Tuesday, November 03, 2015
PA and Fatah: Israel had "no right" to be created
From Palestinian Media Watch:
On the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917, the PA and Fatah repeated their claim that Israel has "no right" to be created and attacked the declaration, calling it "ominous".Balfour Declaration Anniversary Erases Jewish Connection to Holy Land
The Balfour Declaration was a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild stating that "His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" and is seen as the basis for later international commitments to establish the State of Israel.
Abbas' Fatah movement posted the picture above of Balfour engulfed in flames, accompanied by the text:
"We will not forget the ominous promise, the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) given by those with no ownership to those with no right"
[Official Facebook page of the Fatah Movement, Nov. 1, 2015]
The official spokesman of the PA National Security Forces, Adnan Al-Damiri, posted similar statements:
Text on photo:
"We will not forget the ominous promise, the Balfour Promise made by those who have no ownership to those who have no right. Nov. 2, 1917" [Facebook page of PA National Security Forces, Adnan Al-Damiri, Nov. 2, 2015]
It’s hardly surprising that the myth of an existing historical Palestinian state that was ‘colonized’ by European Jews continues to circulate if this is the sort of lazy historical background being fed to media consumers.Amnesty's true mission
- Nowhere in the article does it mention that Palestine, as it was known as then, was a part of the Ottoman Empire and there had never existed an independent Palestinian state.
- Nowhere in the article does it mention that indigenous Jewish communities had lived in the Land of Israel going back over 3,000 years and there existed a continuous and uninterrupted Jewish religious and national connection to that land.
- The article mistakenly writes that the Balfour Declaration gave instructions “to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.” In fact, the Declaration supported a Jewish homeland, and not necessarily a state. The Balfour Declaration was but one step on the way to the fulfillment of the Zionist program of restoring Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish people’s ancient homeland.
- Indeed, to talk of Palestinians in those days referred to both Jewish and Arab residents of the land. When the Daily Mail refers to “without prejudicing the Palestinian communities already there,” it is not clearly stating just who those communities are, instead working on the presumption that Palestinian communities were Palestinian Arabs.
- This is compounded by the statement that “The Palestinians are furious that their land has technically been promised to the Jewish people.” In 1917 at the time of the Balfour Declaration, there was no national Palestinian identity – the non-Jewish residents of the land considered themselves to be part of the wider Arab nation and Arab nationalists sought an independent Arab state not in Palestine per se but as part of the Ottoman Arab Middle East as a whole.
- So it was not at that time “their land” that the Palestinians are allegedly furious that it had been promised to the Jewish people.
By missing out any historical context, the Daily Mail has erased legitimate Jewish rights that existed even before the Balfour Declaration and has constructed a Palestinian national identity that did not exist in 1917. (Note: this does not mean that a Palestinian identity did not emerge in later years.)
Amnesty International's conclusions on the situation here in Israel are always bizarrely perverse. The latest is no different: "Israeli forces have carried out a series of unlawful killings of Palestinians using intentional lethal force without justification ... based on the findings of an ongoing research trip to the West Bank, including east Jerusalem. ... The organization has documented in depth at least four incidents in which Palestinians were deliberately shot dead by Israeli forces when they posed no imminent threat to life, in what appear to have been extrajudicial executions. ... Since Oct. 1, Israeli forces have killed more than 30 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Israel either after stabbings were carried out or the Israeli authorities allege stabbing attacks were intended.
"There is mounting evidence that, as tensions have risen dramatically, in some cases Israeli forces appear to have ripped up the rule book and resorted to extreme and unlawful measures. They seem increasingly prone to using lethal force against anyone they perceive as posing a threat, without ensuring that the threat is real," Amnesty International wrote in a press release on Oct. 27.
As blogger Elder of Ziyon has already exposed, Amnesty's "in-depth documentation" is based on lies. This is the most egregious element of Amnesty's attempt to insert itself into the situation.
