Saturday, December 26, 2015

From Ian:

'There is no shame in being a strong nation'
Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, the original "Mr. Security," believes Israel's aerospace industries are at the top of their game • The volatile regional changes are tragic for the Arab world, but they will see Israel emerge stronger, he says.
At 90, Arens has a unique perspective on life, politics and Israel's future.
When looking to Israel's future, one must also look at its past, he says.
"And looking back we've made amazing progress," he says.
"The State of Israel was a country fighting for its life, a poor country, budgeting for every citizen. Today Israel is very strong militarily, and economically it's a rich country. That's nothing to be ashamed of. We're a high-tech state with robust exports.
"Between the [1948] War of Independence and the [1973] Yom Kippur War, we felt we were fighting for our lives. Until that glorious victory [in 1973] we were under the constant threat of an attack by an Arab coalition, and we needed 48 hours to call up the reserves and counter the attack. This threat no longer exists. The Arab armies are deterred. Some of them no longer exist, and we have peaceful relations with Egypt and Jordan, including close defense ties. No one can predict the future, but if we look at where we were and where we are today, there's definitely reason to be optimistic."
Lars Hedegaard: Jihad: "All the Fault of the West!"
As long as we in the West are not prepared to take Muslims at their word when they claim to be waging bloody jihad because it is their religious obligation, we have no chance of repelling the current onslaught on the West.
First to go will be the welfare states. Shrinking native populations cannot generate enough taxes to accommodate masses of immigrants with so few skills as to be effectively unemployable, or who do not want to contribute to "infidel" societies. Well before mid-century, the number of Muslims in Denmark will be large enough irreversibly to have changed the composition and character of the country.
In the United States, a House of Representatives bill, H. Res. 569, has been sponsored that would censor one of the few countries left with freedom of speech. The bill, in accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), would criminalize all criticism of Islam, worldwide.
Will Muslim non-integration spell the end of the secular state as we have known it? Probably. Religion – or more accurately, Islamic ideology, which knows no distinction between religion and politics – is on the ascendant.
Sorry Revisionists, Joseph and Mary were Jews, Herod was an Arab
The Roman Empire brought in Arab soldiers as mercenaries to slaughter much of the Jewish population. The slow collapse of the Empire made further Arab and eventually Arab Muslim invasions possible.
Trying to depict the Arabs as Jews and the Jews as Herod is Orwellian stuff when Herod was an Arab and Arab invaders have been terrorizing Jews in Israel since his day.
Joseph and Mary trying to visit Bethlehem would be at risk, not from Israeli soldiers who would be protecting them, but from Herod's Muslim kinfolk, who would try to kill them. If they tried to live in the area, they would be denounced as "settlers". Obama would demand that they leave, the EU would fund "human rights" activists to harass them and the media would dehumanize them.
That is the real outrage and the real apartheid.



Mordechai Kedar: Samir Kuntar's death is part of the battle for Syria
In today's Syria and Lebanon, it is enough to suspect someone in order to bring about his elimination, and that is, in all probability, what happened to Kuntar. The media have all decided that he was killed by Israel, but Israel has not admitted responsibility for the operation. Without doubt, there is much satisfaction in Israel at Kuntar's leaving this world, but that does not necessarily mean that it is Israel that brought it about. The scenario described above leads to the conclusion that Hezbollah was behind the operation, this in order to stop Kuntar's efforts to strengthen the Druze.
Hezbollah, of course, will not admit this openly, but there was a hint in the eulogy Nazrallah gave after the funeral. Nasrallah said that Kuntar was "the chief Lebanese prisoner in the Israeli enemy's prisons, oppositionaire, Jihad fighter and commander of Islamic opposition, Shaheed brother Samir el Kuntar." Continuing, Nasrallah called him "brother Samir," claiming that he was under constant threat from Israel after his release.
Calling a Druze by the term "shaheed" is artificial, as, in contrast to Islam, there is no such concept in Druze theology. It seems that the Nasrallah's public embrace of Kuntar is a coverup meant to hide the truth about who really eliminated Kuntar and why. Giving Israel the responsibility for the operation releases Hezbollah from that responsibility, while at the same time giving the organization an excuse to hit Israel. The three rockets launched at Nahariya were the immediate result and the IDF reacted with an artillery barrage. A Palestinian organization launched the rockets, but Nasrallah could easily have given them the command to do so. Hezbollah can chalk this up as a job well done: it reacted to Kuntar's murder but did not give Israel a reason to attack it. Why else would it allow Palestinian organizations to exist in Lebanon at all?
