Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Bret Stephens (WSJ): The Anti-Israel Money Trail
SJP’s self-declared goal is to end Israel’s “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” while “promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.” That’s another way of saying destroying the Jewish state.Obama's view of reality
Yet as prominent as SJP and the wider BDS movement have become, less is known about the sources of their funding. That changed last week after testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee by Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Mr. Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official and terrorism-finance expert, notes in his testimony that a prominent backer of SJP and like-minded groups is an organization called American Muslims for Palestine, based in Palos Hills, Ill., and led by UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian, who also happens to be one of SJP’s founders. AMP claimed to have spent $100,000 on anti-Israel campus activities in 2014, including to SJP. An AMP conference that year at a Chicago Hyatt invited participants to “come and navigate the fine line between legal activism and material support for terrorism.”
FDD discovered that many of AMP’s leading members were previously active in some dubious former charities. The most prominent, the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation For Relief and Development, was shut down in 2001 by the federal government for providing millions in funds to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas; five Holy Land officials eventually were convicted to prison terms and two others fled the country.
Today, AMP’s leaders include at least three Holy Land alumni. One of them is Milwaukee furniture salesman Salah Sarsour, who last year told Al Jazeera that an AMP conference he chaired “aims to keep up with and support the Palestinian people’s continuous intifada.”
Truth be told, Obama is living in a movie we all want a part in. In this movie of his everyone is the good guy, everyone loves one another, and most importantly everyone has really good health insurance. Obama's reality is precisely like the health insurance reforms he forced on Americans: In theory everything is wonderful, but in real life it's not all that great. Maybe this is why 83 senators asked to increase defense aid to Israel -- because the world isn't becoming a safer place, even if Attila the Hun isn't around anymore.Don’t Protect Terror Sponsors
Obama has a tendency to build high hopes. Remember the hullabaloo over his Cairo speech? Remember what happened afterward? It's possible that Obama's words from Hannover on Monday managed to snap even Hosni Mubarak to his feet. Over 80 million Egyptians truly can't recall such tranquility.
The truth is that Obama is a president with exceptional capabilities. He has even managed to jar the mythically unflappable Brits. The American president's intervention in the country's internal politics, by calling on British citizens to vote against leaving the EU, has not only incensed the Brits but according to polls has increased the number of those who favor such an exit.
Some 400,000 Syrians have been slaughtered in their own country. Not since the Second World War has Europe been flooded with so many refugees and migrants. Also not since that war has the radical right in Europe posed such a challenge. The threat of terror has never been as tangible as the threat posed by Islamic State today. And the stagnation presently threatening European markets has never been worse.
But not to worry, although we may be on the precipice of the abyss in many places across the globe, next year, heaven forbid, we could take that large step forward -- among other things, because of Obama's legacy.
It is true that other countries might respond in kind to the United States, though most respectable countries would have far more to lose than gain from such actions, and the United States can afford to ignore less than respectable countries, think the Zimbabwes, Venezuelas, and North Koreas of the world. At the same time, it is worth considering the opposite: What is the cost of not holding to account those who perpetrated or facilitated an attack in the heart of New York City?
This was a conundrum at the heart of “Sovereignty Solution,” a book co-authored by Anna Simons, Joe McGraw, and Duane Lauchengco. They proposed generally that governments should be responsible for their citizens and note that sovereignty is both an honor and a responsibility. When a citizen of a country perpetrates an attack, then that country has a choice: shield its citizen or hold them to account. If a Belgian citizen sought to strike at the United States, Brussels would likely cooperate with the United States to bring that person to justice, even waiving diplomatic immunity if need be. When Iranian or Saudi elements sponsor terrorism, Tehran and Riyadh should have the same choice: Join with the United States to bring the perpetrators to account or shield them. If the latter, then the government of the country should assume responsibility. Sovereignty Solution is, of course, far more complicated but it really has been one of the most insightful and provocative books on statecraft of the decade
In the Supreme Court victory for victims of terrorism and their families over the Islamic Republic of Iran, the court deferred to Congress. Perhaps Congress and, more broadly, the White House should then work more to protect and advocate for American victims of terror rather than for those who shield the terrorists. If a country does not want to risk the consequences of its citizens attacking the United States, then it should damned sure put mechanisms in place to make sure that the money is expends on radicalism isn’t used for that purpose and that it doesn’t distribute diplomatic passports without recognition of the consequence of their recipients engaging in an act of war.
