Wednesday, November 11, 2015
‘Terror attack saved my life,’ says Israeli stabbing victim
Cohen, 31, recounted the November 2 attack — in which two other people, including an 80-year-old woman, were also wounded — during an interview with Radio Kol Chai on Wednesday.JPost Editorial: Kristallnacht
“I was in the middle of a work day,” Cohen, a kashrut supervisor, said. “I was in the central bus station… I waited for the bus and did not see anything suspicious. Then I walked a few steps and suddenly the attacker lunged at me and strangled me.
“I felt like my neck was going to snap. He took out a knife and tried to behead me. I tried to move him with my hand and then he tried to stab me in the neck. I moved my head so he hit my jaw, near the ear. He pushed me to the floor and stabbed along my left side, in my chest, in my stomach and in my shoulder,” the father of five recounted.
“When Magen David Adom paramedics arrived I was still conscious but when I got to Assaf Harofeh Hospital they put me under. I went into a four-hour surgery. It went well, they took out my spleen and a bit of my liver. My intestines were damaged. As they were treating these organs, they found a growth on my intestine that I didn’t know I had. They cut it out and sewed what they needed to,” he added.
“Thank God, I am now in good condition a week later,” he said. “They said they found the tumor when they were operating. If they wouldn’t have removed it, it could have gotten worse.”
Cohen said that he felt pains in his intestines for several weeks prior to the incident but didn’t have time to “deal with it.”
“The terror attack saved my life,” he maintained.
This week during a Kristallnacht commemoration ceremony in Amsterdam, MK Haneen Zoabi devoted a 1,400-word speech to likening contemporary Israel to Nazi Germany of the 1930s. But before we address her outrageous comments, let’s revisit history in order to understand precisely what happened on the night of November 9, 1938.Zionism as racism - The Palestinians’ foundational lie
Kristallnacht was not an isolated incident. Rather it was a culmination of years of incitement and legal restrictions instituted by the Hitler regime against Germany’s Jews, who made up less than 1 percent of the population.
Almost immediately upon assuming the chancellorship of Germany in 1933, Adolf Hitler took action against the Jews. Jewish-owned shops were boycotted; kosher butchering was outlawed; restrictions against Jewish children were introduced in public schools.
In 1935, the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Jews of German citizenship. Jews were prohibited from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.” Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights. By 1936, Jews were prohibited from participating in parliamentary elections, and signs reading “Jews not Welcome” appeared in cities and towns across Germany.
In the first half of 1938, additional laws were passed restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities. The definition “Jewish” was racial, not religious.
Even Roman Catholic priests and nuns and Protestant ministers with a Jewish grandparent were considered “Jewish.”
Forty years ago, on November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 calling Zionism a form of racism.Moynihan: 1975 UN Debate on "Zionism is Racism" - Excerpts
Today, as Palestinians lie about Israel’s alleged desire to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, and about Israel’s attempts to defend Israelis, we need to learn about this foundational lie, that leads so many not only to disagree with Israel but to object to its very existence.
Resolution 3379 presents two historical mysteries: How could Zionism – Jewish nationalism – be targeted, in this forum of nationalisms, as racism, when Judaism, which is a religion and a nation, allows individuals to convert into the Jewish religion, then join the Jewish people, making Zionism – Jewish nationalism – the least biologically-based, the most permeable and thus the least racist form of nationalism? And how could the UN, founded as the great redemptive institution after World War II, after the Holocaust, promising “Never Again,” betray America and the West, not just the Jewish people, demeaning core democratic ideals? Short answer: It was the 1970s.
Remember that misfire of a decade? The long sideburns, bell bottoms and huckapoo shirts? It was a time when democracies seemed doomed and the Soviet empire seemed invincible. America was reeling: inflation, crime, unemployment, grime, Vietnam, Watergate.
The Soviets – trying to humiliate America – schemed with the Palestinians to demonize Israel, to “South Africanize” Israel. Edward Said, the theoretician of Palestinian nationalism, advised Palestinians to link their fight to the broader fight against colonialism, imperialism and racism, in Algeria, in Vietnam. So ignoring the facts, forgetting that it’s a clash of nationalisms not races, that there are light-skinned Palestinians and darkskinned Israelis, and that little Israel quarreling over its borders is neither imperialist nor colonialist, they cooked up the Big Red Lie.
