos. And ready to be devoured by the mullahs of Iran.JCPA: The Libyan Quagmire
In a process of profound importance, five Arab states in the Middle East have effectively ceased to exist over the last decade. The five states in question are Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Libya. It is possible that more will follow.
The causes of their disappearance are not all the same. In two cases (Iraq, Libya) it was western military intervention which began the process of collapse. In another case (Lebanon) it is intervention from a Middle Eastern state (Iran) which is at the root of the definitive hollowing out of the state.
But in all these cases, the result has been remarkably similar — it is the ceding of power from strong central authorities to a variety of political-military organizations, usually but not always organized around a shared sectarian or ethnic origin. The Middle East today is overshadowed by this process. We are living in the time of the militias.
Arab civil wars seem to follow a pre-designed pattern. Once the conflict in a particular Arab country bursts open, the country splits into two areas (sometimes more), with separate capitals and separate ethnicities.Phyllis Chesler: The First Serious Push-Back on the West-Islamist Battlefield of Ideas
Libya is no exception to this rule. Since the overthrow of Libya’s ruler Muammar Qaddafi in October 2011, Libya has fallen into chaos in which armed militias govern their own patch of territory.
A multitude of armed groups has emerged since the overthrow of Qaddafi, some of them merging with one another, others fighting for supremacy in defined geographical areas. Three main groups are fighting for control of Libya – militias, government forces, and the Islamic State.
Libya is not only a gateway to Europe, but also to three North African states (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) and a clear threat to Egypt. The huge arsenal left by Qaddafi has been looted, and arms have found their way through smuggling networks to Syria, Iraq, Hamas in Gaza and also to Nigeria and most of the Sahel countries.
A force of African states has already engaged with terror militias. A force from moderate Arab Sunni states is under discussion.
The Islamic State’s infiltration into Tunisia and Algeria could definitely pose a threat to European and U.S. interests. In such a situation the West would be forced to consider a more immediate and aggressive attitude towards the terrorists’ haven in Libya.
Landes hopes that the “progressive Left” will engage in some self-criticism before it is too late. (I doubt that this will happen in time.) Landes also views America as far more tolerant than Europe and as still “exceptional.” He suggests a perfectly sane —and therefore radical—solution for Europe if it is to survive as a post-Enlightenment civilization.The world is changing before our very eyes
In my view, we are now all Israelis. Civilians anywhere, everywhere, are potential targets. Increasingly, at airports, in government buildings, at television stations, the security has grown tight, and resembles the kind of security that Israel alone was first forced to pioneer and that now exists for every Jewish building in Europe and the United States.
I would say that, post 9/11, Jihad is here as well.
ISGAP represents the first serious push-back on the “battlefield of ideas.”
ISGAP now has a foothold at Fordham and Harvard law schools, Stanford and McGill. It's now at Columbia Law, Sapienza University in Rome, the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and at the University of Chile. In the 2014-2015 academic year, ISGAP presented more than 100 seminars in English, French and Italian.
This coming summer, ISGAP will be training professors at Oxford. Applications have poured in from Canada, the United States, the UK, Russia, China, Brazil and Argentina.
Today the familiar contours of the post-Cold War era (1991- 2015) are changing before our very eyes. A new set of rising powers (Russia, China and Iran) are challenging the post-Cold War status quo dominated by the United States and Europe.Muslim group with links to extremists boasts of influencing election
The Russians in the past seven years in Europe and the Caucasus have seized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Crimea and parts of Left Bank Ukraine.
The Iranians are gaining ascendancy in the Middle East in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. The Chinese are developing a $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank with support from key European powers. They are rapidly building up their military power ($150b. annually in military spending) while moving aggressively to make “China dreaming” a reality in the South China and East China Seas.
By contrast, the status quo powers seem unwilling to defend the post- Cold War democratic capitalist order.
A front group for Muslim extremists which wants to let British Muslims fight in Syria has boasted that it is “negotiating with the Tory and Labour leadership” to secure some of its demands.Khalida Jarrar arrested for involvement with Terrorism
Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend) has built links with both parties – and been chosen as an “official partner” by the Electoral Commission for May’s poll – after claiming to promote “democratic engagement” by Muslims. However, it is actually a facade to win political access and influence for individuals holding extreme, bigoted and anti-democratic views.