Caroline Glick: Our World: Showdown at the OK Corral
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Barack Obama next week is likely to look less like a rapprochement than a showdown at the OK Corral.Why does he lie?
The flurry of spy stories spinning around in recent weeks makes clear that US-Israel relations remain in crisis.
Two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal published a fairly detailed account of the US’s massive spying operations against Israel between 2010 and 2012.
Their purpose was to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear installations. The Journal report, which was based on US sources, also detailed the evasion tactics the Obama administration employed to try to hide its covert nuclear talks with Iran from Israel. According to the report, the administration was infuriated that through its spy operations against Iran, Israel discovered the talks and the government asked the White House to tell it what was going on.
Over the past several days, the Israeli media have reported the Israeli side of the US spying story.
Friday Makor Rishon’s military commentator Amir Rapaport detailed how the US assiduously wooed IDF senior brass on the one hand and harassed more junior Israeli security officials on the other hand.
Monday, 26 October 2015. The foremost legal scholar of Islam in Jerusalem is the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Hussein. He recently asserted that the first man, Adam, perhaps with the help of angels, built today’s Dome of the Rock, the 1,300-year-old Islamic shrine that sits atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Accordingly, he said, the site has been an Islamic mosque “3,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago.”Israel Defense Minister Schools National Defense University on Threat of ‘Islamic Winter’
Hussein made the assertions during an Arabic interview on Israel’s News Channel 2. As he has before, he vehemently denied that the site was ever the place of Judaism’s Temples, not the first, built by Solomon, nor the second, refurbished by Herod the Great. Indeed, according to Hussein, it exclusively has been an Islamic holy site “since the creation of the world.”
This is not the first time that Israel’s foremost legal scholar of Islam has asserted that Israel’s biblical Temples never existed. About four years ago, on January 5, 2012, he did the same on a broadcast by Palestinian Authority TV News.
“They [Jews] want to say or suggest that this place [Temple Mount] was once, according to their claim, a Temple,” he said. “However, in truth there never was a Temple in any period, nor was there, at any time, any place of worship for the Jews or others at the Aksa Mosque site [built on the Temple Mount in 705 CE].”
In light of his own Sunni heritage and written history, the Grand Mufti’s claims are puzzling at best.
In response to a question from the Israeli Regional Study Team of the National War College about restarting the peace process — a priority for the Obama administration — Ya’alon said the parameters pushed by the administration are unacceptable.Oslo architect: Netanyahu will withdraw unilaterally from much of West Bank
“The borders between ours and the Palestinian entity can’t be back the return to 4th of June, 1967, lines. Why? Because it is indefensible borders,” he said, adding that Gaza has become a “rocket launcher.”
“They don’t have to vote to the Knesset. They have their own parliament. They have their own government. They have their own municipalities. That’s fine. We would like to see them more competent in governing themselves,” Ya’alon said.
But, he noted, a good chunk of Palestinian families get paychecks from working in Israel or in the territories for Israeli firms.
“What is the alternative? Is it going to be a viable economy in any kind of real separation? No chance. So the way that we try to manage in order to stabilize the situation, to have peace, is to create a kind of modus vivendi in which they are more accountable, they are more competent to govern themselves — imposing law and order, of course, security, better economy for the benefit of the two of us.”
Former minister and veteran peace activist Yossi Beilin on Monday called for the creation of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation as a long-term strategic goal for the solution of the conflict. Such a solution will have to be preceded by an interim agreement that would create a Palestinian state in provisional borders, he said.Thomas Friedman wishes us a "nice life"
However, he predicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, anxious to avoid a binational state but unwilling to meet Palestinian demands, would instead wind up unilaterally withdrawing from much of the West Bank to ensure a Jewish majority in Israel.
Any current attempt to achieve a final-status agreement between Jerusalem and Ramallah is not only doomed to fail but actually counterproductive, Beilin added, also slamming US President Barack Obama for insisting on an Israeli settlement freeze in 2009 and Secretary of State John Kerry for his failed bid to broker a comprehensive peace deal within nine months in 2013.