The United States should not treat Saudi Arabia unfairly, but if Saudi Arabia truly did wish to be an ally, it would recognize that it is their responsibility to bring to justice those of its employees or civil servants who contributed materially or in services to that fateful day.
Danny Danon: Israel's U.N. ambassador: Direct diplomacy is the only way to peace
Since his reelection in 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has extended himself further than any previous Israeli leader in his pursuit of direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. He enacted a controversial construction freeze in Judea and Samaria and released dozens of convicted murderers, all in the hope of convincing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate with him.French toast
Abbas, however, continually tosses out new preconditions to agreeing merely to talk. He has met face to face with Netanyahu for only six hours since 2009. While Abbas recently hinted in a TV interview that he would be willing to meet the prime minister, he has spent the intervening weeks pushing forward a Security Council resolution to condemn us and jetting around Europe to garner support for international initiatives. All the while, his Palestinian Authority continues to pay stipends to the family members of terrorists and to incite further violence against Israel on its official TV channels. These are not the actions of someone who is serious about peace.
Our peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, which have weathered years of upheaval in the Middle East, have proved that bitter enemies can settle their differences if they sit down to talk. Direct negotiations cannot be replaced by international conferences, presidential speeches, or even U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Peace will come only when the Palestinians recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate partner for direct negotiations to resolve this conflict.
It comes as no surprise that the honchos in Ramallah are welcoming the French initiative to hold a summit of world foreign ministers to discuss and plan an international Israeli-Palestinian peace conference.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas faces heat for UN resolution wavering
The Palestinian Authority knows full well that "peace" is a euphemism for complete Israeli capitulation to Palestinian demands, with nothing but bloodshed in return. Indeed, if PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen were actually interested in bringing about an end to conflict with Israel, they could do so in a split second -- you know, by putting a stop to their own behavior. This includes, but is not restricted to, glorifying and funding the families of terrorists, particularly those who die for the cause in the process of killing Jews.
Contrary to what those who are either not paying attention or who hate the Jewish state for their own reasons may believe, Abbas' ultimate goal is neither peace nor its companion misnomer, a "two-state solution." No, his aim is to retain an international stamp of legitimacy as a world leader, to protect him from assassination on the one hand and oblivion on the other, and to keep the dollars and euros flowing.
Palestinian statehood is therefore not in his interest. But pretending to strive for it while portraying himself and his people as victims of Israeli "occupation" and "brutality" is what he's really after. Meanwhile, he benefits from the West's ostrich syndrome -- the very phenomenon responsible for the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the greatest state sponsor of global terrorism; the one that keeps Palestinian murder machines like Hezbollah in clover. And armed to the teeth.
On Monday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is visiting New York, was blasted by his own political allies when it emerged that he is leaning towards shelving the Palestinian effort to secure a UN Security Council resolution condemning and declaring as illegal the ongoing construction in Israeli West Bank communities, at the behest of France, that hopes to convene its own Israeli-Palestinian peace summit this summer.Closing the UN Palestinian Propaganda Committee
Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials have told numerous local media outlets that the French government has demanded that the Palestinian delegation stand down so as not to sabotage its own efforts.
“The opportunity to go to the Security Council will always be there and we want to give a chance to the French initiative because, in the end, this is an initiative that serves us and not one that hurts us,” one Palestinian official told the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Another setback, the third in two weeks, has provoked expressions of frustration form Abbas supporters in Ramallah, who fear their hands are tied as a long, hot summer recess looms and as issues such as the ongoing killing in Syria and the refugee crisis in Europe have overshadowed Palestinian demands in the international arena.