Labour’s shadow equalities minister and vice-chair of its national policy forum, Kate Green, spoke at a Mend event last Friday addressed by a man, Abu Eesa Niamatullah, who has called British people “animals,” demanded that women should not work, attacked democracy and said that “the Creator is the one who should decide what the laws should be.”
Baroness Warsi, the former Tory chairman, also spoke at the event.
In new recordings heard by this newspaper, Sufyan Ismail, Mend’s chief executive, describes the group’s strategy to act as “kingmaker” in next month’s election and claims it can control as many as 30 seats.
You'd never know just who Khalida Jarrar is by glancing at the headlines on anti-Israel agitprop sites or on social media.FIFA head to meet PA officials over bid to suspend Israel
To the Electronic Intifada, Khalida Jarrar is a "lawmaker"
To extremist JVP, Khalida Jarrar is a "feminist"
To Michael Letwin, Khalida Jarrar is simply a suffering victim with no back-story, who suffers from an unnamed "chronic illness"
The reality is quite different. Khalida Jarrar is involved with the terrorist PFLP group- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Marxist-Leninist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PFLP took responsibility for the terror attack on the Jerusalem synagogue last year which killed 5 rabbis
From the Jerusalem Post
In August 2014, the IDF ordered Jarrar to leave her home in Ramallah and move to Jericho. She was told that she would not be permitted to leave the district of Jericho without permission from the IDF commander in the West Bank. Jarrar refused to comply with the order and waged a campaign in protest against the decision to “exile” her to Jericho.
According to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Jarrar is one of the dominant militant forces in the PFLP, and advocates for military resistance against Israel. Jarrar has been involved over the past few months in strengthening the PFLP in the West Bank, the Shin Bet said, including pushing its members to be take part in terror attacks.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter is expected to meet with the Palestinian soccer chief to discuss the latter’s request that Israel be barred from international competition, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said Saturday.Toulouse mayor strips anti-Israel event of venue
A PFA statement said that FIFA’s Blatter would meet Jibril Rajoub ahead of the world governing body’s next congress in Cairo in late May, but did not give a date for the talks.
FIFA declined to comment when contacted by AFP on Saturday.
The Palestinians want Israel banned over difficulties they say they face including restrictions on the movements of players between the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as well as limits on the import of sports equipment into the Palestinian territories. The issues have been a source of contention for several years while Israel maintains the restrictions are needed for security reasons.
The city of Toulouse banned an event organized by far-left activists promoting a boycott of Israel.San Francisco State University proud of new relationship with An-Najah University, the "greenhouse for martyrs."
The canceled event was a lecture by Farid Esack, a South African university lecturer and activist, titled “Apartheid, from South Africa to Israel.” He was scheduled to speak at a municipal event hall on March 31 at an event organized by the New Anticapitalist Party, a movement established in 2009.
“In light of the context, I can not permit a public gathering that risks encouraging discrimination of Jewish people and commercial products associated with the Jewish faith and the State of Israel,” Toulouse Mayor Jean-Luc Moudenc said in a statement on March 31.
In 2012, an Islamist killed four Jews at a Jewish school in the city.
In recent years, French courts have convicted several anti-Israel activists for inciting racial discrimination. Under the 2002 Lellouche Law, restrictions on discrimination based on race and faith are extended to nationality. France is among the few European countries that have such laws.
An-Najah National University is widely considered a breeding ground for terror and intolerance in the disputed Palestinian territories.U. Penn anti-Israel students try backdoor divestment ploy
From the venerable Anti-Defamation League's overview on the Islamic Palestine Block Student Cell at An- Najah University
An-Najah University, in the West Bank city of Nablus, has been a flashpoint in the conflict between Israel and Palestinians since at least 1980, when violent anti-Israel protests led the Israeli military to close the school intermittently. Today the student council of An-Najah is known for its advocacy of anti-Israel violence and its recruitment of Palestinian college students into terrorist groups. The council, almost completely controlled by factions loyal to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, glorifies suicide bombings and propagandizes for jihad against Israel. Hamas has described An-Najah as a "greenhouse for martyrs."