While a permanent peace accord is currently out of reach, Beilin said an interim agreement — if linked to a timetable leading to a comprehensive peace deal — is a realistic and worthwhile objective.
Dear Editor:Arab MKs push 'right of return' to northern Israel
Thomas Friedman ended his New York Times October 28th column "Have a nice life" article with the words that Israel is slowly committing suicide, with all the best arguments for reaching an agreement with the Palestinian leadership.
On the contrary, any agreement with the Palestinian leadership which requires the divestiture of control of land is suicide for Israel.
One of the most important Palestinian Oslo obligations was a major change in their 1968 Amended 1964 Charter (Covenant) to destroy Israel.
During the Oslo negotiations, the Palestinian leadership engaged in a series of steps to bamboozle Israel and the world into believing that they had annulled several articles of their charter.
Joint List MKs Ahmed Tibi and Osama Sa'adi proposed a bill giving Arabs the "right of return" to specific villages in northern Israel on Tuesday, citing "broken promises" dating as far back as 1948, Maariv reports.On Europe trip, Abbas gets red carpet, and some hard questions
"This is the return of the country's citizens to where they lived," the two claimed in the explanatory note.
"Residents of Gabasia were evacuated from their village in 1951, and residents of Ikrit and Bir-am were evacuated from their villages at the end of 1948, with a promise from the state authorities that they will return to their homes soon."
The two also cited a High Court ruling which gave the residents of those villages the right to return to their land.
Ikrit and Biram: ongoing controversy
The situation of Ikrit and Biram is unique in that the residents were asked in November 1948 to temporarily leave their homes to enable a security zone to be formed along the Lebanese border. The Arab residents contend that the government promised that they would return. However, the lands to which the Arabs wish to return are now owned and worked by the Jewish farmers of five northern communities.
On his way to several meetings with Dutch parliamentarians last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his entourage passed 300 demonstrators flying Israeli flags.Spain terror alert: Three men 'set to commit Charlie Hebdo attack' arrested in dawn raids
Like the Israeli government, the protesters, who convened outside at the urging of Dutch Jewish and Christian pro-Israel groups, accuse Abbas and his government of supporting deadly attacks against Jews. Incitement by Abbas and others, they charge, is a major catalyst for the recent wave of Palestinian terrorism in which 11 Israelis have been killed and more than 50 Palestinians have died, including dozens identified as assailants, in Israel’s attempt to stem the violence.
Their argument echoes one that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his European envoys have been making regularly since September, when the latest round of unrest began. But neither appears to have had much impact on how the Palestinian leader is received by European leaders.
At the CIDI meeting, the delegation patiently listened to Abbas’ complaints about Netanyahu. When he was finished, Joep de Geus, the 22-year-old chairman of CIDI’s youth department, read to him a quote from Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Muhaisen, who on Oct. 7 said that the murder of an Israeli couple in front of their children the week before was a case of “one fulfilling his national duty voluntarily, as best as one can.”
Looking at Abbas, de Geus asked: “Your excellency, do we really need a trilateral committee to tell us whether this is incitement?”
“We the Palestinians are not perfect,” Abbas replied, “but these things need to be discussed as a whole.”
The trio, accused of forming part of a group linked to Islamic State, were held during dawn raids in Madrid today.Slain Jewish security guard awarded French medal of courage
The ongoing operation was coordinated by a court in the Spanish capital and state prosecutors from Spain’s Central Criminal Court.
Interior Ministry officials said in a statement released early today, where it referred to Islamic State by its acronym DAESH: “Police in Madrid have arrested three people of Moroccan origin, living in Spain, accused of forming part of a group linked to the terrorist organisation DAESH.
“According to sources in the investigation, they were prepared to carry out, at any moment, terrorist acts like those that have taken place recently in neighbouring countries.
“The operation is ongoing.”