Until Monday, despite hints of official wavering, Palestinian diplomats continued to assure Western diplomats and the international media that the demand for a vote on the Palestinian resolution was not in question. The confusion is such that Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki, in New York with Abbas, confirmed the Haaretz report one day after his office in Ramallah denied it.
The political war against the legitimacy of Israel and the Jewish state continues in many forms, including through the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of Palestinian People (CEIRPP). This attack was launched in the General Assembly on November 10, 1975, as part of the same package that brought us the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution (UNGA 3379). But while the fiasco of UNGA 3379 was repealed in 1991, CEIRPP (UNGA 3376) was ignored and continues to fuel the conflict through incitement and propaganda.Sykes-Picot and the Golan
If the UN and its member states want to get serious about seeking a negotiated end to this conflict, the elimination of CEIRPP would be a good place to begin.
Officially hosted by the UN, most of CEIRPP’s activities feature a network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that exploit human rights for political warfare and demonization. The latest CEIRPP event (April 27) focuses on “the situation of Palestinian child detainees,” featuring speakers from Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCI-PS) and Sarah Leah Whitson from Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The three organizations, accompanied by Israeli opposition NGOs such as B’Tselem and Adalah, have been running a campaign that exploits the theme of Palestinian children in order to demonize Israel. On April 11, HRW began a major media blitz around this theme, via a publication headlined “Palestine: Israeli Police Abusing Detained Children,” which alleges that “Israeli security forces are using unnecessary force in arresting and detaining children, in some cases beating them, and holding them in unsafe and abusive conditions.” In parallel, Sari Bashi, who joined HRW after years at an Israeli opposition NGO that she founded, embarked on an aggressive sales campaign among Israel-based journalists and diplomats.
The original Sykes-Picot Agreement was approved and expanded upon at the San Remo conference in 1920. British pressure led to this approval also covering the Balfour Declaration, but the matter of final borders was not determined, due to the consequences for the Golan Heights. At the end of World War I, the Zionist movement claimed territory up to the Litani River (in current-day Lebanon) and the area where the sources of the Jordan River are located. Originally, the Upper Galilee region was supposed to fall under French control, but in 1924 the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine was expanded northward, largely due to the establishment of the Jewish settlements of Metulla, Tel Hai and Kfar Giladi in what is now known as the Galilee panhandle. However, the Litani River, the sources of the Jordan River, Mount Hermon, most of the Golan Heights (up to 10 meters from the Sea of Galilee shoreline) and the Banias River remained under French control (and later became part of Syria).UN Security Council to rule on Golan claims
This situation lasted until the Six-Day War in 1967, when the status of the Golan Heights was restored to what it was supposed to have been according to the original agreement.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement is today a sensitive matter, not only because of the future of the Golan Heights, but due to the fact that most of the countries whose borders were artificially delineated by the agreement have collapsed into pieces along tribal and religious lines. What is going on in these countries now and in the coming years will have a huge impact on the region, Europe and perhaps even America. From our perspective in Israel, the greatest impact will be on our security.
Egypt, which currently holds a seat as a non-permanent member on the United Nations Security Council, has called a meeting of the international body to discuss last week’s declaration by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that “the Golan Heights will always remain under Israeli control. Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights.”‘Israel boycott halted security deal that could have foiled Paris attacks’
The statement touched off a firestorm of criticism, leading to condemnations from the European Union, Germany, and US State Department. The Arab League went a step further, demanding a special criminal court be established to try Israel for the declaration.
On Tuesday the Egyptian Mission to the UN convened a meeting of the Security Council to formally respond to what Egypt claims is Israel’s illegal unilateral actions.
The Golan Heights were captured by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. In 1981 the Israeli government annexed the Heights in a move that was quickly condemned by the US and United Nations.
