Saturday, June 13, 2015
Key Preliminary Findings of the High Level International Military Group on the Gaza Conflict
From 18th – 22nd May 2015, the High Level International Military Group, made up of 11 former chiefs of staff, generals, senior officers, political leaders and officials from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Holland, Spain, Italy, Australia and Colombia visited Israel for a fact-finding mission on the 2014 Gaza conflict. We were led by General Klaus Naumann, former Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, the most senior officer in the Alliance, and Giulio Terzi, former Foreign Minister of Italy. Also in the group were Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper, formerly US State Department Ambassador at Large for war crimes issues; and Mr Rafael Bardaji, former National Security Adviser to the Government of Spain.Major-General Jim Molan (Ret.): “Israel’s war was just,” reports Australian general after mission on Gaza conflict
This was part of a longer term project by our group, whose principal concern is how civilian lives can be protected and military forces can fight effectively when operations must be conducted in a densely packed civilian area. We will be producing a full report this autumn.
Our mission to Israel was unprecedented. We were the first such multi-national group of senior officers to visit the country. We were granted a level of access to the Israeli government and Defence Force that has not been afforded to any other group, from the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Minister of Defence, Moshe Ya’alon, right down to the field commanders responsible for fighting the battle on the ground.
We were well aware of the allegations made by some governments, the United Nations, human rights groups and the media, that Israel acted outside the laws of armed conflict in Gaza. Some have suggested that the IDF lacked restraint or even deliberately targeted innocent civilians.
Our findings lead us to the opposite conclusion. We examined the circumstances that led to the tragic conflict last summer and are in no doubt that this was not a war that Israel wanted. In reality Israel sought to avoid the conflict and exercised great restraint over a period of months before the war when its citizens were targeted by sporadic rocket attacks from Gaza. Once the war had begun, Israel made repeated efforts to terminate the fighting. The war that Israel was eventually compelled to fight against Hamas and other Gaza extremists was a legitimate war, necessary to defend its citizens and its territory against sustained attack from beyond its borders
Given our examination of the cause of Operation Protective Edge, it would be indefensible to argue that Israel wanted it, initiated it or sustained it, or that Israel acted in anything other than defence of its citizens. On this basis alone, Israel’s war was just. It will be interesting to see if the imminent UNHRC report and the ICC inquiry can deliver fairness. Many do not understand it is not illegal to kill civilians in war as long as that is not the purpose of your actions, hence the appalling term “collateral damage”. Unlike our fight in Iraq or Afghanistan, Israel fights repeatedly in the same neighbourhood, and so its understanding and its intelligence is far superior to anything that I have enjoyed in similar targeting decisions that I have made.Who is Guilty of War Crimes in the Gaza War?
While acknowledging the tragedy of death in war and given the immense capability of the IDF, it stands to Israel’s everlasting credit that far more did not die. But from the very top of the command chain down to the infantry and pilots, the personal moral position that individuals took was mirrored in the targeting processes, decisions on the ground and in the real care taken.
War can brutalise, but the Israelis scrupulously “cared” for the Palestinians. By contrast, Hamas was an enemy whose central strategy was to directly target the Israeli population and who repeatedly used their own population as human shields, both of which in any fair system would constitute major war crimes.
The women of the kibbutz were proud of their sons, but they would also be proud of what one senior Israeli commander whose soldier son was about to deploy to Gaza, recounted.
“Come back alive,” he said in farewell, “but come back human.” I wonder what the Hamas version of this farewell would be.
Jim Molan is a retired major-general in the Australian Army.
Israel is accused of a disproportionate response to Hamas rocket attacks. Is this accusation true? How does Israel compare to other military forces fighting asymmetrical wars?
Israel ‘exceeded legal standards’ in Gaza conflict, military group tells UN
A multi-national military group comprised of former chiefs of staff, generals and politicians submitted a report to the United Nations on Friday indicating that Israel went to great lengths to adhere to the laws of war and to protect Palestinian civilians during last summer’s 50-day war with Hamas in and around the Gaza Strip.Thomas Wictor: Israel didn’t kill 500 Palestinian children
The report was submitted to the official UN probe into Operation Protective Edge, the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, which is expected to issue its own report in the coming days. The findings are set to be discussed at the end of the month before the Council.