Video: Full Moynihan Speech at 1975 U.N. Zionism is Racism Debate
Video: Chaim Herzog at 1975 UN "Zionism is Racism" Debate; Roll Call Vote
A case in Kenya threatens Israel
The Ruto case concerns Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007-8. He and a Kenyan journalist, Joshua Arup Sang, are accused of coordinating and promoting violence against another tribal group that were on the opposite side of the political divide to their own Kalenjin tribe during 2007 election. The case against them was confirmed in 2012 based on the written testimony of six witnesses, known as the “Confirmation Six.”PA to take video of police shouting at teen terror suspect to ICC
None of the testimony given by these six witnesses was made under oath, nor was it originally provided to ICC investigators. Rather, it was gathered by NGOs in Kenya that received foreign funding as part of a previous Kenyan government commission of inquiry into post-election violence. Since that time, and now with the trial of Ruto and Sang underway, three of these witnesses have publicly recanted their testimony, with two others discrediting and contradicting what they had previously said while under oath in court, and another refusing to testify at all.
In most reputable courts of law this case would be considered collapsed, and the accused would be acquitted.
But the ICC is no ordinary court and the judges in the case against Ruto and Sang are now allowing the prosecutor to use the original witnesses statements given to foreign-funded NGOs as all the evidence she needs to continue the case, and disregarding as if it had never occurred the witnesses’ varying degrees of recantation.
This new power, known as “Rule 68,” has serious implications for Israel. Imagine a scenario where Fatah or Hamas-supporting foreign-funded NGOs are allowed to gather witness statements against Israelis, without the need for them to be made under oath, and for this “evidence” to be considered all that is needed to mount a successful prosecution. Then, even if witnesses later recant their statements, what they say can be disregarded.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry will take footage of an Israeli police interrogation of a 13-year-old Palestinian suspected terrorist to the International Criminal Court, the official Wafa news agency reported Wednesday.NYTs: Support for Israel Must Be Bipartisan, Netanyahu Tells U.S. Audience
Footage from the interrogation of Ahmed Manasra aired on Palestinian television Monday, showing officers shouting at the boy accused of taking part in the stabbing of two Israelis in Jerusalem last month.
Manasra was seriously injured when he was hit by a car while trying to flee the scene of the attack in Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood on October 12, and his accomplice-cousin Hassan Manasra, 15, was shot dead by security forces after charging at police with a knife.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel made a direct appeal on Tuesday to Democrats still troubled by the public feud over the nuclear deal with Iran, appearing at a leading liberal think tank aligned with President Obama to declare that support for his country in the United States must remain a bipartisan proposition.It’s Obama Who Should Apologize
At an hourlong appearance before the group, the Center for American Progress, Mr. Netanyahu fielded questions and defended his policies in front of an audience of leading foreign policy experts, Democratic operatives and Jewish activists, projecting a benevolent tone even as he countered criticism of his approach to resolving the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
“I know that my visit here has been a source of some controversy, so I doubly appreciate the invitation,” he told Neera Tanden, the group’s president, who has been criticized by some progressive advocates for providing a forum for Mr. Netanyahu despite his bare-knuckled tactics in lobbying against the Iran deal.
“I came here,” he added, “because I think it’s vital to understand how important it is for me that Israel remain an issue of bipartisan consensus.”
It is true that the gradual takeover of the Democrats by its left-wing base has undermined, though not destroyed support for Israel in the party. And the parallel trend that has led to nearly unanimous support for the Jewish state by Republicans is disconcerting for the left. But bipartisan political support for Zionism is baked deep into the political DNA of this country, and not even as adept a politician as Obama is able to completely destroy it. Netanyahu knows that the next president is likely to be a better friend to Israel than the current one, and he will patiently bide his time for the next 15 months hoping that Obama will be too overwhelmed by his foreign policy failures to pick another fight with Israel. But if that happens and Democrats again fall into line against Israel, that will be the work of Obama, not Netanyahu.16 Democratic senators tell Obama to strengthen security memo with Israel
Apologies will be due for what happened in Washington in the last year. But given the reliance of the president and his apologists on Iran’s good behavior to vindicate their attacks on Israel and its leader, it is they who will, sooner or later, have to account to posterity for the fact that they have undermined America’s alliance with its sole democratic ally in the Middle East in the feckless pursuit of detente with Iran.
Democratic senators in a letter called on President Barack Obama to write a new and strengthened “Memorandum of Understanding” on security assistance to Israel.Obama accused of treating Netanyahu worse than Khamenei
The 16 senators, led by Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Richard Blumenthal, D–Conn., and Ben Cardin, D-Md., — the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent the letter to the president on Monday, the day Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The letter called on Obama to conclude the new memorandum as well as to “provide the necessary and appropriate measures to deter Iran,” such as ordinance and delivery systems, as well as to enhance Israel’s qualitative military edge over countries in the region.
