Friday, December 11, 2015
Folly at the Forum
The curious thing about the discourse on the Arab-Israeli conflict, in general and Israeli-Palestinian one, in particular, is that it does not matter how utterly unhinged what you have to say is, as long as you declare that you support the two-state principle. Once you utter the “magic password,” you are immediately welcomed into “polite society,” embraced by the “enlightened, erudite” bonton, and invited to participate in prestigious events to expound on your “progressive perspectives” – no matter how deluded/detached from reality they may be.Even Muslim Scholars Agree: Jerusalem Is Jewish
Intellectual inbreeding?
The recent Saban Forum in Washington provided prime examples of this pernicious perversity in what is, with a few exceptions, a cozy “Democratophilic” environment for intellectual inbreeding.
Take, for instance, the key note address by US Secretary of State John Kerry, never accused of being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Kerry addressed the esteemed Forum on December 5, focusing on the nuclear agreement with Iran and, of course, the pressing imperative for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On Iran, Kerry declared “... we aren’t making any assumptions about Iran’s future policies because we base our policy on observable facts, on actions that we can see...”
Strangely enough, this pronouncement was not received by hoots of derisive laughter or howls of indignant protest.
Not making any “assumptions,” Mr. Secretary?? Basing policy on observable facts, are we? Really? One can only wonder how closely you are, in fact, following the “observable facts.” I guess you must have missed the one about Iran’s November 21 “ballistic missile test in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions.” The missile, a “liquid-fueled missile with a 1,900-km. range... was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.” (Reuters, December 8)
Twice more this pattern repeated itself in later centuries, including during the 12th-century Crusades. Jerusalem briefly became the focus of jihad and religious longing – all because then-Muslim leader Salah a-Din needed to inflame his warriors against the Christian Crusaders.How UNRWA perpetuates Palestinian maximalism – Einat Wilf
The same thing is now happening once again. Until 100 years ago, Jerusalem remained way in the background for the Muslim world, but when Jews began returning to their homeland, Muslims again awoke and “remembered” the holy city as a pinnacle of its religious aspirations. Again, however, its interests are simply to rid the Middle East of Israel – as statements by current PA and Hamas leaders indicate.
It’s noteworthy that when the PLO was founded in 1964, its original charter did not even mention Jerusalem.
As Prof. Ziedan has told his Egyptian listeners, angering many Muslims in the process: “The religious aspect of the [Israeli-Arab] conflict is nonsense…. The only reason why Muslims insist on the sanctity of Jerusalem is simply politics.”
On a related note, just last week the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the unearthing of further evidence of Jewish history in Jerusalem – from many centuries before the founding of Islam. An impression of the royal seal of the biblical King Hezekiah, who reigned between 727–698 BCE, was discovered at the foot of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. On it is ancient Hebrew script reading, “Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz, king of Judah.” Other artifacts with Hebrew names were found together with it.
5 More Einat Wilf videos at UN Watch's YouTube channel.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: A human rights council worthy of the name
Instead of focusing on the perpetrators of gross human rights violations and working to protect the millions across the world that suffer, the U.N. Human Rights Council opts instead to single out the one country in a Middle East region that respects and defends human rights for all of its citizens — the democratic Jewish state of Israel. The council’s agenda contains a permanent item for criticism of Israel — a distinction no other country shares. Since 2006, the council has passed more than 61 resolutions and produced several mendacious reports alleging Israeli human rights abuses while virtually ignoring every other dire human rights situation in the world.Dropped for meeting Hamas, Rob Malley is now Obama’s ‘czar’ for tackling IS
The structure and composition of the U.N. Human Rights Council have made it subject to gross political manipulation while human rights protections around the world continue to regress, and all of this continues as the Obama administration has failed to win any substantive reforms. It has been nearly seven years, and it is clear that President Obama’s strategy of change from within at the council has been an abject failure, or human rights is so low on the president’s priority list that he’s unwilling to make the necessary effort — or both.
Mr. Obama must demand fundamental reforms of the body, or he must lead an effort to have it dissolved and replaced with a credible alternative. There is precedent for this already: The U.N. Commission on Human Rights, was disbanded in 2006 after being found to be morally bankrupt, reprehensible and completely lacking in credibility. We’re once again at that crossroads. Promoting and defending human rights worldwide is part and parcel of upholding not just America’s core values, but also our democratic commitments and our national security interests. On this Human Rights Day, it’s time for the president to finally demonstrate that the United States stands up for human rights by example and effort, and it must start at the U.N. Human Rights Council.