The High-Level International Military Group on the Gaza Conflict in 2014 held a fact-finding mission to Israel between May 18-22. It was sponsored by a pro-Israel group, was reportedly given unprecedented access to senior officials, and investigated allegations of war crimes and disproportionality.
The group found that “during Operation Protective Edge last summer… Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard.”
They wrote that “in some cases Israel’s scrupulous adherence to the laws of war cost Israeli soldiers’ and civilians’ lives.”
Almost a year after Operation Protective Edge ended, Jew-haters are once again making the ludicrous accusation that Israel killed more than 500 children during the conflict. The true number will never be known, but it’s time to put this fairytale to rest once and for all.'Bosnian fans stepped on Israeli flag, hurled anti-Jewish chants'
We’ll use the list of names provided by the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights (AMCHR), a tally which comes from the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH). Right away we begin to see problems.
The AMCHR says 504 children were killed, but it lists 317 boys and 190 girls. That’s 507, not 504. Thus we have definitive proof that the press are merely stenographers for the Palestinians. Nobody at the Telegraph even bothered to count the names, and neither did the AMCHR. This was a propaganda exercise, and a sloppy one at that.
Although Palestinian media and “human rights” outlets got the names of the dead from the Ministry of Health, there are so many falsehoods that we simply can’t know who died.
Perhaps Israel national team soccer player Ben Sahar was on to something.On 65th Anniversary, Looking at UNRWA and its Hamas Ties
The forward made waves before Friday’s Euro 2016 qualifying match against Bosnia - which Israel proceeded to lose 3-1 - when he said that “the hostile Muslim spectators at the game [in Zenica] will spur us on.”
His comment raised eyebrows, yet it appears that his concerns were well-founded. Pictures emerged of mobs of Bosnian fans stepping on a replica Israeli flag before the match. There were also reports that some extremist fans were chanting anti-Israel and anti-Jewish slogans.
Two goals by striker Edin Visca and a penalty from Edin Dzeko helped Bosnia to a 3-1 win, reviving the hosts' chances of reaching the finals in France.
Visca scored in the 42nd minute after Israel took a surprising lead against the run of play a minute earlier through striker Tal Ben Haim.
On April 18, two roadside bombs exploded in the Gaza Strip. Neither of the IEDs planted by Salafi jihadists opposed to Hamas rule in the enclave caused serious damage, but both explosions targeted United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) facilities. While the incidents were widely reported, there has been little questioning of why UNRWA buildings were targeted by those opposing Hamas. The logical conclusion is that in the eyes of those who planted the devices, Hamas and UNRWA are identified as cooperating entities.ISIS Jihadist Tweets Pamela Geller's Home Address, Urges Followers to '#GoForth'
Back in 2004, confirmation of UNRWA’s relationship with Hamas came from the very highest level when the U.N. organization’s long-time Commissioner-General, Peter Hansen, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime.” Hansen left his post soon after.
According to its critics, UNRWA allows the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to dictate what will be taught in UNRWA schools, including incitement against the State of Israel, the aspiration to martyrdom, and the demonization of Jews. Hamas is alleged to control the UNRWA teaching staff union and through those teachers, feed young and impressionable minds a diet of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic indoctrination. UNRWA vehemently denies this charge.
International Business Times (IBT) reports that a man believed to be British Islamic State jihadist "kingpin" Junaid Hussain tweeted free speech activist Pamela Geller's home address, apartment number and all, accompanied by the hashtag "#GoForth."UN-Sanctioned Saudi Blood Libel: Another Obstacle to Peace
The tweet came just hours after a third man connected to a plot to kill her and to murder Boston police was arrested. Hussain's Twitter account, under the name Abu Hussain al-Britani, has since been suspended.