An alleged boycott of Israeli technology may have prevented an airport security deal offered to France after the deadly Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attacks in January, 2015. Use of the Israeli terrorist-tracking technology could possibly have thwarted the subsequent Islamic State terror attacks in Paris and Belgium.The Phenomenon of Jewish Self-Hatred
According to an Israeli security source who spoke to Fox News on Monday, an Israeli security company offered terrorist-tracking software to the Directorate-General for Internal Security, France’s main intelligence agency — software that could have helped flag the deadly IS terror cell that perpetrated the attacks in Paris last November and in Belgium last month. But the offer was rebuffed allegedly after an official made clear that Israeli technology could not be purchased, the source said. The agency did not officially state a reason for the rejection.
The software, according to the Fox News report, finds and matches up intelligence reports from a number of different databases, both national and international. The tool could have helped counter-terror agents track suspects in real time.
“French authorities liked it, but the official came back and said there was a higher-level instruction not to buy Israeli technology,” the Israeli counter-terror specialist told FoxNews.com. “The discussion just stopped.” (h/t Elder of Lobby )
Jews have always had to endure antisemitism, which has made us particularly defensive and guarded in the face of persecution and discrimination. Throughout history, some Jews opted to find a way to ease their lives by abandoning their faith and their people. Albert Einstein is alleged to have said, “The reason we Jews survive is that the cowards leave us.” Indeed, millions of people born Jewish were unable to carry this “burden,” and converted to other religions. Sadly, some of these people have become the most vicious enemies of the Jewish people, and now, the Jewish state of Israel.NUS President Malia Bouattia’s on Christians, Yazidis and Jews
The term “Jewish self-hatred” was coined by a German Jew named Theodore Lessing, whose 1930 book was titled Juedischer Selbsthass (Jewish self-hatred). It was ostensibly directed at anti-Zionist Jewish academics. Lessing, a philosopher and an advocate of Zionism, had converted to Christianity, but returned to Judaism after reading Zionist anti-assimilationist literature.
Many self-hating Jews, however, have not returned to the fold.
Take the cases of Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky, both of them academics. These two participate in the most viciously anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic gatherings. They are used by Islamists and leftist radicals, as well as Holocaust deniers, as shields to justify their hatred for Jews and Israel. They also support the BDS movement.
Malia Bouattia’s article for The Guardian is one of the most dishonest pieces I have ever read. It would have been better for her not to have written it all.Israeli, US university heads combat BDS calls for academic boycotts
She begins:
This week I became the first black woman to be elected president of the National Union of Students, and the first Muslim who will hold this position too. But instead of celebrating and publicising this incredible landmark, the media coverage has been cluttered with stories calling me a racist, an antisemite, an Islamic State sympathiser and more.
It is tempting to start a tangential discussion about whether a woman whose skin is as light as most Jews, Berbers and Arabs from the region can plausibly be considered “black”. Many will reasonably see Malia as a white woman who replaced another white woman as NUS President. For me at least, Malia’s blackness is comparable to Ali G’s is it coz I iz black shtick.
Celebrate me! Publicise me! I’m an incredible landmark!
Malia clearly expects that her religion, ethnicity and gender entitle her to praise. In a way, it’s sad to see that she undervalues herself by thinking these identity factors define her as a person more than her character does. This is reason to pity her, not to praise her.
In a significant blow to Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), the presidents of Israeli universities have enlisted the aid of their US counterparts to fight back against calls for the academic boycott of Israeli institutions.Labour MP: Israelis Should Face “Transportation” Out of Middle East
Leading universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT, University of Chicago and the ten campuses of the University of California all released statements re-affirming their opposition to academic boycotts and in solidarity with Israeli higher academic institutions.
Prof. Peretz Lavie, president of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and head of the Association of University Heads in Israel (VERA) and Prof. Rivka Carmi, president of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in collaboration with the efforts of Prof. Zvi Ziegler, head of the forum to counter future academic boycotts against Israel established by VERA, penned letters earlier this month to their US university counterparts urging them to make public statements opposing the call for a boycott.