I will give the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement credit for one thing: It is highly adaptive.Combatting Claims of Israeli Apartheid
The run-of-the mill anti-Israel divestment pushes on college campuses have had only mild success. Most often the attempt to get student government to endorse a boycott of companies doing business in Israel has failed, but there have been some successes, particularly in the U. California system.
There have been some high profile losses for BDS on campus, most recently at U. Michigan, where even a watered-down resolution to create a committee to study divesting from Israel was voted down (after last year’s divestment resolution failed).
The divestment motions are mostly for theater, since student governments have zero power to divest university funds, and no university in the U.S. has gone along with any student anti-Israel resolution. The purpose of these divestment motions is to raise the profile of the anti-Israel movement, and to occupy everyone’s time arguing over how bad Israel is.
By contrast, divestment from fossil fuels is gaining some traction even at the administrative level, because there is more of a student and campus consensus.
It was only a matter of time that BDS tried to co-opt a larger issue to use against Israel. Some anti-Israel groups at the University of Pennsylvania seem to think they have found a broader theme: Divestment from companies causing “displacement” of people.
SJP describes itself as a pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist organization. In addition to condemning Israel, the group expresses its support of black rights, the Graduate Student Organizing Committee and anti fossil-fuel movements. Lacking in SJP’s cache of support, however, is justice and human rights for Palestinians living under Palestinian rule.BBC flouts its own editorial guidelines with Iran talks interviewees
SJP is devoting this entire week to promoting the slander of Israeli apartheid while skillfully ignoring the apartheid practiced by Hamas in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and many oppressive governments throughout the world. “Apartheid,” the Afrikaans word that refers to the brutal system of racial segregation in pre-1994 South Africa, recalls a time when blacks were relegated to slums, not allowed to vote, hold political office, use white toilets or even stroll through white neighborhoods without a pass.
Israel is factually, morally and historically not an apartheid state. Arabs — about 20 percent of Israel’s population — are an active part of Israeli government, culture and economics. They vote, have political parties represented in the Knesset and occupy seats in the Supreme Court. Just last year an Arab judge, Selim Joubran, headed the appeal that sentenced Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to six years in prison for corruption. In last week’s elections, the United Arab List became Israel’s third largest party. In 2007, Israel had an interim Muslim Arab president, Majalli Wahaba. All Israelis – regardless of race, creed or orientation – are accorded equal rights under the law. Arabs lie alongside Jews in Israeli hospitals and are professors and students at top Israeli universities. Even F.W. De Klerk, South Africa’s reformer, decried the Israel apartheid analogy as slander. When it comes to religious pluralism, Israel is more accepting than any other country in the Middle East and many Christian countries worldwide.
As the P5+1 talks with Iran dragged on and overshot their deadline last week in Lausanne, consumers of the mainstream media often found themselves reading or hearing content largely devoid of actual useful information produced by large numbers of attending journalists with nothing significant to report – and the BBC was no exception.Trita Parsi Doucet art
Among the pre-announcement reports offered to BBC audiences was an article by Lyse Doucet which appeared on the BBC News website on March 30th under the title “Sense of history as Iran nuclear talks go to the wire“. In that report readers were presented with the views of representatives from the International Crisis Group and the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) without any attempt being made to clarify to audiences the agendas of those organisations.
The BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newsday’ also interviewed Trita Parsi – again with no attempt made to provide listeners with the necessary background information about his organization which would enable them to put his assessment of the topic into context.
Senior BBC correspondent misleads audiences on Iran’s terror connections
The word ‘alleged’ (meaning said, without proof, to have taken place) is of course completely superfluous in that sentence. Iran’s record of material, financial and ideological support for internationally recognized terrorist organisations such as Hizballah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas is well documented.Comparing BBC coverage of civilian casualties in Yemen and Gaza
When a senior BBC correspondent misleads audiences in such an obvious manner, the corporation’s funding public’s trust in its level of commitment to its defined public purpose of building “a global understanding of international issues” can only be undermined.