Just last month, two terrorists were killed and one security guard injured in Texas during a controversial “Draw Muhammad” contest organized by Geller, who heads a group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
Although Israel has been providing free medical treatment to Syrian refugees as well as Palestinians from the disputed territories and even from Gaza, the U.N. World Health Organization singled out Israel as the one country in the world to be condemned for violating human health rights. Saudi Arabia, which sits as a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, sponsored the exercise in the absurd.Why the Iran Nuclear Deal is a Hard Sell
If hypocrisy needed a poster child, the despotic and brutal regime of Saudi Arabia, which is currently bombing Yemenite civilians into oblivion and is advertising job openings for additional executioners (growth industry in Saudi Arabia), more than set the standard.
Worse, a majority of the so called “civilized” nations of the world supported the resolution, showing that subservience to the power of oil trumps any semblance of integrity in the international community.
The Saudis can be dismissed. It is unnecessary to delineate their acts of brutality. These have long appeared before the world. The Saudis’ hypocrisy is a mainstay of their propaganda. If not for their oil, their anti-Israel vitriol would be disregarded, as one day the changing nature of the energy market will cause it to be.
With the exception of naive, leftist college students who are taught that the U.N. is a citadel of virtue, no one will take a Saudi-sponsored resolution seriously.
With the June 30 deadline for a deal with Iran over its nuclear ambitions looming ominously, the Obama administration is having a hard time persuading a skeptical public that these negotiations are going to tame the Tehran regime.Nuclear Deal-Breakers?
On the two critical issues—preventing Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program, and rolling back the expansion of Iranian political and military influence throughout the region—all the evidence suggests that the White House is engaged in what Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, has bluntly called “wishful thinking.”
“It is clear that the nuclear deal is not a permanent fix but a placeholder,” Flynn told the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week. Iran, he continued, has “every intention” of building a nuclear weapon, and the desire of its Islamist regime to wipe Israel off the map is “very real.”
“Iran has not once contributed to the greater good of the security in the region,” Flynn declared, before concluding that “regime change” is the best means of preventing the mullahs from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
With less than three weeks to go before the P5+1 countries are slated to finalize the framework for a nuclear deal with Iran, an examination of where things stand today is in order.State Dept Struggles to Explain Massive Nuke Concessions To Iran
The good news is that the regime in Tehran, ruled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not likely to sign the agreement it ostensibly reached with the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany on April 2 in Lausanne.
The bad news is that U.S. President Barack Obama would rather risk having a mushroom cloud explode over the Middle East than let his fantasy of a diplomatic solution to global jihad go up in smoke.
None of this comes as a surprise. Obama’s dream of achieving a nuclear deal with the Islamic republic has been almost as great as his obsession with forcing Israel to establish a Palestinian state. And in each case, the fact that the realities on the ground make it impossible is of no consequence to him.
State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke claimed Friday that the “goal posts haven’t moved” in Iran negotiations as he struggled to explain the administration’s latest concessions.State Dept Struggles to Explain Massive Nuke Concessions To Iran
The United States is in negotiations with Iran in regards to their nuclear program. During Friday’s press briefing, Rathke struggled to define what concessions or conditions were required for the Iranians to meet for a nuclear deal to be achieved.
Associated Press reporter Matt Lee pressed Rathke to clarify what the United States objectives are for the negotiations.
LEE: But what if the concerns aren’t addressed? What if the access that they give doesn’t address the concerns? You already got the deal. They’re already getting sanctions relief. Or are you saying that if the concerns aren’t addressed at some point down the road, then they’re not going to get the sanctions relief that they would have gotten for that part of –
RATHKE: I’ve laid our position out clearly. It hasn’t changed.
LEE: Well, I’m very confused because it does seem that the goal posts seem to be moving.
RATHKE: No the goal posts haven’t moved.
Iran reportedly stepping up shipments of arms, cash to Taliban
The Iranian government reportedly has stepped up shipments of weapons and money to the Taliban in Afghanistan in recent months.Iranian Professor: The Costs of Enriching Uranium Have Hurt Iran
According to The Wall Street Journal, which cited Afghan and Western officials in its report, Iran's motivations for stepping up support for the militants are to prevent ISIS from gaining a foothold in Afghanistan and providing a check on U.S. influence ahead of the planned withdrawal of most American troops by the end of 2016.