The arrests are understood to have taken place in Madrid neighbourhood Vallecas and La Canada Real, the largest shanty town in Europe which includes an area controlled by drug gangs who sell to users from around the Spanish capital.
France's ambassador to Copenhagen, who in February attended a free speech event targeted by an Islamist terrorist, on Monday honored two Danish men who were killed in the twin attacks.UN Report: Iran's Human Rights Record Worse Under Rouhani than Ahmadinejad
"We have a debt towards those who left us," Francois Zimeray said at a ceremony attended by Denmark's justice minister.
Filmmaker Finn Norgaard was posthumously bestowed with one of France's top cultural honors - the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres whose former recipients have included T.S.Eliot, Audrey Hepburn and Cate Blanchett.
Jewish security guard Dan Uzan was awarded a medal of courage by the French embassy in Copenhagen.
Norgaard was shot dead by gunman Omar El-Hussein on February 14 outside a free speech and blasphemy event hosting controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who caused an outcry with his 2007 sketch of Mohammed as a dog.
A report released this month on “The Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran” reveals that Iranians are worse off under “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani than his more conservative predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and that, based on their current trajectory, they are expected to exceed well over 1,000 executions by year’s end.WSJ Bureau Chief: Arrest of American Highlights Risks of Doing Business with Iran
“The human rights situation in the country remains dire,” Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s special rapporteur on Iran, said during a briefing at the United Nations last week.
Iran executes more individuals per capita than any other country in the world. In his 26-page report, Shaheed notes that between January 1 and September 15 of this year, Iran executed at least 694 people by hanging, which included at least 10 women and one juvenile. In 2014, Iran clocked in at a shocking 753 executions.
Shaheed’s analysis also found that “more than 480 persons were flogged during the first 15 days of Ramadan for not fasting,” but that the Iranian regime has falsely maintained that only three individuals were subject to this punishment for their non-observance of the fast. Additionally, two people who were convicted of theft had their limbs amputated mere weeks prior to the conclusion of the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) in July.
The recent arrest of an Iranian-American businessman in Tehran suggests that increased economic engagement with the Islamic Republic, made possible by the easing of international sanctions, poses significant risks for foreign investors, Gerald Seib, the Washington bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, reported on Monday.Report: Russia Preparing Contract for Delivery of Advanced S-300 Missile System to Iran
Hard-liners have a double incentive to undermine the new deal and its promised economic opening to the West: They dislike any deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear program, and the arrival of foreign investors threatens the Revolutionary Guard’s own hold over key sectors of the economy, which was strengthened amid the stresses of tough economic sanctions. …
For the business community, the questions are equally difficult. Countries as disparate as Britain, Finland, New Zealand and Taiwan have rushed trade delegations to Iran in the wake of the nuclear deal. But Western companies are heading into a dicey environment for their employees and partners.
Russia is preparing the contract for the delivery of advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran, Israeli news website nrg reported on Monday.In apparent about-face, Russia says Syria’s Assad can step down
According to the report, the contract is being written up by JSC Rosoboronexport, the sole state intermediary agency for Russia’s imports and exports of defense-related and dual-use products, technologies and services.
In August, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan announced that Tehran and Moscow had reached a final agreement on the delivery of the missile system.
Iran claims it had initially received Russian approval of the sale in 2007, but former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev subsequently signed a decree banning the sale of the missile system and other military equipment to Iran, in compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929.
Following the signing in April of the framework nuclear deal between Iran and world powers — which led to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July — Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban and allowed the sale to proceed.
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Tuesday that Moscow does not consider it a matter of principle that Syrian President Bashar Assad should stay in power, stepping back from its previous position of strong support for him.The Weyl-Levitsky Double Standard Theorem
Asked whether it was crucial for Moscow that Assad stays, Maria Zakharov said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station: “Absolutely not, we’ve never said that.”
“What we did say is a regime change in Syria could become a local or even regional catastrophe,” she said, adding that “only the Syrian people can decide the president’s fate.”