“These measures are necessary to deter conventional and asymmetric threats to Israel. We also support providing missile defense funding, as necessary and appropriate, to accelerate the co-development of missile defense systems, and increased bilateral cooperation on cyber, intelligence, and research and development for tunnel detection and mapping technologies,” the letter said.
US President Barack Obama was accused of giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu less respect than Iranian ayatollahs and the Israel was cited as an example of a place where walls work to keep out unwanted elements, as Republican presidential candidates invoked the Jewish state sparingly while sparring in a televised debate Tuesday night.Netanyahu envisions 'three more Israels' in Mideast, N. Africa?
“For goodness sake, there is only one pro-American free enterprise democracy in the Middle East, it is the State of Israel, we have a president that treats the prime minister of Israel with less respect than he gives the ayatollah in Iran so our allies in the region don’t trust us,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio said.
At the 33:00 minute mark, he then asked his audience: "Imagine a Middle East without Israel. What do you think would happen in our immediate vicinity? I'm the foreign minister so I have to be diplomatic," he answered. Netanyahu is currently also acting foreign minister.A conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu
"I'll leave it to your imagination. Now imagine a Middle East with three Israels: one in Afghanistan, one in Libya, one near Yemen. It'll be a far different situation. The support for Israel that I'm talking about. Well – the United States supports Israel to the tune of 3 billion a year.
"You spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a trillion and a half. So that's five centuries' worth of support for Israel… We're an ally that doesn't ask for any American troops… We can defend ourselves, we just want to have the tools. So I think the second thing in fighting Iran is getting Israel the tools to defend itself and deter Iran."
The third thing that needs to be done against the Iranian threat, he said, is to bring down its global terror network.
Joel Pollak: Netanyahu Charms 'Progressives' in Provocative Talk to Podesta Group
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charmed the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP) in an unusual talk on Tuesday that some on the left had protested vehemently.
“I’d like to talk to a progressive audience about progressive values,” Netanyahu said, and he did–even as he confronted tough questions about Israeli settlements, the future of the peace process, and his controversial statements about Arabs as Israelis voted earlier this year.
CAP, founded by former Clinton administration White House chief of staff John Podesta, has become the core of the left intelligentsia in Washington, D.C. Many of its staff have gone on to work in various Obama administration posts.
A few years ago, CAP bloggers drew accusations of antisemitism for their use of the term “Israel firster” to describe pro-Israel advocates, and for inflammatory rhetoric comparing Israel to the Jim Crow-era South.
Netanyahu: Leading Arab States Can Help Make Palestinian Peace
Recent changes in the Middle East have given “leading Arab countries” a major role to play in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today in remarks at the Center for American Progress.Netanyahu clarifies he does not support unilateral withdrawal from land
He made his point while explaining Israel’s need for a “long-term security presence” in the West Bank in any comprehensive peace deal. Netanyahu pointed out that after Israel withdrew from Gaza, the terrorist group Hamas took over and used the area to fire thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. “To avoid another Gaza, you need to make sure the Palestinian state is not committed to Israel’s destruction, that it recognizes Israel and does not seek to flood it with descendants of refugees,” he said. “What happens if things go awry? What happens if [the West Bank] is taken over the way Gaza’s been taken over?” Israel would need a long-term security presence to make sure that didn’t happen, but could not rely on international peacekeepers, who in recent years have abandoned their posts in the Golan Heights in the face of the Syrian Civil War.
It would therefore be the “right formula” for Israeli security forces to have freedom of operation in a demilitarized Palestinian state, similarly to how Germany and Japan were demilitarized as part of a post-war peace process. “Can this happen?” Netanyahu asked rhetorically. “I don’t think Palestinians will accept it by themselves, but because of regional change, it might be that leading Arab countries encourage Palestinian leadership to accept that kind of deal. If that happened, Israelis would go for it.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not "repeat the mistake" of a unilateral withdrawal from land, he wrote on Wednesday on his Facebook page, in response to an uproar on the right.Anti-Israel Bloggers Blast CAP After Netanyahu Speech
Ministers in the security cabinet called for Israel to unilaterally annex Area C of the West Bank Wednesday, in response to Netanyahu’s comments in Washington the night before that Israel could take unilateral action in the absence of any peace process.
"Unilateralism, I suppose that is possible, but it would have to meet Israeli security criteria,” Netanyahu said during an hour long interview at the Center for American Progress in Washington.
“It would require a broader international understanding than exists now,” Netanyahu said as he hinted that it could involve the cessation of some portions of Area C.