The report quotes a Taliban fighter as saying that the militants receive weapons from smugglers paid by Iran's government who traffic the contraband through the remote border region where Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan meet. Among the weapons Taliban units allegedly receive are mortars, machine guns, rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades.
In a public debate last month against an advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollahi Ali Khamenei, Prof. Sadegh Zibakalam of Tehran University, who is associated with the reformist movement in Iran, argued that Iran’s enrichment program has been expensive for the country with little benefit. His remarks were translated Tuesday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).Egypt opens border with Gaza for the first time in months
Zibakalam argued that enriching uranium has huge direct operating costs, but the penalties for having an illicit enrichment program has hurt Iran even more. Zibakalam suggested that Iran would have been better off buying enriched uranium and incurring neither cost.
Zibakalam, who was sentenced to prison last year for questioning Iran’s nuclear program, made several references during the debate to not being allowed to express an opinion about the nuclear program. In a different forum last year, Zibakalam said that Iran’s threats against Israel were the reason Iran’s nuclear program is viewed with suspicion.
Egypt opened its borders with the Gaza Strip for the first time in months Saturday, allowing Palestinians to enter and leave the isolated coastal strip.BDS activists playing by unprincipled rules
The Rafah border crossing will operate for six hours a day for the coming three days and 15,000 people Palestinians have applied to exit to Egypt, said Maher Abu Sabha, head of the Gaza side of the crossing. He said those were humanitarian cases and included medical patients, students and Arab residents whose residency permits were about to expire. However, he said only 1,500 of those were actually expected to pass through.
Rafah is Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world with no Israeli control. Egypt has kept it mostly closed since the militant Hamas group seized control of the coastal strip in 2007. The closure worsened after Egypt’s military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, in 2013. Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood.
Egypt has opened the Rafah crossing in both directions only five days this year. Last month, it allowed the return of Palestinians stranded in Egypt.
BDS activists constitute a fraction of students, and they know passing divestment resolutions means nothing. No university has divested. But divestment is a hood ornament. The long game is about winning over tomorrow’s decision-makers and persuading them to turn on Israel.Fighting the good fight
Which leads to the worst hypocrisy of all. Though they routinely cling to their First Amendment rights as they excoriate Israel, no one shuts down free speech like BDS activists.
They refuse to engage in dialogue with their counterparts. They shout down pro-Israel voices on campus. There is no debate. For BDS supporters, when it comes to Israel, case closed.
Guess what, BDS people? Case not closed. You know full well the Israeli-Palestinian issue is complicated. Since Israel isn’t going anywhere, the only moral way out is a peaceful solution.
If you want really want peace — and so many of you drape yourselves with the mantle of “peace activist” — then practice peace. You don’t have to break bread with Israel supporters, but at least break the ice.
If you’re so right about everything, what are you afraid of?
While this year I was spared the dubious pleasure, I have come across my fair share of mid-lecture protests.Orange CEO sows confusion on Israel trip aimed to resolve dispute
Anti-Israeli students often stage walkouts, which is a form of silent protest. They stand up en masse during the lecture, reveal shirts bearing prints of the faces and names of children who were killed in the Gaza Strip, place duct tape over their mouths and walk out. Once outside the lecture hall, their protest becomes very loud.
We always ask them to stay, to ask us the hard questions, to deal with the issues. We explain that the road to peace includes bilateral dialogue, and if they believe in peace they should stay. They never do.
Arriving at the University of Pittsburgh, we met a relatively aggressive protest rally, and needed the help of campus security to make our way across campus.
"You see that student?" The security guard, pointing to a young man, asked us as we made our way to the lecture hall. "I see him in every rally. Last week he protested for the release of wild geese, for the boycott of North Korean products, and for having peanut butter snacks in the cafeteria. It's his only chance to get any dates."