Russia is believed to be Assad’s strongest backer and has previously balked at the West’s suggestions that the Syrian president should be ousted.
Last week, Professors Glen Weyl and Steve Levitsky caused a stir with an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for a boycott of the Jewish state.EU set to issue new settlement product label guidelines
Some responded by writing about the article’s tendentious mischaracterization of the facts. Others speculated about the personal motives of the authors, who were writing outside their areas of expertise and without original insight. Yet the most important aspect of the article has so far escaped examination.
Like other calls to boycott and punish Israel, the article endorses a double standard. Even after misconstruing the facts and law to make Israel guilty of crimes it has not committed, the authors have to acknowledge they are calling for far harsher treatment of the Jewish state than of the many states that have actually committed crimes worse than those of which they accuse Israel. In the words of the authors, “Israel, of course, is hardly the world’s worst human rights violator. Doesn’t boycotting Israel but not other rights-violating states constitute a double standard? It does.”
It does — yet far from this double standard being a source of embarrassment, the authors claim that it is admirable. They seek to turn one of the great weaknesses of the boycott argument into one of its great strengths. How do they justify this seemingly dubious position? “We love Israel, and we are deeply concerned for its survival,” they write. “We do not feel equally invested in the fate of other states.” In other words, discriminatory double standards are fine so long as the perpetrator claims his intentions are good. They add a codicil: “Unlike internationally isolated states … Israel could be significantly affected by a boycott.”
It was reported on Monday that the European Union will issue new guidelines on Nov. 11 about labeling products from settlements in the West Bank that are sold in European supermarkets.EU: 'No negotiation with Israel on settlement labeling'
An Israeli diplomat said Israel has been informed the move could be made soon. Israeli diplomatic officials are working to prevent the new guidelines from being issued.
"We believe that the guidelines, particularly at this moment, represent a bonus to Palestinian violence and refusal to negotiate and are of a blatant discriminatory nature. ... The guidelines encourage an atmosphere of boycott against Israel," the diplomat said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely will travel to Europe this week for meetings with officials there about the guidelines issue. "Israel will not accept any discrimination between products produced in its territory by Israeli citizens," Hotovely said, adding that all unilateral diplomatic efforts against Israel would "come to nothing."
EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen, together with French Ambassador to Israel Patrick Maisonnave, spoke to Arutz Sheva on Tuesday about the impending EU labeling of products from Jews in Judea and Samaria.Herzog tells UK labeling settlement goods ‘rewards terror’
Faaborg-Andersen began by saying the decision to label "settlement" produce was made back in 2012, and is now being implemented with an exact start date expected to be announced soon.
When asked about Israeli pressure in response to the discriminatory practice, the EU ambassador said, "it's a technical thing, it's about compliance with our own rules and regulations so there's not so much to negotiate on that."
"It's a strictly legal technical matter which doesn't really lend itself to any kind of negotiation, and I think that's the framework in which it has to be seen, rather than any political move," he added, rejecting the notion of discussing the move with Israel.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog told Britian’s ambassador to Israel Tuesday that a European Union plan to mark products made in factories over the Green Line is “a prize for terror.”Israeli academics take on Guardian in counter-BDS letter
The EU will decide next week exactly how to label West Bank settlement products, after the European Parliament passed a resolution last month to approve the measure, according to a report by Haaretz.
Herzog, who heads the dovish Zionist Union Knesset faction, told David Quarrey he “strongly opposes this harmful and unnecessary measure,” calling it “a prize that Europe is bestowing for terror.”
“[It] serves only one purpose – continuing the hate and regional conflict. Marking these products is an act of violence by extremists who want to further inflame the situation and the EU is falling into their trap,” he said, according to a Hebrew-language transcript provided by Herzog’s spokesperson.