President Barack Obama’s new “ISIL czar,” Robert Malley, has a long and sometimes controversial history at the center of US policymaking in the Middle East. He’s now taking on one of the toughest jobs in Washington: getting the struggling campaign against Islamic State militants on track while Obama refuses to entertain any wholesale strategy change.Obama’s New 'Anti-Islamic State' Czar Advocated Funding Hamas Government
Nearly 25 years after they were students together at Harvard Law School, these days Obama and Malley cross paths mostly in the Situation Room, where Malley’s role is to ensure the countless US agencies fighting IS work in tandem despite differing time zones, capabilities, even views about the conflict. At stake is an extremist threat that has started exporting violence from Syria and Iraq deep into the West, raising fears that the US is losing a battle that Obama concedes will still be raging when he leaves office.
Elevated to the role with little fanfare in late November, Malley’s appointment reflected an attempt to show that when it comes to IS, Obama wasn’t leaving anything to chance. The White House said Malley will serve as counterpart to Brett McGurk, the State Department official tasked with outreach to some five-dozen countries contributing to Obama’s coalition.
For Malley, the promotion completed an unusual return to the highest echelon of government, seven years after a political stir over revelations he’d met with the militant group Hamas.
Malley penned a letter to The New York Times in May 2008 titled “A Resignation Explained.”Germany’s 'Mr. Hezbollah' to coordinate EU intelligence council
He claimed he distanced himself from Obama’s campaign “because it was becoming a distraction to me and to Senator Obama’s campaign, and to avoid any misperception — misrepresentation being the more accurate word — about the candidate’s position regarding the Islamist movement.”
Malley further stated that he had “never hidden the fact that I had meetings with Hamas” and said the encounters were arranged as “part of my job as Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group.”
The International Crisis Group is a small organization funded by George Soros’ Open Society Institute. The billionaire is also a member of Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees.
Malley did not simply hold meetings with Hamas. He also urged the international community to finance a Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Confirmed to 'Post': Germany’s top spy Gerhard Konrad to oversee the EU Intelligence Analysis and Situation Center in Brussels.Brazil diplomatically refusing Israel’s designated ambassador
Konrad earned the moniker “Mr. Hezbollah” within German intelligence circles because of his talks to secure prisoner swaps with the Lebanese-based terrorist group. Some accused Konrad of shedding his meditator’s neutrality in 2009 when he sealed a deal gaining the release of the bodies of two IDF reservists, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, for the freedom of five terrorists, including the child-murderer Samir Kuntar.
The Schalit process was a controversial process for Konrad. Fox News reported in late 2009 that an Israeli source close to the Netanyahu government and the Schalit talks said that Konrad “seems to be more favorable to Hamas, possibly because of Germany’s economic ties with Iran, known to be Hamas’s financial and ideological backer.”
Some critics of Konrad in Germany even coined the phrase “Mr. Hamas” to describe his pro-Hamas tendencies.
Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, however, sharply criticized Konrad at the time for siding with Israeli positions. Marzouk said Konrad had “endorsed the unfair and unjust positions of the Zionist government.”
The appointment of settler leader Dani Dayan as Israel’s new ambassador to Brazil, which was announced more than four months ago, has still not been approved by Brasilia, indicating that the Latin American country is unwilling to accept his nomination.Is Greece planning to recognize 'Palestine'?
On August 5, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tapped Dayan as Israel’s new ambassador to Brazil, the continent’s most populous country. The move garnered praise from many Israelis, even from left-wingers such as the Labor Party’s Shelly Yachimovich, despite Dayan’s senior positions in the Yesha Council, a committee representing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
However, some left-leaning Brazilians and Israelis — including a group of former senior diplomats — started lobbying the government in Brasilia against accepting Dayan, arguing such a move could be understood as tacit approval for Israel’s settlement enterprise. Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff reportedly informed Jerusalem that she disapproves of Dayan’s appointment.
The Greek Parliament is reportedly set to join a host of European countries that have recognized the “state of Palestine”.Why aren't the Arabs fighting ISIS?
A Greek news website, the Greek Reporter, reported on Thursday that a vote on the move is set for December 22.