As readers no doubt recall, within twenty-four hours of the commencement of Operation Protective Edge in July 2014, the BBC had begun promoting the theme of ‘Israeli war crimes’. In the first week of the conflict, BBC audiences were also told that Israel deliberately targeted civilians and heard claims of ‘collective punishment’ and a ‘disproportionate’ Israeli response to the actions of terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip. Throughout the BBC’s coverage of the seven week-long hostilities, the topic of civilian casualties was by far the most prominent with thousands of words and hours of air-time devoted to emotive reporting of the plight of civilians in the Gaza Strip and Hamas-supplied casualty figures quoted unquestioningly.Elections 2015 – a postscript on BBC framing of Israeli elections over 23 years
Six days after the commencement of airstrikes on Yemen on March 26th by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition, the UN estimated that almost a hundred civilians had been killed and some 364 injured. The actual figure can be reasonably assumed to be higher by now.
The BBC has to date refrained from ‘parachuting in’ to Yemen star reporters such as Lyse Doucet and Jeremy Bowen as it did during last summer’s conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip and it is interesting to ponder the question of whether the corporation’s reporting on civilian casualties in Yemen is affected by that fact.
So what would BBC coverage have looked like if the Zionist Union had won the election? A clue to that might be found by looking at the corporation’s coverage of Israeli elections over the past 23 years, beginning with the video below showing an edition of ‘Newsnight’ from June 23rd 1992 when the Labour party, headed by Yizhak Rabin, won the election.George Galloway ‘Threatens’ Bradford Brewery’s Alcohol Licence
Fifteen months later, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords but the years following that event were blighted by dozens of terror attacks on Israeli citizens. In May 1996 elections were held again, with the Likud gaining a narrow win. Three years after that, in May 1999, early elections were won by the Labour party headed by Ehud Barak.
George Galloway, the former Respect MP who is seeking re-election in Bradford, has been accused of “petty threats” by his local brewery. The Bradford Brewery initially made a joke towards him, but was met with an angry response that culminated in Galloway reporting them to West Yorkshire Police.George Galloway vs. A Pub
After the brewery asked him if he was “still a thing” the politician said it should not make jokes about him as it is a “licensed premises in my constituency” (sic). When the Brewery pointed out that he was no-longer an MP due to the election, and therefore it was not his constituency Galloway said: “I shall return to this matter after the election. You have been most unwise”.
Ominously he then said: “Your premises are a constant source of complaints to me. I will be in touch about those in due course”. As an MP Galloway has the right to complain about anyone with an alcohol license, and the local council has the power to take it away leaving the company unable to sell its products.
George Galloway has made a complete doofus out of himself yet again on Twitter. The “not-antisemitic” MP of Bradford, England has responded to the following tweet from Bradford Brewery in the worst possible way, resulting in a complete walloping via viral hashtag, #IsGeorgeGallowayStillAThing?SNL's Jost Tells Jews 'Nice Try' for Easter
Of course Twitter white knight, @SuedByGalloway has offered the pub legal counsel in any “letters” it may receive from Galloway.
As a result, Galloway predictably blocked the pub on Twitter, threatened them (thereby abusing his powers as MP), and drew humungous support for the little pub around the world.
The pub itself is taking the whole thing with pride as being part of the not-so-exclusive club of Twitter users blocked by Galloway.
Through yet another Twitter pummeling, George Galloway has once again done a complete disservice to himself and to his community. Oh. And he’s up for election again. Good luck, scumbag.
“Saturday Night Live” cast member Colin Jost remarked “nice try” to Jews regarding Easter during the “Weekend Update” segment.EU rights conference to give equal billing to anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred
“Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, so to all you Christians out there: Happy Easter. And to the Jews: Nice try” he stated.
Jewish organizations worldwide expressed shock and dismay over the weekend following the announcement that the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency is planning on holding a conference that implies an equivalence between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.Arrest made for attack on Bosnian Jewish leader
The first annual colloquium on fundamental rights in the EU, held by the racism watchdog organization and titled “Tolerance and respect: Preventing and combating anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe,” is scheduled to be held in Brussels in early October.