The CEO of French telecom giant Orange, in Israel on a visit he said was designed “to clear up the confusion” over its dealings here, failed to clarify the company’s plans for business and investment in the Jewish state, and instead seemed to sow further uncertainty.Jews are Excluded from European Universities. Does it Ring a Bell?
Stephane Richard, who met on Friday with both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former president Shimon Peres, said in a TV interview Friday night that his firm was not withdrawing from Israel — “absolutely not,” he said — and would keep doing business here. But asked in a follow-up question whether “the brand of Orange will go out of Israel,” he answered, “I don’t know. We will see.”
He also claimed that comments he made last week in Cairo about wanting to withdraw from Israel were misunderstood and distorted, but did not clarify how Orange would resolve its relations with the Israeli firm Partner, which has the rights to its brand in Israel.
The case of Orange, the French mobile phone company that is considering abandoning the Israeli market, was on the front pages of all major newspapers. But there is a silent boycott of the Jewish State which is more insidious, latent and even more dangerous because it undermines Israel's cultural superiority and cuts Israel's link with the rest of the world.Finland’s Anti-Israel Disgrace Spawns New Activist Group
In 2002, the year of the beginning of the academic campaign against Israel, Paul Zinger, the head of the Scientific Association of Israel, revealed that more than seven thousand scientific research projects are sent from Israel abroad every year. Dozens of scientific papers were returned that year, with the terse explanation: "We refuse to examine any document from Israel". That phenomenon now seems out of control.
"The academic boycott is illegal according to all academic organizations in the world," says Professor Zvi Ziegler, a mathematician at the Technion (Institute of Technology in Haifa) and head of the main scientific forum fighting the boycott. "It is against progress, so you will not find universities or European academics who officially boycott Israel. But many do silently, behind the scenes".
Among the silent measures taken by the boycotters is refusing to participate in conferences held in Israel, ignoring requests to write letters of recommendation for Israeli scholars looking for promotions, and refusing contributions from Israeli scholars.
This happened to Oren Yiftachel, a leftist Ben Gurion University scholar, whose publication, sent to the magazine Political Geography, was refused by their saying that they did not accept anything that came from the state of the Jews.
Finland excluded the centrist JNF from its "World Village Festival," but the pro-Israel forces did not take that sitting down.Israel crisis averted in Missouri as biology professor’s anti-Zionist course nixed
The head of the Finnish branch of ICAHD, Skysy Räsänen, crowed that banning the JNF was “a victory for the BDS movement.”
KEPA also pointed to testimonies by, amongst others, Rabbis for Human Rights, as justification for banning the JNF.
While the JNF was mild in its response, there were some who were less so.
One organization, a brand new pro-Israel group that calls itself VOIS – Voice of Israel in Scandinavia, is a spin-off from a larger pro-Israel organization.
VOIS was galvanized by the rejection of JNF from the Festival. It set up a presence outside the gates to the Festival, and handed out pro-Israel literature, engaged with those entering the Village, and directly challenged the organizers of the event on the JNF ban.
One member of the group marched into the Village and spoke directly to Jonas Bistrom, KEPA’s development policy specialist. This VOIS member, Kenneth Sikorski, sought to engage Bistrom about the exclusion of the JNF from the Festival. Specifically, as Sikorski told the JewishPress.com, Bistrom was asked whether the WVF asked the JNF for a response to the allegations leveled against it, before the decision was made to exclude the pro-Israel organization. Sikorski also pressed Bistrom on whom KEPA had relied in making the exclusion determination.
A University of Missouri (MU) fall 2015 honors tutorial that pro-Israel students felt would promote bigotry and misinformation on their college campus has been cancelled. “Perspectives on Zionism,” which was scheduled to be taught by self-proclaimed “post-Zionist” and “Nakba Jew-in-law” George Smith, was nixed due to no enrollment, according to a June 10 announcement.Northwestern University Rabbi Calls for Stronger Action After Latest Antisemitic Incident on Campus
Yet the catalyst behind the cancelled course—Smith, a tenured biology professor who pushed for a curriculum that the instructor himself said would have included works by anti-Zionist authors such as Ilan Pappé, who has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing—is very much active.