According to the report, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias has already signed the decision according to which “Palestine” will be the official name of the Palestinian state, and a resolution draft is being prepared in collaboration with House Speaker Nikos Voutsis.
The news website further stated that recognition of “Palestine” will be held by the Greek Parliament and not by the Greek State, in order “not to disturb good relations with Israel,” according to the foreign ministry.
If Greece does indeed move to recognize “Palestine”, it will be the latest in a series of countries which have already done so.
Many have been puzzled at the way in which Arab members of the US-led coalition bombing Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq have quietly been ending their involvement, even as the West escalates its own.El Chapo versus Isis: Mexican drug baron calls Daesh 'sons of whores' in threatening new message (a fake story)
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are only running one mission against ISIS targets a month, a US official revealed to CNN earlier this week, while Bahrain stopped in the fall as did Jordan in August.
The change comes even as US President Barack Obama has breached his promises and deployed US Special Forces, and the UK, France and Germany are all starting to take a much wider role in the fight against ISIS.
Fawaz Gerges, a Middle Eastern Studies professor at the London School of Economics, told CNN on Thursday that a proxy war in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies on one side and Shi'ite Iran on the other is a key reason the Arab states are dropping out.
Saudi Arabia began leading a coalition of states including Egypt, Jordan and the UAE last year to oppose the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in their attempted conquest of Yemen.
FAKE: Snopes FALSE El Chapo Threatens ISISMelanie Phillips: Trumping Hitler
A Mexican blogger has released an message purportedly sent by infamous cartel boss Joaquín Guzmán to Islamic State (Isis) leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi via encrypted email. Guzmán is the head of the international Sinaloa cartel and is perhaps better known as 'El Chapo'.
Guzmán is currently on the run after escaping from maximum security prison in Mexico for a second time in July. His Sinola cartel is one of the biggest in the world, with operations in five continents. Guzmán was at one time included on the Forbes list of billionaires.
Daesh (IS) fighters have allegedly been destroying Sinaloa shipments, angering the cartel and its elusive leader.
According to cartelblog.com, the leaked email said: "You [ISIS] are not soldiers. You are nothing but lowly p*ssies. Your god cannot save you from the true terror that my men will levy at you if you continue to impact my operation.
"My men will destroy you. The world is not yours to dictate. I pity the next son of a wh*re that tries to interfere with the business of the Sinaloa Cartel. I will have their heart and tongue torn from them."
Both Trump and Le Pen are considered by Western elites to be beyond the pale. Trump is indeed a preposterous figure. His call to bar Muslims was not only ludicrous in practical terms but morally and politically illiterate, making no distinction between Islamic extremists and the millions of Muslims who live decent, unthreatening lives.JPost Editorial: No Trump
But calling Trump a fascist, a Nazi or “just like Hitler,” as many in the West have been doing, displays a mindset ranging from the historically cretinous to the maliciously perverse.
Fascism is a totalitarian slave-doctrine which deifies the state and its leader, is obsessed with racial purification and is hostile to modernity and reason. Hitler’s Nazism added genocide of the Jews to the brew.
Whatever Trump’s flaws, does anyone seriously suggest he wants to kill all Muslims and turn the US into a totalitarian state? And isn’t it more than a little illiberal, not to say incoherent, for people to demand he should be banned from Britain or Israel – on the grounds that he incites hatred by calling for people to be banned? Le Pen has tried strenuously but not altogether convincingly to distance herself from her father, Jean-Marie, whose hatred of Jews is unquestionable. Maybe she really is a fascist in democratic clothing, but her stated program to end all immigration, ban Islamist organizations and close radical mosques and expel foreign hate-preachers makes her merely an uncompromising nationalist.
What’s more, such arguments resonate with millions of non-fascist, decent folk.
Such people simply want to live in safety and security in countries reflecting their own values and where they can govern themselves.
There was probably nobody who breathed a bigger sigh of relief than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s announcement Thursday that he was canceling a planned visit to Israel later this month.Elliott Abrams: On Barring Muslims from Entering the United States
Trump’s abrupt about face after proudly announcing to followers last month that he would be going to show his support for Israel saved Netanyahu from possible embarrassment – for now.
Trump offered an explanation of his cancellation on Twitter, writing that “I have decided to postpone my trip to Israel and to schedule my meeting with @Netanyahu at a later date after I become President of the US.”