The real revenge on Israel will come later, as Nasrallah pledged, at the time and place that Hezbollah decides are appropriate. This same threatening expression was used after Imad Mugniyah's elimination in Damascus in 2008. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Watchdog Calls for Disciplinary Action Against UNRWA After Spokesman Demands BBC Use Words ‘Israeli Occupation’ in Report on Christmas
The group called on U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power to “take remedial measures against UNRWA and its spokesman Chris Gunness for engaging in partisan advocacy—breaching its neutrality promise under the 2015 UNRWA-U.S. Framework for Cooperation.”
The watchdog said Ambassador Power should also condemn UNRWA for violating UN resolutions that require the agency to provide humanitarian services in line with the principles of “neutrality and impartiality.”
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness made the demand on Thursday on Twitter, claiming an “amazing lack of context” in the BBC report, and alleging that it “needs correction.”
UN Watch blasted spokesman Gunness, saying he “notably did not ask BBC to mention murder, persecution and ethnic cleansing of Christians in Palestinian areas and throughout the Middle East, as documented before the UN in compelling testimony by Father Gabriel Naddaf, who noted that ‘Israel is the only Mideast country not persecuting Christians.'”
The watchdog said its statement was part of a sustained effort to hold UNRWA accountable for its anti-Israel advocacy. In October, the group released a report documenting at least 10 different UN staffers who used social media to incite racial hatred, antisemitism, and Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks against Israeli Jews. That same month UNRWA admitted that “in a number of cases” its employees were subjected to disciplinary action, and several were suspended.
When Extremism Isn’t Mainstream
One of the standard memes of press coverage of the Middle East is the conviction that extremists on both sides of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are mirror images of each other. In this formulation, often articulated by the Jewish left, Israel’s center-right government is somehow the moral equivalent of Palestinian terrorists. This is a false argument but it has been given credence by the reluctance of the Obama administration to acknowledge that the primary obstacle to a two-state solution has not been Israeli settlements but the refusal of the Palestinian Authority to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn. Despite the slander about Israeli intransigence, Netanyahu and his predecessors have all offered the Palestinians statehood but have been turned down every time. Yet even if we leave aside arguments about blame for failed negotiations, the most obvious difference between the two sides is in its attitude toward terrorism.
Recent events have made this even more easily understood.
In the last three months, the Palestinian Authority has done its best to incite and then to encourage the continuation of the so-called “stabbing intifada.” PA leader Mahmoud Abbas helped foment the unrest by repeating lies about Israel planning to harm the mosques on the Temple Mount. Having played the same card that led to anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1920s and 30s by speaking of preventing “stinking Jewish feet” from polluting holy places sacred to all three monotheistic religions, Abbas and the rest of the PA have praised those who acted on his suggestions and sought to murder Jews as “martyrs” and condemned the attempts by Israeli police and civilians to defend the victims as “extrajudicial executions” — a disingenuous slander that has been taken up by some gullible or malicious foreign governments. Hamas goes even further and not only endorses terror but is actively plotting mass murder on its own in order to undermine the rule of the PA and to harm Israelis.
But it is also true that there are instances of violence against Arabs by Jews. Most outrageously, an Arab family was murdered last summer in an arson attack on the West Bank village of Duma. Extremist Jews are believed to be behind the attack. This incident has been given enormous coverage throughout the world, especially in comparison to the often-paltry attention to the daily attacks on Jews.
But rather than illustrate the moral equivalence between the two sides, this sad chapter actually demonstrates just the opposite.
Suspect shot after targeting soldier in West Bank car ramming attack
There was a suspected car ramming terror attack at a checkpoint near the Palestinian West Bank village of Hawara on Saturday afternoon.
The suspect, who hit an IDF soldier in his twenties with his vehicle, was shot and and was being treated at the scene. Palestinian media reported that the suspect, Maher al-Gabi, 56, later died in hospital.
Magen David Adom evacuated the soldier to hospital and said he may have sustained a broken leg in the incident.
Palestinian shot dead after attempting to stab police officer in Jerusalem
A Palestinian would-be assailant was shot and killed in Jerusalem on Saturday after attempting to stab a police officer, Israeli authorities said.
No Israelis were hurt in the attempted attack.