Left-wing bloggers slammed the Center for American Progress on Tuesday for hosting a speech by Benjamin Netanyahu, calling the think tank “disgusting” and “embarrassing.”Is Hillary Clinton a friend of Israel?
CAP’s decision to invite the Israeli prime minister drew criticism from anti-Israel activists as soon as it was announced earlier this month, but his actual speech on Tuesday prompted a fresh round of condemnation.
Left-wing critics of the event took to Twitter to blast CAP, the group’s president Neera Tanden, the “Israel lobby,” and Hillary Clinton.
“Netanyahu just had an open dialogue with a Clinton administration aspirant and three Israel lobbyists. The Democratic Party in a nutshell,” complained Max Blumenthal, the blogger whose father, Sidney, is a long-time Clinton confidante.
The younger Blumenthal also suggested that Clinton had a role in the invitation.
“CAP is essentially an arm of her campaign,” wrote Blumenthal.
Atlantic Council fellow Barbara Slavin also drew a connection to Clinton and panned the event’s moderator, Tanden, a former aide to the presidential candidate.
“[Tanden] was really pitiful. did #Hillary write the questions?” wrote Slavin.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote an op-ed for the liberal Jewish Newspaper the Forward. In the piece she pledges her continued friendship with the State of Israel, and to Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That pledge should raise the eyebrows of any fair-minded observer.Israeli leftists call on liberal US Jews to help fight the Right
If one looks at Hillary Clinton’s public history one finds a lifetime of anti-Israel positions. But wait some might say, Hillary was a big supporter of Israel when she was in the U.S. Senate. Indeed, she was. With the possible exception of the time from her first campaign New York’s Senate seat in 2000 to her resignation from the Senate to become Secretary of State in January 2009– except for the time she needed New York’s Jewish voting bloc, Hillary Clinton has never been pro-Israel. And when she held the position of Secretary of State, she helped Barack Obama craft his anti-Israel positions.
Even before her marriage to Bill, Hillary Clinton was opposing Israel and promoting the forces of terrorism. In his book American Evita on page 49, Christopher Anderson writes.
At a time when elements of the American Left embraced the Palestinian cause and condemned Israel, Hillary was telling friends that she was “sympathetic” to the terrorist organization and admired its flamboyant leader, Yasser Arafat. When Arafat made his famous appearance before the UN General Assembly in November 1974 wearing his revolutionary uniform and his holster on his hip, Bill “was outraged like everybody else,” said a Yale Law School classmate. But not Hillary, who tried to convince Bill that Arafat was a “freedom fighter” trying to free his people from their Israeli “oppressors.”
Two prominent Israeli leftists have appealed to like-minded liberal Americans to join forces with them to help the Israeli Left regain power, after a series of sound defeats in democratic elections - the latter of which occurred despite extensive support from foreign liberal donors.Radical cleric threatens to 'eliminate Jews from history'
Zionist Union/Labor MK Stav Shaffir and Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit were speaking at a plenary meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism last week, which they both used as a platform to attack the current Israeli government, and joined with Union of Reform Judaism President Eric Yoffie in calling on American Jews to be more vocal in criticizing Israel.
The biennial event saw a great deal of mutual back-slapping, as well as attacks on the current Israeli government. The panel even ended with a pre-recorded address by non other than Arab-Israeli MK Aymen Odeh, leader of the extreme anti-Zionist Joint List party.
In particular, the panelists called to "reclaim Zionism" from the hands of "right-wing" and "Ultra-Orthodox" Israelis.
Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib, the deputy leader of the radical Islamic Movement's northern branch, has warned Israel against outlawing his group, vowing that if it does so, the Muslims will “eliminate the Jews from history”.Nasrallah 'proud' that Netanyahu and Obama discussed Hezbollah in White House meeting
In an article published Monday in the Hamas-affiliated Palestine newspaper, Khatib declared that even if Israel implements what he called its "satanic ideas" about the Islamic Movement, it will not solve the problem it has with the Arab residents of Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and Gaza.
"This will be the final nail in the coffin of the Oslo Accords, because the Palestinian people are tired of all the false promises and visions and its volcano is exploding," warned Khatib, who emphasized that Israel's problem is not only with the Islamic Movement but with all Muslims around the world.
He noted that the leadership of the Islamic Movement does not fear imprisonment, death or being outlawed, because it is going the way of the “Muslim heroes” who withstood the hardest of all tests.
"If you do what you please, who can ensure you that Allah will not soon train and send the members of this generation to eliminate you from history and out of the geographical area?" Khatib said.