But following Trump’s odious proposal earlier this week to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and the resultant overwhelming condemnation from across the political spectrum in the US and abroad, a meeting and the photo-op and smiles that go with it between the race-baiting Trump and Netanyahu would have been disastrous for Israel’s image.
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” his campaign said.Trump’s Real Reason for Delaying Israel Trip: “Too Many Muslims for My Taste” (satire)
I thought it would be useful to consider who would be barred from entry into the United States by this proposition. Here are some examples.
–Twenty percent of the population of Israel.
–The King of Jordan, a close U.S. ally.
–92 percent of the population of Senegal, a country that is non-Arab and a close U.S. ally.
–Every member of the Muslim Students Network at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s alma mater, who come from another country.
–The Aga Khan, leader of the world’s 30 million Ismaili Muslims.
–Members of the British House of Commons and House of Lords who happen to be Muslims.
–The president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
–Salman Rushdie, the author against whom Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death fatwa.
Donald Trump has revealed that Israel’s “hellishly” large Muslim population and its leader’s “jihad appeasement” convinced him to nix his planned visit there, despite earlier tweeting that he was merely postponing the trip until after “I become President.”Dubai firm removes Donald Trump's name from luxury golf site
“After doing my research, I realized just how many ISIS-worshipping Muslims the supposedly ‘Jewish state’ has,” the GOP front-runner told FOX News. “20%! 20%! That’s like every U.S. Catholic actually being a Muslim, or, when you include all our Caucasian-raping illegal aliens, it’s as if the whole of California was Islamic. How’s that for mind-bogglingly nightmarish!”
“You know, I used to really admire Benjamin Netanyahu,” Trump continued, “but now I know he’s nothing but a terror-appeasing pussy.” Asked to elaborate on his newfound disdain for the right-leaning prime minister – who Trump endorsed before Israel’s March elections – the billionaire Republican U.S. Presidential candidate said, “a real leader would have deported all them freedom-hating ragheads by now.”
A Dubai real estate firm building a $6 billion golf complex with Donald Trump on Thursday stripped the property of his name and image amid a backlash over the US presidential candidate's proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.Borat: Trump is a Sacha Baron Cohen character
Trump triggered an international uproar when he made his comments in response to last week's deadly shootings in California by two Muslims who authorities said were radicalized.
DAMAC Properties had initially said it would stand by Trump, even as another of the billionaire's Middle East partners, the Lifestyle chain of department stores, halted sales of his "Trump Home" line on Wednesday in protest at his comments.
A spokesman for DAMAC Properties, Niall McLoughlin, declined to comment on why Trump's image had been removed from a billboard outside the project construction site, along with that of his daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is a Sacha Baron Cohen character, Sacha Baron Cohen character Borat Sagdiyev said Wednesday.European Executive's Ruling to label Israeli products is illegal
Baron Cohen made a guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live Wednesday night as the Kazakh journalist and TV star, reprising his role as the lead character in the 2006 film. It’s the first time in several years Cohen has played Borat.
“It only safe for me to come on during a festival of Hanukkah because the Jews are at home counting their chocolate moneys,” Borat said. Wednesday night was the fourth night of the eight-day Festival of Lights.
After laughing at Jimmy Kimmel’s name (“In Kazakhstan, ‘Kimmel’ meaning lady’s vajine and ‘Jimmy’ mean much hair,” Borat explained.), the Kazakh TV persona said he came to warn “the U.S. and A” that the “frivolous nincompoops Sacha Cohens” has returned.
Last week a delegation from Israel attended a special symposium held at the European Parliament to call attention to the recent European Commission notice ordering EU states to demand that special labels be put on Israeli products coming from Judea and Samaria, “East” Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.NGO Monitor: NGO Monitor at Danish Parliament: Examine the NGOs Being Funded
Bar Ilan University Law Professor Avi Bell, was a member of that symposium and was one of the people who made the case for Israel against the labeling rules.
“I explained to the the symposium about why this move is illegal under international law,” Bell told Arutz Sheva.
“The move discriminates against the products of only one country, namely Israel, and is therefore considered illegal by the rules set down in the World Trade Organization treaties.”
The EU has a parliament and an executive. The Parliament did not issue the ban, rather the executive did. Israel therefore went to make its claim in front of the European Parliament at a special symposium held for the discussion.