According to police, officers became suspicious of the Palestinian who was wandering near Tzahal Square in the downtown section of the capital.
During a police search, the man allegedly pulled a knife and tried to stab one of the officers. One of the policeman shot the suspect in response.
Reports indicate that the assailant was a 26-year-old male from east Jerusalem.
Israeli Buses, Trains Targeted With Paint, Rocks in East Jerusalem, West Bank Attacks
Israeli public transportation vehicles were attacked by Arabs in east Jerusalem and the West Bank on Friday, in addition to an attempted car-ramming attack near the Israeli settlement of Ofra, also in the West Bank.
According to Israeli news website 0404 news, one bus was pelted with stones on the cross-West Bank Route 60 highway, near the Karmei Tzur settlement.
A few hours later, an iconic green Egged bus was attacked also near Karmei Tzur, this time with a bottle of white paint smashed on a passenger window.
And in east Jerusalem, the light rail came under a hail of stones in the mostly Arab Shuafat neighborhood of east Jerusalem. One of the train’s windows was smashed.
No casualties were reported in any of the incidents.
Israel slams CNN, CBS coverage of Jaffa Gate terror attack
Israel’s Government Press Office on Thursday sent letters to CNN and CBS censuring their media coverage of the Jaffa Gate stabbing on Wednesday and demanding explanations.
Two Palestinian men stabbed two Israelis outside Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday, before security forces opened fire and killed them. Rabbi Reuben Birmajer later died of wounds sustained in the stabbing. Also killed in the attack was Ofer Ben Ari, 46, who died after being mistakenly shot by police amid the chaos of the attack. Another Israeli was badly wounded in the terror attack.
In covering the attack, after the two Israelis succumbed to their injuries, CNN’s headline read: “Four die in violent stabbing at Jaffa Gate.” CBS, meanwhile, initially wrote: “2 Palestinians killed after stabbing attack in Jerusalem.” The headline was later changed to “2 Israelis dead after stabbing attack in Jerusalem; 2 Palestinian assailants killed.”
In a letter to CNN, GPO chief Nitzan Chen said he was “deeply concerned” by the headline.
Hezbollah reportedly pressed to avoid attacking Israel
The international community is urging Lebanese terror group Hezbollah to avoid attacking Israel in retribution for the killing of terrorist Samir Kuntar last week, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported Saturday.
The report in Al-Qabas quoted an unnamed European official who said foreign officials had warned Hezbollah that Israel appeared prepared to deal heavy blows to the group in both Lebanon and Syria in the event of an attack.
The source further claimed that Iran was also seeking to dissuade the group from any aggressive action, as a conflagration along the Israeli front with Lebanon and Syria could have unforeseen consequences in the already tumultuous region.
Kuntar’s death in an explosion of a building near Damascus is widely believed to have been carried out by Israel. Jerusalem has not confirmed that it was behind the attack, although officials have expressed satisfaction over Kuntar’s death. There have also been Israeli reports that Kuntar was planning fresh terror attacks against Israel.
Report: Hezbollah Lookouts at Israel’s Northern Border Dress as Shepherds, Farmers
While the Lebanese Army is plainly visible from the other side of Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah fighters tend to keep a much lower profile, Israel’s Walla reported on Friday.
According to the report, agents of Hezbollah tend to arrive on the border dressed as shepherds and regular farmers.
The northern border has been on alert since the assassination of Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze who served prison time in Israel for murdering a man and his four-year-old daughter on a Nahariya beach. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed Israeli aircraft killed Kuntar with precision-guided missiles, although Israeli officials have neither confirmed nor denied the report.
Kuntar, who was freed to Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2008 in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, was apparently helping Hezbollah set up networks on the Syrian side of the Golan.
Hezbollah has vowed to avenge his death.
Hezbollah Developing Naval Warfare Capacity, Arsenal Has 100,000 Rockets, Says Senior Israeli Defense Official
Hezbollah has more than 100,000 rockets in its arsenal, Israeli Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad told Israeli news website nrg in an exclusive interview on Friday.
Gilad, who is director of the Political-Military Affairs Bureau at the Israeli Defense Ministry, also told nrg that the Lebanese-based terrorist group has been building up its capacities for naval warfare, including acquiring Russian anti-ship P-800 Oniks missiles, also known as the Yakhont.
These missiles can be used against maritime and land targets, but also offshore gas rigs, said Gilad, a reference to Israel’s nascent and lucrative natural gas infrastructure.