Nasrallah's comments, made at a televised speech to mark Hezbollah's Martyr's Day, apparently referred to the two leaders discussion of the war in Syria and the threats it poses to Israel.IsraellyCool: Mayor of London Boris Johnson, Kibbutznik
"We are enjoying security in the South due to the equation of deterrence in the face of the Israelis and the achievements that have been made against the takfiris (Sunni terrorists), and this has been reached through the blood of the martyrs," Lebanese news portal Naharnet quoted Nasrallah as saying.
"We rule out any imminent Israeli attack on Lebanon because Israel knows its high cost," Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah said the fact that Obama and Netanyahu discussed Hezbollah "means that we are in the correct place in the region's equation."
Yesterday social media (and Israellycool) was buzzing with the Israeli visit of the Lord Mayor of London in Tel Aviv. Boris Johnson’s photo biking with the mayor of Tel Aviv and experiencing Israeli hi-tech innovation seemed everywhere. Johnson is in Israel, he admits, for “purely commercial” reasons, to strengthen business and technology interests between Israel and London.London Mayor Boris Johnson : Jeremy Corbyn
After giving the Inaugural Annual Sir Winston Churchill Lecture at Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem, Johnson answered questions from the audience. Former Israeli ambassador to UK Daniel Taub introduced Johnson and acted as moderator. Taub mentioned Johnson had worked on a kibbutz as a young man. Johnson said proudly, 30 years ago he had been a kibbutznik. Maybe that is where he learned to kibbitz (talk) so well?
The lecture on Sir Winston Churchill (Churchill drank, but was never drunk on duty), a Zionist, who supported a Jewish homeland from the time of the Balfour Declaration, was followed by a question and answered period, also informative and entertaining. Notes and text and photos, just did not capture it, so I switched to video. the audience laughed out loud often and appreciated the pro-Israel and positive comments coming from Lord Mayor of London. “History is result of qualities of character,” he said, I’ll drink to that.
At Western Wall, London mayor affirms his Jewish ancestry
London Mayor Boris Johnson confirmed on Wednesday during a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem that he had Jewish ancestry.Boris attacks Palestinian ban on JC journalist
“Yes, I have Jews in my family from Moscow, some of them rabbis,” he told Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites. “That’s on my mother’s side.”
Johnson, 51, is Anglican and a member of the Conservative Party. His artist mother, Charlotte Johnson Wahl (née Fawcett), was from a family of liberal intellectuals, while his father, Stanley, was politically conservative.
Johnson appeared genuinely moved as he placed his right hand on the Western Wall and paused for a minute while photographers took pictures of him praying.
“It is a great privilege to come to this Wall for the first time in my life and I join the prayers for peace in Jerusalem,” he wrote in the visitors’ book, as Rabinowitz looked on.
A furore has erupted after Noga Tarnopolsky, a correspondent covering Boris Johnson's visit to Israel and Palestine for the JC, was told by the Palestine Business Women's Forum she was banned from attending a meeting with the London mayor because she is Israeli.Boris Johnson banned from Palestinian charity visit after branding Israel boycotters 'lefty academics'
Mr Johnson’s spokesman, Will Walden, said both he and the mayor were "exasperated" by the demand and felt they had made their disapproval clear to the Palestinian group.
Mr Johnson told Ms Tarnopolsky: "It's very sad that you can't come in. Obviously if we get in I will be raising it."
The ban was threatening to overshadow Mr Johnson's visit to the Palestinian territories on Wednesday.
Boris Johnson’s planned visit to a Palestinian charity has been cancelled after he criticised Israel boycotters as “left academics” who wear corduroy jackets.London mayor cuts West Bank trip short due to 'security risk' after pro-Israel remarks
The Mayor of London was told he would not be welcome at the Sharek Youth Forum in the West Bank, where he had been due to meet a group of young Palestinians this afternoon.
The charity’s spokesman said Mr Johnson's "inaccurate, misinformed, and disrespectful statement" regarding the boycott movement had been the reason his visit was blocked.
She told The Independent: "It is our conclusion, supported by the Palestinian youth that we represent, that he consciously denies the reality of the occupation that continues to oppress them and all Palestinians.
London mayor Boris Johnson cut short a visit to Palestinian territories in the West Bank, the Guardian reported Wednesday, due to security concerns following his comments in recent days concerning the Palestinian BDS movement against Israel.Britons See Israel as Key Mideast Ally; Only 1 in 9 Support Boycott
Johnson was due to meet with a Palestinian youth group, female businesswomen, and Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. Yet his invitation to two of the meetings was retracted following what they referred to as "inaccurate, misinformed, and disrespectful" remarks concerning BDS. His meeting with Hamdallah was expected to take place as scheduled.