Bell explained that the European Commission avoided bringing its ruling to a vote by claiming that the issue is simply a matter of enforcing existing legislation protecting consumers from “false labels.”
Danish funds earmarked for humanitarian and development aid are transferred to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting very damaging anti-peace agendas, Shaun Sacks of NGO Monitor told Danish lawmakers Wednesday, at a special session in the Danish Parliament.The Jewish butterfly effect
Addressing the Foreign Affairs Committee and Foreign Policy Committee in Copenhagen, with representatives of three major Danish parties, Sacks explained how taxpayers' money aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was transferred through third parties to projects contradicting the stated objectives of the Danish government.
Over the years, Denmark's Parliament has passed motions calling for a negotiated solution based on the pre-1967 lines, the normalization of ties between Israeli and Arab countries, and an acceptance of Israel's right to peace and security. Despite this, as Sacks told the committees, Danish funds have sponsored organizations acting against normalization and supporting a one-state framework.
A new anti-Semitic startup is sweeping through Europe, distinguishing between "good Jews" and "colonialist Zionists" • Ridiculous as it is, many are willing to believe Israel should be blamed for all that ails the Middle East and the world.BDS: The Mossad’s missing target
The argument suggesting the current wave of terrorism stems from the stalled peace process and the Palestinians' plight has been reiterated by several world leaders. Most recently, it was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who said the root of the bloodshed in the Middle East is the Palestinian problem. Lavrov's motive was simple: Mother Russia wants to divert global attention away from the atrocities committed by Syrian President Bashar Assad, and protect its interests in the war-torn country, primarily its warm-water ports in Latakia and Tartus.
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom's hostile statements took things a step further, disrupting the logical link between cause and effect: Not only did she link Islamic State's killing spree in Paris to the Palestinian despair, she later alleged Israel executes Palestinian terrorists without trial. The distinguished minister, however, failed to decry the rapes, murders, church burnings or mosque bombings courtesy of Islamic State and its ilk, or the displacement of millions of people across the Middle East.
BDS follows this pattern, libeling Israel with the most preposterous crimes, and it does this in systematic, organized, and well financed methods that deploy many people in many places to steadily drip its poison in multiple hearts.Shmuley Boteach: The night Peter Beinart buried himself
That is what the Medieval Church, Czarist Russia and Nazi Germany did, all of which were not stopped in their tracks because the Jews thought their enemies’ darts were mere words.
BDS is a strategic threat to the Jewish state, and must be fought the way the Jews’ previous libelers were not. It should not be debated. It should be hounded. The Mossad should penetrate its gatherings, sabotage its plans, follow its money, track its leaders, and get them into trouble.
Yes, all this will have to be done legally and with America’s enlistment. But enlisted America will be, because Americans are sensible people and they will realize that the way jihadism libels them, BDS libels us, and the way jihadism’s libels just killed Americans, BDS’s will kill Jews.
Beinart, an unending, staunch critic yet self-proclaimed lover of the State of Israel, is the author of The Crisis of Zionism in which he most notably calls for a boycott of settlements in the West Bank.Daphne Anson: At Australia's National Students' Conference, Taunts of "Jew!" & "Ashkenazi Jew!"
One never knows what surprises a debate may contain.
In the past, with regard to terrorism committed against Israelis, Beinart has made statements that have downplayed Hamas’s crimes. Beinart has tried to be an optimist with regard to this genocidal organization and wrote in his book, “Hamas has in recent years issued several new documents, which are more compatible with a two-state solution.” This is in spite of the fact that Hamas’s stated goal in its charter is the murder of all Jews wherever they are found. During last year’s Gaza war, Beinart said, “I don’t think at all that Hamas is pursuing a strategy that is likely to increase civilian casualties by operating from urban areas.” Such comments are patently inane and deeply offensive.
Beinart also wrote an article against Elie Wiesel back in February in which he felt qualified to lecture the Nobel Prize winning author about human rights and Israeli democracy, accusing the Holocaust survivor of a “tendency to whitewash Jewish behavior.”
Beinart in the past has justified Palestinian terrorism as well. He recently said, “While we condemn Palestinian violence, we must recognize this painful truth: that Israeli policy has encouraged it... Hard as it is to say, the Israeli government is reaping what it has sowed.” Beinart believes we must try to understand the terrorists’ motivations underlying their homicidal intentions and try to see what we did to cause them to want to kill women and children.