The pro-Israel community welcomed the news of the course’s cancellation.
“I can now walk away with the knowledge that there is no interest among students [at MU] to take biased classes like Smith’s,” said Destiny G. Albritton, former president of MU’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI) campus chapter.
“We salute the MU administration for upholding academic standards and being a model other schools can emulate,” Roz Rothstein, CEO of the Israel education organization StandWithUs, said.
A rabbi at Northwestern University said the school must take serious action against antisemitism on campus, following yet another incident of anti-Jewish graffiti on university grounds this week.CAMERA: Christian Zionism: The Antidote for the World's Oldest Hatred
“We need the university to be aware of it, conscientious that it is painful, and vigilant in terms of trying to educate the student population about the important of diversity and what these types of hurtful symbols mean,” Chabad Rabbi Dov Klein told the Algemeiner. “Whether it’s a symbol against the Jewish community, against the African American community [or] against the Arab community, these things are not tolerated.”
Construction workers on campus discovered the antisemitic vandalism on Monday morning at the construction site of the new Kellogg School of Management building, The Chicago Tribune reported. The daubed images included a swastika which was painted over by construction personnel later that day.
The incident was the second case of antisemitic vandalism to take place at Northwestern in the past two months. In April, university police found a swastika drawn on the wall of a study lounge in the school’s library.
In what was an historic, precedent-setting event, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) sponsored a conference titled “People of the Land: A Twenty-First Century Case for Christian Zionism” in Washington D.C on April 17, 2015. This meeting was reportedly the first of its kind in that scholars presented academic arguments in support of a Christian Zionism that is rooted in two thousand years of ecumenical theological traditions.ADL Concerned Over Spike in Antisemitic Crimes in New York
This symposium was significant in that the content presented in eleven papers represents an essential, and long over-due, scholarly contribution to the dialogue about Zionism in the Christian world. The combined presentations made a theological and historical case for a Christian Zionism that is substantively different than the Zionist movement supported by dispensationalists and proponents of an End Times eschatology.
As IRD President Mark Tooley pointed out:
Contrary to common critique, Christian Zionism is not a modern political movement, popularized by Left Behind fiction — it dates to the early Church Fathers.
In other words, Christian Zionism did not begin with the belief in premillenial dispensationalism first introduced in the nineteenth century through the work of John Nelson Darby and made popular in the United States through the Scofield Reference Bible. Rather, Christian Zionism is rooted in theological traditions as old as the Church itself.
The Anti-Defamation League expressed concern over the latest New York Police Department’s crime report, which indicated higher levels of antisemitic crime so far this year.Anti-Semitic incidents reach all-time high in Canada
“The increased number of reported antisemitic incidents is significant and troubling,” said ADL Regional Director for New York Evan R. Bernstein.
But the ADL does not believe that the spike in incidents, 53 hate crimes against Jews this year, are a cause for alarm, said Bernstein.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force said there was a 29 percent rise in antisemitic crimes this year, over the same period in 2014.
Recorded anti-Semitic incidents reached an all-time high in Canada last year, indicates B’nai Brith’s annual audit.Mexican girls’ cheer-dance team does Nazi-themed routine
The yearly tally, released June 11, shows there were 1,627 reported anti-Semitic incidents in 2014, a 28 percent increase over the year before.
The previous record was 1,345 incidents in 2012.
Most cases last year – 84 percent or 1,370 incidents – involved harassment; there were 238 reported incidents of vandalism, or 15 percent of all cases; and 1 percent of recorded incidents, or 19 cases, involved violence.
Reported incidents of vandalism in 2014 declined over the year before by nearly 40 percent. But cases of harassment increased by nearly 30 percent.
A cheer-dance team in Mexico drew criticism Friday for a routine in which they displayed flags with swastikas, dressed in pseudo-military outfits. One girl also appeared to toss a Nazi salute to the crowd.Hungarian ex-mayor fired over anti-Semitic tirade
The performance by about two dozen girls aged 10 to 16 and one boy came at a cheer-dance competition in the western city of Guadalajara at the end of May.