The London mayor on Monday lashed out against Israel-boycotters, referring to them as a "a bunch of corduroy-jacketed lefty academics."
The majority of Britons see Israel as the UK’s premier ally among many of the dominant countries in the Middle East, a new poll by the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre revealed on Tuesday.Iran Halts Dismantling of Centrifuges After Parliamentarians Warn Rouhani Against Disobeying Khamenei
Some 52% of respondents said they saw Israel as a British ally, above Saudi Arabia (40%), Turkey (39%), Qatar (29%) and certainly Iran (6%). A full 59% of respondents believed Iran posted a threat to Israel and the UK.
Additionally, nearly half of respondents said they felt boycott or divestment from Israel, or sanctions on the Jewish state, were deleterious to both Israelis and Palestinians because the Palestinian economy relies on a robust Israeli economy at its side.
Some 43% of respondents agreed with the statement that they did not boycott products from Israel and could not understand why anybody would given everything else going on in the world. Only about 12% of respondents signaled that they boycotted Israeli goods.
The poll, called British Attitudes Toward Israel, also asked respondents questions about media coverage of Israel.
Some 62% of respondents said they felt the British media did not provide enough background or context when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and a strong majority of 70% said they felt the media chooses the most dramatic pictures even if they do not reflect the true story.
Iran has halted the dismantling of its centrifuges at two uranium enrichment plants, days after conservative lawmakers complained to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that the disassembly process was moving too quickly, Israeli daily nrg reported on Tuesday.U.S. to Help Iran Rebuild Nuclear Reactor
Last week, as part of its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran announced it had begun disassembling its inactive centrifuges at in Natanz and Fordow, but that process has apparently now been halted.
“The [dismantling] process stopped with a warning,” said Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council. He did not specify what he meant by “warning,” but Alireza Zakani, the head of the Iranian parliament’s nuclear deal commission, said that the dismantling had stopped in Fordow as a result of the lawmakers’ letter to Rouhani.
A group of 20 lawmakers wrote Rouhani last week complaining that the deactivation of centrifuges contradicted the directives given earlier this month by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei regarding Iran’s implementation of the JCPOA.
Khamenei’s orders were that the nuclear deal should only be implemented after allegations regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program cease.
The United States and other global powers are helping Iran to update and reconstruct a nuclear reactor that has been suspected of helping the Islamic Republic produce enough material for a potential nuclear weapon, according to regional reports and statements from the State Department.WhatsApp's 'priceless' response to BDS
The United States’ goal is to work with Iran to refit the reactor in such a way that it can no longer produce weapons grade material.
However, Iran maintains that the United States and other partner nations will soon provide “advanced equipment” for the reactor, which is located near the Iranian industrial city of Arak.
A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the Islamic Republic’s main nuclear regulator, said on Tuesday that the United States and several other nations would begin supplying Iran equipment so that it can modernize the nuclear reactor.
“Four countries of the [nuclear negotiating team] have accepted to cooperate with Iran in supplying advanced equipment for the (Arak) reactor and different other issues,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Iranian nuclear authority, said Tuesday.
Pro-Israel activists celebrated last week what they saw as a positive step in the fight against the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel.Mayor of Munich bars use of city rooms for anti-Israel BDS events
Social media was abuzz after Jan Koum, the co-founder of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp, commented Thursday on a Facebook post by pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, which attempted to demonstrate the "foolishness" of the BDS campaign.
The StandWithUs post included a photograph taken on Britain's renowned University of Oxford campus of an Apple laptop computer laden with pro-Palestinian and "Boycott Israeli Goods" stickers. On top of the computer a hand-written note is seen with a message pointing out Apple's use of certain Israeli technology.
"Hi there! Just thought you should know the flash-storage inside this computer was designed and built by Anobit, an Israeli technology company! If you don't want it any more, please pass it to the desk behind you," reads the letter.
Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that he will ban from city buildings events that seek to delegitimize Israel. The mayor allowed a BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] lecture against Israel to take place on Saturday in a city cultural center.Campus Group Gathers Testimonials From UC Jewish Students Experiencing Antisemitism
“I am of the view that the city of Munich in the future will no longer provide cost-free rooms for such events. I can’t as mayor accept city support for events like that which took place on Saturday, in which Israel and its citizens are exposed to sweeping and inappropriate allegations,” wrote Reiter by email.
He added that the anti-Israel BDS event is unacceptable to him because it “evokes the worst memories for our Jewish citizens,” apparently alluding to the Nazi boycott movement of Jewish businesses and the anti-Jewish incitement that led to the destruction of German Jewry.