It will focus on the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment and violence across the continent and the “growing evidence in many European countries, especially in the past two years, of very high rates of anti-Muslim incidents, including acts of verbal and physical violence,” according to the organizers.
Jewish community leaders in Europe and elsewhere told The Jerusalem Post that despite being largely supportive of the FRA’s work, they believed it inappropriate for it to juxtapose hate directed against Muslims with anti-Semitism as if both were one and the same.
A man has been arrested in connection with an attack on Bosnian Jewish leader Eli Tauber.PreOccupied Territory: International Trade: Turkey Now A Net Exporter Of Antisemitism (satire)
Tauber was attacked by a man wielding a weighted chain at a cafe in central Sarajevo, in front of many witnesses. The attack, widely reported in the Bosnian media, occurred on March 21. It took place while journalists from National Geographic magazine were interviewing Tauber about the status of Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The motive for the attack has not yet been determined, but it has received high-profile coverage by local media out of fear that Tauber was attacked because he is a prominent member of the Jewish community.
“If he was attacked because he is Jewish and because as such he is present in our media, just because he is doing his job, then it would be a very bad sign both for Sarajevo and for Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Jakob Finci, president of the Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told dalje.com.
Government figures for January-March 2015 show that Turkey’s balance of trade turned positive in the first quarter for the first time in decades, largely thanks to a surge in domestic production of Jew-hatred.Israel Places Third Among Countries Registering US Patents
Like most Middle Eastern countries, Turkey has long relied on other manufacturers of antisemitism to feed its consumers, but over the last fifteen years a strong domestic Jew-hating industry has sprouted, offsetting the nation’s imports by an increasing amount each year. Burgeoning demand across the region, in Europe, and into Africa, has now spurred Turkish export growth to the point that the country exported 48,000 metric tons of antisemitism in the first three months of the year alone, more than enough to negate deficits from energy imports, food imports, and a blighted hazelnut crop that all but destroyed last season’s harvest.
Growing demand for antisemitism appeared across Europe last year after holding steady since the 1980’s, and an increased appetite for the product has been the order of the day from Morocco to Pakistan for the better part of a century. Turkey has been able to press its advantage in cheap manufacturing, with government-subsidized programs providing producers of Jew-hatred with incentives to augment output. Despite a permissive system of import tariffs that all but invites cheap foreign antisemitism, local manufacturers have succeeded in leveraging the low cost of labor and the generous tax breaks from Ankara to their advantage.
Turkish exports of Jew-hatred barely registered on the international scene until recent years, when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan set up a government-controlled apparatus to produce the product on a larger scale. Erdoğan chafed at Turkey’s reliance on foreign sources for such a basic commodity, and soon spun off the centralized industry, which has proved so productive and profitable that the country now looks forward to at least two more years of trade surplus if other elements of the import/export picture remain stable.
Israel continues as a global leader among countries registering for US patents. Israeli companies have registered more than 3,500 patents in the US in 2015, according to BDICoface, Israel’s biggest business information group.Latest Israeli IPO’s shares jump 40% in one day
This figure represents an increase of about 21 percent from 2013, and puts Israel in third place in the world for US-registered patents, behind only Taiwan and Japan.
“The government must continue to nurture the issue through investment in technological education, improvement of infrastructure, and incentives for global hi-tech companies to carry on opening R&D centers in Israel,” said Tehila Yanai, a managing partner at BDICoface, reported Yedioth Achronoth.
The latest Israeli company to go public, Kornit Digital, saw its stock climb 40% from its initial offering on April 1. The company offered 7.1 million shares at $10 each last Wednesday, and by Thursday the shares had climbed to $14.Israel’s stock market is walloping its neighbors
That $14 share level was the price at which analysts had expected the stock to be offered for in the first place. Kornit was apparently set to offer its shares on the NASDAQ at between $13 and $15 per share. The company did not say why it discounted the share price.
Nevertheless, analysts were bullish on the Israel digital printing company’s prospects. The Rosh Ha’ayin-based firm is one of the world leaders in modern direct to garment printing, converting a business that had long relied on messy and limited dyes and inks to a clean, neat, method of garment printing that gives manufacturers many more options for producing garments with text and graphics.