A debate on “ethno cultural policy” at the National Union of Students (NUS) Conference on Wednesday nearly ended in violence after it was hijacked by an aggressive group of far-left student delegates.W.A. university apologises for lecturer’s antisemitic comments
The group had controversially put forward a motion that referred to Israel as “an apartheid state” and accused it of “ethnic cleansing”. It said that in the event of future hostilities between Israel and its neighbours, regardless of which side is at fault, “NUS will issue statements in solidarity with the Palestinian people” and “will take steps to enact, where practicable, a boycott of Israel”.
A conservative Palestinian student, a member of the Liberal [Conservatives] club, was due to speak against the motion, but was prevented from doing so when some of the far-Left delegates stormed the stage, stole the microphone from his hand and moved a gagging motion against his right to speak.
A number of NUS Delegates have also charged that proponents of the motion used gross racist language during the course of the melee.
“The supporters of the motion yelled the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Ashkenazi Jews’ as terms of abuse”, AUJS National Political Affairs Director, Julian Kowal said. “Their speech and behaviour was indistinguishable from that of the antisemitic fascist student unions of an earlier era.”
“Overt Anti-Semitism could not be expressed in more simple terms than using the term “Jew” with the intention to defame or insult another individual.”
The Vice-Chancellor of Notre Dame University in Fremantle has dissociated her institution from overt anti-Jewish comments made in a blog posting by academic Dr Sandra Nasr.How student activists turned anti-rape group into an anti-Israel group
Responding to a letter co-signed by Dr Colin Rubenstein and Jeremy Jones, respectively Executive Director and Director of International and of Community Affairs of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council , Professor Celia Hammond said that Nasr’s comments do not represent “in any way” the opinions of the university and were not “endorsed or sanctioned” by it.
Given that the comments were not only contentious but caused offence, she wrote the University was disappointed and that the institution apologised for them.
She concluded that “the University is addressing this issue with due seriousness in accordance with its relevant processes.”
In their letter, Rubenstein and Jones wrote that the posting by Dr Nasr, which appeared on, then was removed from, the website of the London School of Economics, contained a number of vicious slurs which amounted to racial and religious vilification.
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine hijacks No Red Tape groupReporter for the #Independent embarrases himself on Twitter
The phrase “All evil in the world must be traced to Israel” is how researcher Nurit Baytch perceptively characterized the propaganda tactics of anti-Israel activist Max Blumenthal.
It’s a phrase that increasingly characterizes the anti-Israel campus movement. Every real or perceived problem is either blamed on or connected to Israel.
The concerted effort to turn the Black Lives Matter movement into an anti-Israel movement has at its core the claim that Israel is the root of problems of non-whites in the United State. Thus, if a police chief somewhere attended a one-week anti-terrorism seminar in Israel years ago, every act of brutality by a cop on the beat is blamed on Israel. So too, Students for Justice in Palestine protesters in New York City even blamed high tuition on Zionists, leading to rebukes by administrators against such thinly-veiled anti-Semitism.
The Jew once again is made the source of all evil, the conspiratorial puppet-master controlling all and responsible for all. And Israel alone receives such treatment and is used as the link to connect all injustices in the world. That some of the worst perpetrators are Jewish progressives doesn’t change the nature of the attack.
Jay Michaelson in The Forward looks to the concept of “intersectionality” to understand why the students behind these seemingly attenuated connections view Israel as tied to everything:
Yesterday we posted about an article at The Independent on Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to Israel – Trump to visit controversial Jerusalem site, Israel PM Netanyahu, reports say, Dec. 11.The Baltimore Sun Goes 'Harry Potter' on Islamic Terrorism
(Trump, who’s been roundly condemned for racist statements about Muslims, later cancelled the visit.)
We focused our attention on the decision by the journalist, Massoud Hayoun, to seek comment on the row from anti-Israel extremist Ali Abunimah.
Following our post, we decided to tweet Hayoun and ask him why he thought that the views of an extremist like Abunimah were relevant in a row about Trump’s extremist position on US immigration.