The Nazi movement originated in Munich, the capital of the southern German state of Bavaria.
The campus antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative announced on Tuesday its new website, which chronicles student testimonials of antisemitism across the University of California school system.When Students Cheer Jihad
AMCHA said so far it has collected some 70 testimonials, setting off on the project at the behest of UC Jewish students concerned by the levels of antisemitism across the UCs. This includes verbal assaults and intimidation from activists in pro-Palestinian groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS).
The group noted that the testimonials it had already collected were part of a growing body of first-hand accounts of campus antisemitism, and students represented as UC Regents continued after their October meeting to develop a Statement Against Intolerance, which many hope will define antisemitism and condemn its manifestations across the campuses.
“We wanted to give [these students] a virtual hearing, an online platform, to communicate with decision-makers” at the UCs, said AMCHA co-founder and Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, who is also a professor of Hebrew at UC Santa Cruz.
Calling things by their right names is a prerequisite for seeing them as they really are. Last spring I spoke at more than half a dozen universities, including Ohio State and Stony Brook, where I was confronted by mobs of students cheering Hamas, a terrorist organization whose declared goal is the extermination of the Jews. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. On virtually every major university campus in America organizations exist whose leadership is dedicated to spreading the propaganda lies of Hamas designed to weaken and delegitimize the Israeli state, and promoting Hamas campaigns like Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) whose goal is its destruction.UJA President Honored For Supporting Israel Boycott
The two leading organizations in this terrorist proxy campaign are the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which poses as a cultural group but is really a recruiting tool for its founding group, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which was also created by a Brotherhood operative and takes an even more aggressive pro-terrorist role on campus defending Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and advancing its propaganda wars.
There are many ways to criticize Israeli policy, both reasonably and unreasonably. But what distinguishes these two groups is the relentless adherence of their members to the propaganda lines — and lies — of the terrorist organization Hamas, and their unwavering defense of Hamas’ aggressive wars against Israel and the Jews. A prominent slogan of SJP and MSA, chanted at ritual campus protests, is “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free.” The river is the Jordan, the eastern boundary of Israel, the sea is the Mediterranean, its western boundary. These groups are committed to the destruction of the Jewish state — an act of genocide.
It is true that some chapters of the Muslim Students Association, which is a sponsor of the Israel-hate fests called “Israeli Apartheid Week,” do not participate in these political activities. But name one of them who has dissociated itself from their hateful agendas.
Today, the left-wing Jewish Daily Forward released their annual Forward 50 list of the year's most notable and newsworthy Jews, and alongside American Pharoah, the Triple Crown-winning horse whose owner is an Egyptian-born Jew, the publication honored Alisa Doctoroff, President of UJA-Federation of New York.Kansas City JCC shooter sentenced to death
According to the Forward, Doctoroff “found her name in bold letters in an ad campaign threatened by right-wing activists. Her crime? Supporting the New Israel Fund, a liberal organization that funds civil society programs in Israel.”
The publication added that, “Doctoroff became the face of a struggle many liberal Jews in communal and public office have been confronted with this year, as their love for Israel has been put in question,” and that
“[d]espite the organized campaign aimed at Doctoroff, she went on to lead the New York federation despite pressure from pro-Israel groups to take a position against the nuclear deal with Iran. A wave of major federations had taken positions in opposition to the deal, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, despite a longstanding practice of federations not taking political stances, particularly on issues that split the Jewish community. New York’s federation stood firm, refusing to fall in line with the potentially divisive actions of its peers.”
Hence, the President of one of the largest American Jewish organizations was commended – and rewarded – for supporting The New Israel Fund, which supports a boycott of Israel, and for not opposing Iran, which Israel’s government says poses a mortal threat to the State of Israel.
The white supremacist who killed three people at two suburban Kansas City Jewish institutions has been sentenced to death.FBI Arrests Gang that Plotted to Attack Synagogues and Black Churches
F. Glenn Miller Jr., 74, was sentenced Tuesday by Johnson County District Judge Kelly Ryan, the Kansas City Star reported. Miller, who is also known as F. Glenn Cross, is only the second person sentenced to the death penalty since Kansas reinstated it in 1994, according to the Star.
In September, a jury found Miller guilty of capital murder and recommended the death penalty.
Miller was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder in the April 2014 deaths of Reat Underwood, 14, and his grandfather, William Corporon, 69, outside the Jewish Community Center of Kansas City in Overland Park, as well as Terri LaManno, 53, outside the Village Shalom assisted-living facility. None of the victims was Jewish, but Miller assumed they were when he shot them.