Despite the geopolitical turmoil in the rest of the Middle East, Israel's stock market has been a stellar outperformer.Israeli tech powers longest-ever driverless car journey
In fact, the country's principal equity indexes are surging at time when its neighbors are declining. The Tel Aviv 100 and Tel Aviv 25 have registered double-digit gains for the year, while many others in the region have shown lackluster numbers that have worsened considerably in recent days.
The most recent leg up for the Israeli markets, and leg down for regional competitors, came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory last month. That came amid a general recovery for Israel stocks, which slipped in 2014 amid economic turmoil in Europe, which Israel relies upon to take its exports, and the prolonged Gaza conflict.
"As Europe seems to have stabilized and other export markets continued to grow, Israel started to hit bottom and began to turn around," said Brian Friedman, president of Israel Investment Advisors, which has a private fund that invests in the country.
Though the market dipped in the days immediately following the bruising election, the TA 25 is up 3 percent over the past week. It has gained 6.9 percent in the past month and has risen 12.1 percent year to date and 16.1 percent over the past 12 months, according to FactSet.
Israel’s Mobileye, maker of safety systems that alert drivers of dangers ahead, is likely to be an integral part of the driverless car future, to judge from the results of the longest-ever – and most successful – driverless car demonstration.Israeli teens turn ‘evil’ Dalek into good robot firefighter
Completed last week, just in time for this week’s New York Auto Show, a driverless vehicle supplied by international car parts maker Delphi Automotive traversed the 3,000-odd miles from San Francisco to Manhattan in nine days, driving itself nearly the entire way – with Mobileye’s road safety detection system providing the “eyes” for the Roadrunner as it passed through cities, towns, deserts and forests, on its way to the big city.
The drive, according to Delphi, was the longest and most data-intensive autonomous car trip ever undertaken.
In previous tests, the company had successfully navigated its vehicle throughout Los Angeles and Las Vegas but it was time, said Jeff Owens, Delphi’s chief technology officer, “to put our vehicle to the ultimate test by broadening the range of driving conditions. This drive will help us collect invaluable data in our quest to deliver the best automotive grade technologies on the market.”
Fans of the long-running Dr. Who TV series know that the Daleks are one of humanity’s greatest enemies. But a team from Haifa’s Ironi Gimmel school has veered a Dalek away from its usual drive to destroy humanity — converting it into a firefighter that can find the source of a blaze and, armed with a fire hose or fire extinguisher, help put it out or prevent it from spreading.Passover in Jerusalem – 1913
The 12th grade team, led by Felix Bachman, head of the school’s robotics program, was considered the surprise winner of the Trinity College Robot Contest, beating out the team from China, which Bachman said the Israelis thought were “unbeatable.”
In addition to the Firefighting High School Division award, Israelis came home with a slew of other awards, including the top slots in the Robotics Olympiad exam, which tests knowledge of the principles of robotics. Israelis and Israeli teams (Misgav High School and Ironi Gimel) won the top slots for individual and team knowledge in robotics.
A long-lost movie, now restored, documents Jewish life in Ottoman Palestine, including Passover at the Western Wall and a holiday gymnastics exhibition.
In 1913, delegates to the 11th Zionist Congress in Vienna, Austria were busy discussing settlement activities in Palestine and the work of the organization’s office in Jaffa. Chaim Weizmann — who had in 1912 successfully lobbied for the foundation of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology — now, together with Jewish National Fund head Menachem Ussishkin, won the support of Congress for the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The delegates were also treated to a motion picture; an hour-long documentary, The Life of the Jews in Israel, produced by Odessa’s HaMizrah Society and directed by businessman and loyal Zionist Noah Sokolovsky. Following the premiere, the film went on to be enjoy popularity throughout Europe and Russia.
The movie presents the viewer with a portrait of Jewish life in what was then known as Ottoman Palestine, starting with the journey from Odessa to Tel Aviv via the Black Sea, and on through Jerusalem and other cities, villages, and rural settlements. It was filmed over two months that included celebrating the Passover holiday in Jerusalem at the Western Wall.