The girls wore red armbands, camouflage dance outfits and carried red flags as they strutted in marching-style formations.
A video of the performance drew condemnation when it began to circulate Friday on social media sites.
On local news sites, many readers said the girls probably didn’t know much about the Nazis, and blamed the event organizers and the team’s choreographer for the questionable routine.
A Hungarian county’s government fired a former department chief after he was heard making anti-Semitic sentiments in a recording that surfaced online.Israeli Water Experts Present Green Walls at Expo Milano
Imre Sisak, a former lawmaker for Hungary’s Socialist Party, MSZP, was fired Tuesday from his position as the head of a department within the local government of the northern country of Nógrád, ATV reported.
In the audio recording, which surfaced online in April, Sisak rants about how “foreign trade companies are all run by dirty Jews” and describes the Jewish people as “a vile, dirty folk.” He referenced the late Jewish mayor of Paszto, Laszlo Kramer, as an example proving his point. Kramer passed away in 2013. Sisak served as Paszto’s mayor from 1998 to 2014.
According to ATV, Sisak eulogized Kramer after his passing, highlighting in a statement the late mayor’s “readiness, devotion to his voters and town, willingness to help and constructive attitude.” He also credited Kramer with “greatly contributing to the town, including by setting up an ambulance post.”
Israeli water experts traveled to the 2015 Expo Milano on food production, culture and diplomacy, to present the latest Israeli water-saving technologies.Smart energy for off-the-grid rural towns
Among advancements Israeli innovators presented were so-called green walls, vertical gardens soiled directly into indoor and outdoor walls.
The Israeli team showed a green wall that had been planted along the Israeli pavilion at the event. The wall was about 230 feet long by 39 feet high, planted with rice, wheat and corn, and managed through a computer program and mobile app, Chinese Xinhua news reported on Thursday.
A new demo village in southern Israel’s Arava Desert showcases cutting-edge Israeli solutions for housing, energy, water and agriculture needs of populations out of reach of national water and energy grids in any part of the world.Britain’s Prince William Praises Jewish Unity Amid Threats
The village, built in the environmentally forward Kibbutz Ketura ahead of last December’s sixth annual Eilat-Eilot Green Energy Conference, is a central feature of the Eilat-Eilot Off-Grid Hub, a project of the nonprofit Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Initiative.
The village has three solar-powered model structures constructed by volunteers from Kibbutz Lotan’s Eco-Building Program – a thatch-roofed communal building with simple yet innovative sources of natural light and ventilation; a straw-and-wool insulated plywood house roofed with palm leaves (for ventilation) and metal (for protection from the elements); and a dome-shaped, thermally balanced “Earth Bag” house made with sacks of local soil.
These structures spark creative thinking about inexpensive, sustainable green building, says Tomer Weinstein, manager of the Eilat-Eilot Off-Grid Hub.
Britain’s Prince William praised the country’s Jews on Thursday for staying unified amid threats against their community, the UK’s Jewish News reported.
His remarks were made in London at his first ever speaking engagement at a Jewish event.
“During a year when many in the Jewish community have had cause to feel under threat, for no reason other than simply the fact of your Jewishness, your unity is all the more precious,” he said at Jewish Care’s 25th anniversary dinner at Alexandra Palace. “Your commitment and loyalty to one another, and to society more widely, is ultimately what keeps you strong.”
Addressing more than 1,400 guests at the event, the Duke of Cambridge said British Jews deserve “particular praise” for caring for one another and for their generosity throughout history. He added, “The results of your commitment to one another within the Jewish community are obvious – the real and loving care that thousands of elderly and vulnerable people receive, among the many works that you carry out.”
The Prince also paid tribute to Jewish Care as a leader in providing health and social care services, especially in relation to dementia, to vulnerable members of the Jewish community in and around London. The organization operates a Holocaust Survivors Center that William said serves as “a second home” to its residents.
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