Gilad said Hezbollah was uninterested in attacking Israel at the current time, both deterred by Israel and also bogged down in fighting on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war. There, Gilad said, the group has lost hundreds of fighters, echoing a recent Israeli report which suggested up to 1,500 Hezbollah fighters had already died in Syria.
“On the other hand, [Hezbollah] is determined to continue building its forces against us,” said Gilad.
Hamas Test Fires 12 Rockets into Sea
Hamas on Friday reportedly test fired 12 rockets from the central and southern Gaza Strip, launching the projectiles into Mediterranean Sea.
Earlier this month, Breitbart Jerusalem reported that Hamas in the Gaza Strip has been launching regular rocket tests and has been hard at work attempting to manufacture rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv. It has also shared its rocket-making capabilities with other terrorist organizations in the coastal enclave, according to security sources here familiar with the matter.
The fear is that Gaza’s Hamas rulers are deliberately aiding other jihadist groups so they can blame outside organizations for future rocket fire.
During the Israel-Gaza War of 2014, Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza fired dozens of rockets toward Tel Aviv and satellite cities. Some rockets fired by Hamas were manufactured inside the Gaza Strip. Others were reportedly Iran-provided Grad and Fajr rockets.
Separately, Palestinian Authority security officials told Breitbart Jerusalem earlier this month that Palestinian organizations in Gaza conduct five to ten rocket tests per week by firing projectiles into the Mediterranean Sea.
GRAPHIC VIDEO: Egyptian troops gun down Palestinian on beach who crossed Sinai-Gaza border
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were enraged on Saturday after Al Jazeera television aired footage of Egyptian soldiers shooting and killing a Palestinian man who had wandered into the Egypt side of the Rafah crossing through the beach.
In the clip, the man is seen entering the water along the Sinai-Gaza divide. After he steps a few meters into the Egyptian side, he is hit by live fire.
The victim has been identified as Ishak Khalil Hassan, 28, from the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun.
According to reports, Hassan was known to have suffered from mental and emotional disturbances.
Hamas slams Egypt for ‘executing’ mentally disabled Gazan
The Palestinian terror group Hamas on Saturday accused Egypt of “executing” a mentally ill man from the Gaza Strip who had entered Egyptian territory by sea.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since a bloody 2007 coup that ousted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, demanded that Cairo investigate the Friday night incident, Reuters reported.
“It is clearly a cold-blooded execution, committed in broad daylight,” a spokesman for Gaza’s interior ministry said. According to Reuters, the man had waded through the Mediterranean from Gaza and past a wire fence into Egyptian territory when he was shot by troops at a nearby watchtower.
A video of the alleged incident aired by the Al Jazeera network shows a naked man walking through the shallow water when he is hit by shots fired by someone fired off screen.
Islamic State head: ‘Palestine will be graveyard’ for Jews
The leader of the Islamic State terrorist group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, issued Saturday an explicit threat against Israel, the first such indication from the organization’s head that the Jewish state was on his agenda.
In an audio recording released on social media, al-Baghdadi warned that his forces will “soon meet [the Jews] in Palestine,” Israel’s Channel 2 television reported.
The terrorist group’s elusive head added that “Israel will pay a heavy price at the hands of our fighters,” the report said.
“Palestine will not be your land or your home,” al-Baghdadi continued, according to the Ynet news site. “It will be a graveyard for you. Allah has gathered you in Palestine so that the Muslims may kill you.”
“The Jews thought that we forgot about Palestine and diverted our attention from it. Never, Jews. We have not forgotten Palestine for a moment,” said al-Baghdadi.
“The leaders of the jihad fighters will surround you on a day you think is far, but we see it as close. We are coming closer to you day by day,” he concluded.
Mideast Christians face ‘apocalypse’ at hands of Islamic State, top UK cleric says
Anglican leader Justin Welby on Friday said Christians faced “elimination” in the Middle East by Islamic State jihadists, labeling the group a modern-day version of the tyrannical biblical king Herod.
IS has attacked Christians, Yazidis, Shiites and other minorities across the region, killing thousands and uprooting ancient communities from ancestral lands.
“They hate difference, whether it is Muslims who think differently, Yazidis or Christians, and because of them the Christians face elimination in the very region in which Christian faith began,” the archbishop of Canterbury said in his Christmas Day sermon.
“This apocalypse is defined by themselves and heralded only by the angel of death.”