He also was found guilty of aggravated assault for pointing a shotgun at a woman and asking if she was Jewish, and of firing into the JCC.
A former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, Miller has been unapologetic about the shooting, in which he said he was trying to kill as many Jews as possible. During his trial, he waived the right to an attorney and argued the jury should find him not guilty because his shooting spree was a “patriotic attempt” to “defend my people against genocide.”
Thousands March Against Racism and Antisemitism in Poland, Carry Signs Saying ‘Hug a Jew’
Canine dogs and 15 police cars raided the home of one of the suspects, Ronald Beasley Chaney, and arrested him and his partner Robert Curtis Doyle. An accomplice, Charles Haldeman, also was arrested.
The FBI received a tip in late September that the two had scheduled a meeting to discuss a plot to bomber or shoot at Jews and blacks in houses of worship in Virginia and a gun dealer in Oklahoma. They had said they wanted to start a race war.
The FBI placed them under surveillance and used three undercover agents who agreed to sell them weapons and explosives.
Thousands of Poles took part in an anti-racism protest in Warsaw on Sunday, and many held signs saying “Hug a Jew,” in both Polish and English, Israeli news site nrg reported on Tuesday.OECD Growth Projections Higher for Israel, Lower for the World
Speaking from Warsaw’s infamous Umschlagplatz, Amnesty International [?] organizer Agata Kwiatoń told reporters, “Seventy-seven years ago hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to the death camp of Treblinka from this very spot.”
“They were murdered because of their religion and origin. Others were threatened with exile,” she said, according to Radio Poland.
The anti-racism protest mostly focused on criticism of what demonstrators perceive as growing Polish nationalism and hostility toward Syrian migrants and other foreigners. Some right-wing politicians have criticized Poland’s plan to accept 7,000 Syrian refugees over the next two years.
A further sharp downturn in emerging market economies and world trade has weakened global growth to around 2.9% this year – well below the long-run average – and is a source of uncertainty for near-term prospects, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Monday. Emerging market challenges, weak trade and concerns about potential output suggest higher downside risks and vulnerabilities compared with the OECD’s June Outlook.Israel’s Mobeego launches disposable smartphone charger
But in Israel, after a moderate pace in 2015, the OECD said economic growth is projected to pick up to around 3¼ per cent in 2016 and 2017. This increase in activity should keep unemployment low. A rise in the minimum wage, falling oil prices and budgetary measures to stimulate the economy will support domestic demand, while exports are likely to recover with the improvement in the global economy.
Presenting the Outlook in Paris, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said: “The slowdown in global trade and the continuing weakness in investment are deeply concerning. Robust trade and investment and stronger global growth should go hand in hand. G-20 leaders meeting in Antalya need to renew their efforts to secure strong, sustainable and balanced growth.”
For all of us who’ve experienced that sinking feeling as our phone battery edges toward the red zone when we’re nowhere near a working outlet, Israeli startup Mobeego has welcome news.London welcomes Mobileye road safety technology
On November 9, Mobeego announced a global launch of its disposable charger, which can power a smartphone or old mobile phone battery for up to four hours.
The $2.50 disposable charging unit, playfully designed in the shape of a tiny energy-drink can, connects to the phone via a $5 miniature adapter (for both Android and iOS phones) that you’d buy once and keep on your key ring or in your wallet. Each adapter comes with one free charging unit.
Mobeego says the charger is “designed as an inexpensive, simple, instant and environmentally friendly solution for continuous and worry-free use of smartphones, without the need to use a standard smartphone charger, pre-charge a charging unit, use a cable or find an available power outlet.”
Mayor of London Boris Johnson has welcomed the roll-out of Mobileye’s cutting edge life-saving technology to help improve road safety in England’s capital.
“It’s fantastic to see that cutting edge technology, such as Cycle Safety Shield developed by Mobileye in Israel, is being utilized to help make London’s roads safer,” said Johnson, during a trade mission to Israel.
Amey, one of the UK’s largest public and regulated services providers, will be equipping 200 refuse collection lorries with a system called Cycle Safety Shield, which helps drivers to be more aware of vulnerable road users. The system is supplied by UK company Safety Shield Systems – the UK provider of Mobileye Shield.
Cycle Safety Shield, which has been developed by the Israeli firm Mobileye, uses cameras and sensors to help drivers avoid collisions by detecting and warning of the presence of cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists. Mobileye technology incorporates strategically placed multi-vision ‘smart’ sensors, which act as a driver’s third eye and monitor blind spots around the vehicle. The system provides drivers with real-time visual and audible alerts as the risk of a collision increases.
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