Israeli academics published a counter-letter in the British Guardian Monday, noting that the slew of artists who pledged to boycott Israel are engaging in academic censorship.Jewish Group Urges UC Berkeley to Probe Students for Justice in Palestine Over ‘Hateful, Antisemitic’ Actions at Campus Rally
Dr Sharona Goldenberg and Dr Roy Gilbar of Netanya Academic College began their letter by citing the Harry Potter series of books, in which author J.K. Rowling - who herself publicly stated her support for Israel against the boycott - portrays the evils of academic censorship through the Voldemort regime.
"Academic bigotry is not confined to fantasy books," Goldenberg and Gilber began, noting that the 300 UK artists "intend to avoid acting as referees in any process involving Israeli universities, or participate in conferences organized by Israeli institutions."
"Since it is not institutions that write academic papers or organise conferences, but rather scholars, this is a de facto boycott of Israeli scholars."
"An academic boycott of Israeli scholars and institutions amounts to inequality based on nationality, rather than merit," they continued. "It is intended to serve as collective punishment of a group of researchers because of the place where they were born or where they work."
The Zionist Organization of America has urged University of California, Berkeley to investigate the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and possibly rescind its license to operate, the Algemeiner has learned.British Politician Kaufman to Face Party Whip After Jewish Groups Demand Censure for ‘Jewish Money’ Comments
ZOA National President Morton Klein and Center for Law and Justice Director Susan Tuchman called on Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks to condemn SJP by name for its “hateful, antisemitic, wrongful and possibly unlawful actions.”
The ZOA said SJP may have violated the Berkeley Campus Student Code, especially for threats of violence, harassment and for terrorizing behavior.
The ZOA was responding to eyewitness reports of a demonstration organized by SJP two weeks ago at Cal’s Sproul Plaza, where speakers rallied audience members to chant “intifada” and one pro-Israel counter-demonstrator was aggressively harassed by another SJP activist.
ZOA said chanting intifada was the same as calling out, “Violence and murder, violence and murder, we support violence and murder against Jews!”
British Member of Parliament for Manchester Gorton Sir Gerald Kaufman will meet the Labour Party whip over comments he made about Jews and the recent stabbing attacks in Israel at a Palestine Return Centre meeting last week, the International Business Times reported on Monday.David Collier: Antisemitism in Westminster and nobody cares. More politicians involved.
The news came after UK Jewish groups urged Labour to reprimand Kaufman, for alleging that “Jewish money” and donations had swayed British politics especially concerning Israel.
The blog for the British charity Community Security Trust (CST) — which provides protection to Jewish sites in the UK — released an extensive condemnation last Thursday, calling on Labour Chief Whip MP Rosie Winterton and party leader Jeremy Corbyn to take “swift and appropriate disciplinary action” against Kaufman for his comments.
CST wrote the letter along with the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council.
This ‘demonization’ was supported by both the other British politicians in the room, Andy Slaughter MP, the Justice Minister in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, and Martin Linton, who was Labour MP for Battersea until 2010. Kaufman’s speech saw him applauded and congratulated by his audience and political peers, and not one of his party’s leadership since the event has even passed comment.Oh, Willis Carto, We Hardly Knew Ye
Following the event, Andy Slaughter MP was contacted by the Jewish Chronicle to find out what he made of Kaufman’s remarks. This from the JC report:
He (Slaughter) had spoken about British foreign policy at the meeting but had been unaware of Mr Kaufman’s remarks until the JC raised them. He said: ‘I am responsible for what I say; I am not responsible for what anyone else says…..I would not endorse those comments. If you showed me that and said would you agree with that, I would say ‘no’…..Obviously I would not endorse or be associated in any way with those comments.’
Yet when reviewing the audio for the evening, in a speech lasting 7 minutes, Slaughter references Kaufman several times, ‘associating himself’ with the main parts of Kaufman’s speech. The first sentence of note is this one.
‘’And the good news is, we have lots and lots of MP’s, mainly labour MP’s, I have to say, there are very few Liberal MP’s and Gerald is right to say there are very few (little) Tories”.