In 1,189 words, The Sun article (The Sun is a Tribune company paper along with The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant and others) fails to mention a possible motive mentioned in other outlets: radical Islam. Somewhat astoundingly, the world “Islam” itself never makes an appearance in the lengthy piece that, on the jump page, runs under the headline “Authorities look for the shooters' motives.”BBC World Service misleads on Jewish immigration to Mandate Palestine
Another Tribune paper, The Los Angeles Times, carried the same dispatch (December 3,“Feds probe possible terrorism links in San Bernardino massacre”) as The Sun. While it similarly omitted the phrase “radical Islam,” or anything similar, it did—unlike The Sun—mention the word “jihad” and reported that investigators were looking into whether the couple was tied to terror groups like al-Qaeda—likely enabling readers to make the connection to Islamic terrorism.
Other words are used instead by The Baltimore Sun, such as “extremism,” “radicalized,” and “terror.” Despite this display of adjectives and verbs, Sun readers are not told what kind of extremism was being investigated as a possible motive or what sort of “radicalization” may have taken place. When the paper noted that “The FBI is chasing down leads foreign and domestic and looking for any evidence of radicalization and external actors,” it failed to detail what type of actors.
In fact, the only time the word “Islam” was mentioned was perhaps unavoidable when the article quoted the self-described civil rights group, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) on how the couple left their six-month old daughter with grandparents the morning of the massacre. Given the preceding failure to mention the word “Islam,” Sun readers may be left wondering why a CAIR spokesman was even quoted or relevant to the story.
However, during the course of the programme, listeners were inaccurately led to believe by presenter Mike Lanchin that British restrictions on Jewish immigration to mandate Palestine were only implemented after the Second World War.Hungarian Jews protest statue of WWII politician who drafted anti-Semitic laws
“In the years following the First World War the British had allowed mass Jewish immigration to Palestine, exacerbating tensions with the local Arab population. As the Second World War came to an end, tens of thousands of Jews were even more desperate to reach what many of them saw as the promised land. Zionist organisations helped them by hiring or buying boats to get there. But by that time, the British government – fearing further conflict in the region – was equally intent on stopping them.” [emphasis added]
In fact, of course, British-imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration by means of an annual quota began in 1922 – in the days of the first British High Commissioner. The Passfield White Paper of 1930 and the 1939 White Paper also produced policy which can in no way be described as allowing “mass Jewish immigration.”
Hungary's Jewish community protested against plans to erect a statue to a politician who played a role in drafting anti-Jewish laws during World War Two, saying on Thursday that it would bring back the "dark and menacing shadow of anti-Semitism".Dutch court acquits Muslim rapper who insulted Jews, gays
The row over a statue to Balint Homan, who served as minister of religion and education twice between 1932 and 1942, broke out as Hungary grapples with its anti-Semitic past and the role it played in the Holocaust despite a thriving Jewish culture.
The right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party last year faced accusations of whitewashing its past when it erected another statue in Budapest depicting Hungarians as victims of World War II.
A private foundation in Szekesfehervar, west of Budapest, wants to put up the statue in honor of Homan, a former historian and politician.
He was a member of Hungary's parliament representing Szekesfehervar between 1932 and 1944, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in concentration camps.
Dutch anti-discrimination activists urged their Justice Ministry to appeal the acquittal from hate speech charges of a Muslim rapper who sang of hating “f***ing Jews” more than Nazis and his disgust with gay people.4 Israeli startups sweep international medical app contest
The acquittal of Ismael Houllich on Tuesday by a criminal court in Breda was based on the judge’s impression that the rapper, better known by his stage name, Ismo, did not make offensive statements in a music video clip that formed the basis for his indictment last year by the city prosecutor’s office, the news site bndestem.nl reported Tuesday.
Filmed in Breda, the video for Ismo’s first single, “Eenmans” (or “One Man’s”), shows Ismo singing: “I hate those f***ing Jews more than the Nazis,” “don’t shake hands with faggots” and “don’t believe in anything but the Quran.”
Talkitt, an Israeli-made technology from VoiceITT that translates unintelligible pronunciation from any language into understandable speech won first prize in the fourth annual international Medica medical app competition in Dusseldorf on November 17, 2015.Israel’s Valens to get Emmy for go-to video tech
Medica is the world’s largest medical trade fair, attracting nearly 5,000 exhibitors from 70 nations.
The grand prize package included the newest Apple iPad and one exhibition visitor pass for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2016.