UK Anti-Terror Cops Reveal Muslims Offer Almost No Help in Combatting Extremism
Muslims are boycotting Prevent, the British government’s anti-radicalisation programme, with community leaders accounting for less than a tenth of extremism tip-offs.
The vast majority of tip-offs are instead coming from public services, such as schools and hospitals, or the police.
The Times reports that although the figures include extremism of different varieties, including far right, they show the hostility in Muslim communities towards the so-called Prevent programme, and raise concerns that police are being denied information that could prevent terror attacks.
Earlier this month, the Waltham Forest Council of Mosques, which represents tens of thousands of worshippers in east London, said was boycotting the scheme, while Muslim leaders in neighbouring Newham accused the scheme of “spying on our young people”.
The Prevent programme aims to identify individuals at risk of radicalisation and sends them to support schemes. An essential part of the programme involves people reporting friends and neighbours they believe to be showing signs of extremism.
However, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) says that of 3,288 referrals in the first half of 2015, only 280 (8.6 per cent) were from local communities.
Security Sources: Paris Attacks Ringleader Abaaoud 'Visited UK Over The Summer'
The terrorist who led the bloody Paris terror attacks in November entered the UK on a fake passport to seek logistical support from jihadis in Britain just weeks before the atrocity was committed, according to reports.
It is claimed that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28, arrived in Kent on forged documents before travelling to London.
A senior source close to the investigation into the Paris attacks told The Sun newspaper that Mr Abaaoud had visited the UK on a false passport to leave no trace of his arrival or departure through UK immigration services.
It has sparked a major investigation in Europe and the US to determine how he was able to move freely despite his status as a wanted man.
A counter terrorism source told The Sun: “We believe those calls were made to discuss some aspect of logistics and finances with regards to the Paris attacks. We also think money and false or doctored documents swapped hands between Abaaoud and Brahim and their associates in Birmingham.
Brownshirts, sharia police and Germans
Genuine war refugees deserve compassion but we are entitled to expect protection from any viruses they may carry. That has always been the case. Once that might have meant a spell in a secure facility on North Head or Stradbroke Island [Australia] but these days ideological viruses are more dangerous.
Refugees should be tested for racism, violent antisemitism, terrorism sympathy or belief in global military conquest, either now or in the future. No religion, race or nationality should be exempted from this.
Those who exhibit dangerous viral traits should be deported. In time, education and good citizenship courses may develop that offer recovery and reform but until then no chances should be taken.
It is spurious to see racism in this policy. It is racist if you do.
Right now there is a controversy here because Australia's most senior security official phoned some prominent conservative politicians to ask them to be moderate in their language when talking about Islam and terrorism. He feared a security blast back of some sort or a drying up of sources.
You may choose to regard the religion as irrelevant if you wish. I do at one level. Nazism is nazism. The mindset and the grip of the ideology on the mind are the same. At most the religion is a vessel. It is the fleas that carry the plague and for them any rat will do.
Report: Assad offered to renew peace talks with Israel in 2012 - and was rebuffed
The lengthy report, which was authored by famed Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, cites Russian government sources as saying that the Kremlin had relayed an offer from Assad to the Israelis regarding a return to talks over the future of the Golan Heights.
The overtures from Damascus were part and parcel of an attempt by the Assad regime to gain vital intelligence assistance from the West in his quest to put down an insurgency led by radical Islamist groups including Islamic State and the al-Qaida-affiliated outfit Nusra Front.
Hersh reports that the United States military and the Assad government had nearly come to a tacit understanding according to which the Joint Chiefs of Staff would offer the Syrian regime intelligence regarding the activities of Islamist organizations.
In return, Assad would rein in Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, renew peace negotiations with Israel, and allow rival factions to participate in a free and fair election after the conclusion of the civil war.
The US intelligence was passed to the Syrian government by way of third party governments, including those of Germany, Israel, and Russia, according to Hersh.
Top Syrian rebel leader killed in air strike in Damascus suburb, sources say
The head of the most powerful Syrian insurgent group in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus was killed on Friday in a Russian air strike on the secret headquarters of his group, rebel sources said.
The Syrian army confirmed the death of Zahran Alloush, whose Jaysh al Islam grouping has thousands of fighters and is the biggest rebel faction in the area.
Several rebel group leaders have been killed since Russia launched its air campaign on Sept. 30 in support of President Bashar Assad, whose troops had suffered a series of setbacks in a civil war now nearing the end of its fifth year. No immediate comment was available from the Russian defense or foreign ministries.