I had an odd reaction to reading The New York Times obituary of Willis Carto, the tediously loathsome elder statesman of the American anti-Semitic right. He died last Monday at his home in Virginia, leaving behind a putrid little trail of defunct newsletters and failed Holocaust denial magazines, but when he was at full-strength, in the 1970s and 1980s, his literature was read not only by wackadoo Hitler worshippers but also by their far more respectable, and careful, fellow travelers, like former presidential candidate Ron Paul. And my reaction to his death was: Why haven’t I had the pleasure of reading more about this guy?Italian soccer chief: ‘Nothing against’ Jews and gays, just keep them away from me
You see, there is an unspoken journalistic consensus in this country that one does not write about the craziest of the crazies, unless they seem to have access to explosives or a plausible connection to Islamic extremism. When they are plain old Caucasian crazy—like Carto, or racist Northwestern University engineer Arthur Butz, or alien enthusiast David Icke—the thinking seems to be: ignore them. Icke, for example, sells out huge lecture halls to followers eager to hear theories about the reptile people, the English royal family, and the Rothschilds, that would make even the most committed Scientologists say, “That seems a bit off.” Yet you won’t find much written about him, not in the United States at least, although he’s more of a figure in England, where he’s from.
The president of the Italian Football Federation said he has “nothing against” Jews and gays, but that he prefers to keep such people at a distance.Austrian MP booted over 'Zionist money Jews' Facebook post
The comments by Carlo Tavecchio were recorded for an interview with the online magazine Soccer Life and published on the website of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Tavecchio made the remarks while talking about a Jewish-Italian businessman Cesere Anticoli.
“It was bought by that Jew, Anticoli,” Tavecchio said in the recording. “I have nothing against the Jews, but better to keep them at bay.”
He used the Italian term “ebreaccio,” a pejorative for “ebreo,” or Jew.
Austria's far-right Freedom Party said on Monday it had expelled a member of its parliamentary group over anti-Semitic comments on Facebook and called on her to give up her seat.‘Start-Up Nation’ Author Calls on Australia to Team Up With Israel to Create Asia Pacific Tech Hub
The Freedom Party, which several polls suggest is the most popular in Austria, has gained support with an anti-immigration message during a massive influx of migrants into Europe, and has called for a border fence to be built around the country.
But the remark on Facebook last week, in which MP Susanne Winter expressed support for an anti-Semitic comment, had crossed a "red line," her party said in a statement.
Winter, an MP since 2008, on Friday posted a link to an article in the German news magazine Der Spiegel that said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had blamed Europe's migration crisis in part on what he described as the prominent financier George Soros' support for human rights initiatives.
Another user responded to the posting with a comment that included the phrase, "The Zionist money Jews worldwide are the problem," according to Austrian media.
The co-author, with Dan Senor, of the international best-seller Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle encouraged an Australian trade mission in Jerusalem this week to help Israel team up with Australia to make it the biggest innovation hub in the Asia Pacific region, Australian Financial Review reported on Monday.Israeli-Druze Alliance Defends Israel Against Apartheid Accusations: ‘We Are a Living Example of How Empty These Claims Are’
“I have this theory that the countries that do a better job of combining the strengths of their innovation sectors with other countries will win,” Saul Singer told the group of about 45, according to the Review.
“That’s because we know that the way to build great start-ups is through great teams. I think there is a huge opportunity between Australia and Israel. Australia can be our bridge to Asia,” he said. “I think Australia can become a regional innovation hub, a hub for Southeast Asia as well as combining forces with Israel.”
Singer’s and Senor’s book has sold upward of 7 million copies and has become the Israeli government’s public relations go-to guide for spreading the word about Israel’s innovation prowess.
Members of Israel’s Druze community on Monday slammed all those who accuse Israel of being an “apartheid state” that discriminates against its minorities.Iraqi Kurdish government supports justice for Jewish refugees
This defense of the Jewish state was made by a visiting delegation of Israeli Druze during a conference held in New York this week at the office of the World Jewish Congress. Tahani Sheikh, a member of the community who recently finished her medical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is pursuing a career as a neurologist, said that because the Druze community is so well-integrated into Israeli society, “We are a living example of how empty such claims [as apartheid] are.”