VoiceITT’s revolutionary Talkitt app to enable communication voice-translation technology for the disabled for people with ALS, autism, Parkinson’s disease and other speech-affecting disabilities also won the audience favorite award at a startup showcase at the Wall Street Journal’s live global technology conference a year ago. Talkitt’s numerous other accolades include the Verizon Powerful Answers Award in 2014.
Medica 2015 judges focused on the best medical apps for use in the daily routine of a doctor or in the hospital.
Israel is no stranger to the Emmy Awards, the honors given out to TV shows, actors, and writers for outstanding performances and ideas – and this year, the tradition will remain alive; Israelis will once again get an Emmy at this year’s awards on January 8.How a gay Iranian poet fleeing persecution ‘fell in love’ with Israel
That it’s one of those Emmys that are given out during the part of the show when no one is watching, at about 2:00 in the morning, is of no consequence; the truth is that without the video technology innovations of the winners, Hod Hasharon-based Valens, modern television broadcasting would be a lot harder to manage than it is now.
“The HDbaseT cable protocol we invented and popularized allows the transmission of high-quality uncompressed video, electricity, USB power, and just about everything else on a single cable of up to 100 meters, and that efficiency and neatness has made HDBaseT very popular in the TV business,” said Valens senior vice-president Micha Risling. “Just imagine how much messier TV studios would be without it.”
Payam Feili fled his native Iran last year because of the persecution he faced over his sexuality. Now, the gay poet has made a years-long dream come true — he is visiting Israel, Iran’s archenemy and a country known for its tolerance toward gays.Beauty queen, fencing champ, Akim volunteer. Diplomat?
But the 30-year-old Feili stands out not only because of his arrival in a country so at odds with his own, but because of his professed adoration for the state some Iranian leaders have dubbed a cancer and have called to be wiped off the map.
“I still can’t believe I am here,” the soft-spoken Feili said in Farsi, speaking through his translator and the friend who brought him to Israel, Adi Liberman.
“All the stupid and ridiculous threats the regime issues against Israel have never influenced me and will never influence me,” he said.
Feili, who has written nine books, many of them openly discussing homosexuality, escaped to Turkey last year when the Iranian government’s threats against him and his family became unbearable.
He is in Israel to see his latest novella, “I Will Grow, I Will Bear Fruit … Figs,” staged as a play in Hebrew in a Tel Aviv theater. While his always supportive family remains in Iran, he said he hopes to stay in Israel permanently.
Avigail Alfatov eats her pizza upside down and has funny hiccups. Her favorite food is falafel and she makes her face shine by wiping it with green tea bags.Moscow honors former refusenik Yosef Begun
How do we know this and, perhaps more important, why do we care?
Well, Alfatov is the reigning Miss Israel and is the country’s entry in the Miss Universe Pageant, which airs Dec. 20 on Fox. These are just a few of the fun facts listed on her contestant profile.
She is also a national fencing champion, would love to meet Michael Jordan and has volunteered with Akim, an organization that works with people suffering from intellectual disabilities.
It’s 7:30 a.m. and she’s on the phone with JTA from Las Vegas, where the pageant will be held. (Some activities, such as the swimsuit and evening gown competitions, begin Dec. 16; the grand finale is the Dec. 20 broadcast from Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.) Alfatov has just arrived from Israel; she’s tired and, as her handler points out, she’s a little nervous about her English skills. So our questioning starts with the easy stuff, her background.
“My parents were born in the Ukraine and came to Israel,” she says. “I was born in Israel. We are not very religious.”
They emigrated because “to be Jewish in other countries is not good, so they didn’t want me to be born in this place [Ukraine].”
At the annual Hanukka ceremony of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia at the Kremlin in Moscow on Tuesday night, Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar of Chabad presented the special Fiddler on the Roof Award to human rights activist and former refusenik Yosef Begun.
The award was given to mark “his outstanding contribution to the struggle of Soviet Jewry for the right to be Jewish, to observe Jewish traditions and facilitate Russian Jewish culture.”
The award, established in 2002, has become “the warmest Hanukka tradition of the Russian Jewish community, said FJCR president Alexander Boroda. “We feel our unity particularly strongly on this occasion.”
The prize, a statuette crafted by Israeli sculptor Frank Meisler, was presented in 2009 to Natan Sharansky, famed human rights activist and current head of the Jewish Agency.