Alloush's removal dealt a major blow to rebel control of the eastern rural suburbs of Damascus, known as al-Ghouta.
Jewish student at Brooklyn college told to ‘leave the school you Jew’
In an incident being investigated as a hate crime, a 24-year-old Jewish student at a Brooklyn college was assaulted on campus.
The student, who was wearing a kippah, was assaulted Wednesday evening at Medgar Evers College, JP Updates reported. The school is part of the City University of New York system and is located on the western edge of Crown Heights, a gentrifying neighborhood that has long been home to many Hasidic Jews, African Americans and Caribbean Americans.
According to JP Updates, the student was chatting in a hallways in the college’s Academic Building when an African-American man he did not know collided with him from behind and then punched the student in the head, face and stomach.
In response to the student asking why he had hit him, the alleged assailant said, “I don’t like white and Jewish boys, leave the school you Jew.” The man then fled the scene, exiting through the building’s main entrance. The victim did not require medical attention, Gothamist reported.
Students Supporting Israel: A Weekend With SJP
The first day of the conference was quiet. I was pleased that the national SJP members were being respectful and not inciting violence. However, things took a turn for the worse on Saturday, October 10th. As some of my colleagues walked around campus, they found that many of the conference attendees wore shirts displaying the phrase “Down with Israel”. The call for the destruction of the state of Israel is nothing new to the radical anti-Israel group. Throughout the second day of the conference, I was getting messages from students who were walking on campus with a Star of David necklace – a clear symbol of Jewish faith – stating that they were subjected to comments and snarls whenever they walked by SJP leaders attending the conference. On Saturday night, one of my SSI members had reported to me that SJP was marching in the street with Palestinian flags chanting anti-Israel slurs. It made her so uncomfortable that she no longer felt safe on her university campus. On Sunday, the beach cleanup brought together many different groups on campus to share a positive experience together and create light in the darkness of a war against anti-Semitism. A handful of beach cleanup attendees had worn t-shirts that showed their support with Israel and walked home after the event was over. On their way back, three members were harassed on separate accounts by SJP members yelling, “F*** Israel!” and following them for at least 20 feet while chanting anti-Israel slurs. In addition to that, on that Thursday afternoon, my home was egged. This was a strange coincidence considering the conference was just days earlier and Palestinian Day of Action was on October 13th, the day before this occurred.
In the aftermath of the conference, I reached out to my members, lending them a hand as they coped with the hate they experienced only to receive the message written above: “Sometimes I'm scared to admit that I'm Jewish.” Why is SDSU allowing these events that target and victimize students on campus to take place? In an educational setting, students should feel free to be who they are. Instead of providing students with the safe space they want and deserve on college campuses, they are met with synchronized chants calling for their demise.
Michael Danby: Doing “a job” on ex Ambassador Michael Oren
Later Oren returned to the dinner party some time later, ebullient that Ms McNeill was not as bad as her reputation and that she had given him five minutes. He was satisfied that he had been able to give some context to this controversial policy.
The transcript of Michael Oren’s interview with the ABC on Wednesday 9 December shows two of the three points on the ABC website and in the transcript were not broadcast. ‘Israel faces backlash from human rights group over house demolition policy’, only the point about the Supreme Court made by Michael Oren was incorporated into Ms McNeill’s broadcast. Not only was this context excluded, but the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem extensively juxtaposed with Ambassador Oren’s comments. As well as the terrorist’s family who was interviewed, protesting that “he was an innocent man.” Classic Sophie McNeill.
Ahron Shapiro’s profile “Should the ABC have given journalist Sophie McNeill the keys to its Jerusalem bureau?” warned about her modus operandi before her appointment. “McNeill said that the journalism she wanted to do was to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering” in a situation. Both the examples she offered referred to Palestinians….” Shapiro went in his analytical report: “ McNeill has acted on her self-proclaimed sympathy for the Palestinians by appearing on a panel at two pro-Palestinian events, including one sponsored by Palestinian groups and speaking alongside two other speakers who called for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the movement to sever all economic, educational and cultural ties with Israel…..”
“McNeill credits John Pilger as her inspiration when she was 15 for becoming a journalist….”
“Similarly, she sings the praises of Robert Fisk for showing her the ropes during her time reporting from Beirut…..” Shapiro reports.