She said a look at Israel’s academic institutions — where Arabs make up a large percentage of the student body — is enough to grasp how false the accusations are. She cited figures showing that 50 percent of the students at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and more than 80 percent of Tel Aviv University’s dental school are Arabs.
These facts, she said, prove wrong those who say that “Israel is against minorities or not giving them equal rights.”
The Iraqi Kurdish government is seeking compensation from the Central Iraqi Government for the crimes that they implemented against both the Kurdish and Jewish peoples. The Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq has recently set up a Directorate of Jewish affairs, which is seeking justice for all of the Iraqi Jews who experienced the ethnic cleansing campaign orchestrated by the Arab-run government in Iraq.2,000-year-old Maccabean-era fortress unearthed in Jerusalem after century-long search
While ISIS is implementing ethnic cleansing against non-Muslim and non-Arab minority groups and the Shia-led government in Iraq persecutes these same peoples, the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq has just established a Directorate of Jewish Affairs that is led by Sherzad Omer Mamsani, who is seeking justice for all of the Iraqi Jews who experienced the ethnic cleansing campaign orchestrated by the Arab-run government in Iraq: “The Iraqi government who colonized Kurdistan in the time of Saddam Hussein’s rule forced out the Kurdish Jews and murdered and bombed Muslims with chemical weapons. It’s the KRG’s right to seek all the losses from the Iraqi government” for the crimes that they implemented against both the Kurdish and Jewish peoples.
In June 1941, over 180 were killed and 1,000 were injured during a Kristallnacht-style pogrom known as the Farhud that was orchestrated by a pro-Nazi coup that threatened the local Jewish community. During this period of time, Jewish property was looted, 1,500 Jewish homes and stores were destroyed, and Jewish women were raped en masse. 2,500 Jewish families were adversely affected by it. The only reason it ended was because the British brought the coup to a halt. Otherwise, the results would have been more devastating.
In what archaeologists are describing as “a solution to one of the great archaeological riddles in the history of Jerusalem,” researchers with the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday that they have found the remnants of a fortress used by the Seleucid Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes in his siege of Jerusalem in 168 BCE.IsraellyCool: Hamburger Hummus!
A section of fortification was discovered under the Givati parking lot in the City of David south of the Old City walls and the Temple Mount. The fortification is believed to have been part of a system of defenses known as the Acra fortress, built by Antiochus as he sought to quell a Jewish priestly rebellion centered on the Temple.
Antiochus is remembered in the Jewish tradition as the villain of the Hanukkah holiday who sought to ban Jewish religious rites, sparking the Maccabean revolt.
The Acra fortress was used by his Seleucids to oversee the Temple and maintain control over Jerusalem. The fortress was manned by Hellenized Jews, who many scholars believe were then engaged in a full-fledged civil war with traditionalist Jews represented by the Maccabees. Mercenaries paid by Antiochus rounded out the force.
Today, I was informed about a web series called Hamburger Hummus, which follows a group of clueless American bloggers in Israel.Hamburger Hummus Trailer (Censored)
Starring Angela Kinsey of The Office fame, as well as a bunch of other talented actors, it is hilarious. Risque, but hilarious.
As someone who lives in Israel and is familiar with blogging culture, I loved it. But more than that, I could tell that there was something behind this series beyond just getting laughs. And I was right.
The tongue-in-cheek series is the brainchild of the New Venture Fund, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, and ad agency SS+K. They created the show as a way to “foster broader awareness of the people and culture of Israel [and] … showcase the innovative and culturally diverse aspects of modern Israeli life that are less well known outside the country.”
I binge watched all 7 episodes – which sounds more impressive when you don’t realize they are all about 3 minutes long.
And you should too. Unless bad language and adult themes offend you.
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