“In 2011, in an interview with ANU’s Victoria Mason ahead of a lecture she gave at the university entitled “Reporting from Conflict Zones”, McNeill offered two examples of how she prefers to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering in a situation.” Tellingly, both examples she gave were Palestinians…..”
So what were you poor ABC consumers to expect?
Now you can 3D print your solar cells
Of all the hurdles to broad implementation of solar power across the world, one of the highest is cost. The most mainstream type of solar cell is photovoltaic (PV), made from expensive silicon wafers and silver paste.
Inventing a way to reduce the cost was a challenge taken on with relish by an Israeli quartet of semiconductor and optical technologies veterans. Their six-year-old company, Utilight, has developed a revolutionary technology for economical 3D laser printing of PV cells.
Solar cells made with Utilight’s patented PTP (Pattern Transfer Printing) method not only are priced realistically for mass manufacturing, but also are more efficient than conventionally made cells, says cofounder and CEO Giora Dishon, who holds a doctorate in material science.
This win-win product is now being tested by leading solar-cell manufacturers in China and Taiwan through a strategic partnership with Utilight.
Israeli biomed’s novel technology could cure diabetes
In people with type 1 diabetes, the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas don’t function properly. Daily injections or infusions of insulin are necessary to regulate energy-producing glucose absorption in all the body’s cells.
Doctors know how to implant type 1 patients with donor islets full of healthy beta cells, but they cannot keep the transplanted cells from failing within a matter of days. Unfortunately, half of all transplanted patients are back on insulin injections one year later, and 90 percent revert to insulin dependency within five years.
Israeli biotech company Betalin Therapeutics is developing an engineered micro-pancreas (EMP) that can sustain significant levels of glucose-regulated insulin secretion from transplanted beta cells.
If this tissue-engineering breakthrough proves effective in human trials, it has the potential to cure, rather than only control, type 1 and even severe forms of type 2 diabetes.
Drug for fatty liver disease in advanced studies
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is reportedly the most common liver condition in the developed world, affecting about 30 percent of that population. The only cure is dietary modifications and exercise, or at least regular resistance training, as a recent Israeli study found.
However, because few patients are willing or able to make radical lifestyle changes, several pharmaceutical companies are working to develop medical treatments for this growing problem estimated to carry a $76 billion healthcare price tag in the United States and Europe.
One of the most advanced pilot drugs under development is by Galmed Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Tel Aviv and New York. Galmed’s metabolic drug candidate Aramchol is formulated to treat non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis (NASH), a severe form of fatty liver disease associated with increased risk of liver cirrhosis, liver failure, hepatocellular cancer and metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.
“We are currently advancing toward our Phase IIb study — the most complex and one of the largest studies for this disease – involving 240 NASH patients in nine countries at 75 centers in Europe, the United States and Latin America,” says Galmed president and CEO Allen Baharaff. “This is important because it will be the first study that will have data from many different populations.”
Chinese consumers to get a taste of Israeli-flavored food tech
Israel’s next billion-dollar company finished off the 12 months of 2015 with its 12th acquisition in a single year.
Now joining the Frutarom family will be hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers, who use products made by Inventive, a Hong Kong-based flavorings manufacturer, which has a broad customer base among top global food and beverage makers in China.
Products using its flavorings are sold in China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America.
Frutarom paid $17 million, including the assumption of the acquired company’s debt, for full ownership of its new acquisition.
Along with the acquisition, Frutarom is set to open, in the coming weeks, its new Shanghai-based R&D center.
Israeli Scientists Find Clue to Cancer Prevention, Cure in Elephants
Israeli scientists have discovered a cancer-fighting gene in elephants which could be used to cure the disease in humans, Israel’s Channel 10 reported on Thursday.
Avi Schroeder, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, told Channel 10 about the find, explaining that elephants, whose physiology is similar to that of human beings, almost never develop cancer, due to a gene that immunizes them.
Schroeder’s colleague, Dr. Joshua D. Schiffman, a pediatric oncologist from Utah, researched elephant cells and discovered a protein called P-53 — also possessed by humans — that is the source of this immunization.
Schroeder noted that while the P-53 protein in humans and elephants “is completely identical,” there are 19 variants of it found in elephants. It is the variances, he said, which provide elephants with a higher level of protection than humans. And the key now is utilizing the properties of the “elephant” protein to immunize humans from the disease.


This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.



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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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