“Those who did not want to open the door for us got us through the window. The Association of University Heads is determined to do everything possible to combat this spreading phenomenon,” Lavie said.
A Labour MP has argued Israel should be “relocated” to America and praised the “transportation costs” of deporting Israeli Jews out of the Middle East. Naz Shah, who defeated George Galloway in Bradford West, shared a highly inflammatory graphic arguing in favour of the chilling “transportation” policy two years ago, adding the words “problem solved”. As these stories go, it is at the more controversial end of the scale…
The post argued the “solution” to the Israel-Palestine conflict is to “relocate Israel into the United States”, claiming the “transportation costs” of deporting Israelis would be “less than 3 years of defense spending”. Shah agreed, arguing it would “save them some pocket money“. You don’t have to be a history expert to see how incendiary these comments are…
Last night Shah confirmed to Guido that she was responsible for the posts. She says she is sorry and will be making a full apology in a statement, which has yet to arrive. She insists the comments were made before she was an MP and says her views on Israel have moderated over the last two years. This will be a difficult one for Corbyn – Labour members have been suspended from the party for less…
Naz Shah’s vision for the Middle East
Let’s look a bit more closely at some of the ‘highlights’ – or rather lowlights – of this ‘humorous’ proposal. Here they are in full.Labour MP quits post, apologizes after saying Israel should relocate
HIGHLIGHTS
- Israelis are most loved by Americans.
- Americans will welcome Israelis with open arms into their homes.
- America has plenty of land to accommodate Israel as its 51st state.
- Israel can have a real safe Jewish state surrounded by friendly states.
- America will no longer have to spend $3 billion tax payer money per year for Israel’s defense.
- The transportation cost will be less than 3 years of defense spending.
- Palestinians will get their land and life back.
- Middle East will again be peaceful without foreign interference.
- Oil prices will go down, inflation will go down, WHOLE WORLD WILL BE HAPPY
‘Apartheid’ is an accusation often levelled at Israel. Now, although this isn’t the most murderous and obviously hateful anti-Israel graphic, it promotes an apartheid agenda of its own, implying that only Israel’s Jewish citizens would be transported to the US, leaving all Palestinians to ‘get their land and their life back’. Jewish ties to the region – and about half of Jewish Israelis come from other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt and Iraq – are erased. In the penultimate ‘highlight’ it’s suggested that Israel is the sole cause both of conflict in the Middle East and of foreign interference, ridiculous assertions which both reflect and reinforce the disproportionate scrutiny to which Israel is subjected. However one bullet point is quite revealing.
Israel can have a real safe Jewish state surrounded by friendly states.
There’s a sneer in that reference to ‘a real safe Jewish state’ but here there is at least an implicit acknowledgement that Israel is not surrounded by friends and is not safe, a clue pointing to the possibility that the situation so in need of a ‘solution’ may not be entirely of Israel’s making. And although some think that Israel is protected by the ‘Zionist-led media’ it’s revealing that Naz Shah thought it was perfectly fine to make jokes about transporting, ethnically cleansing, Israeli Jews.
Shah is a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, which is investigating the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain.
Shah, a lawmaker from Bradford West, located in Yorkshire in northern England, had shared a post of a graphic in which a small silhouette of the map of Israel is laid inside the map of the United States under a headline which reads “Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict – Relocate Israel into United States.”
Shah released a statement Tuesday which said: “This post from two years ago was made before I was an MP, does not reflect my views and I apologize for any offense it has caused.”
She also posted an apology on Twitter in which she announced she was stepping down from her position as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to John McDonnell. (h/t Bob Knot)
BDS motions pass in 4 Spanish cities, fail in 4 others
Amid a legal fight over the legality of the campaign to boycott Israel in Spain, motions supporting the boycott failed in four Spanish municipalities and passed in four.Lies, Damn Lies and Faculty Lies
The council of the eastern city of Santa Coloma de Gramenet near Barcelona on Monday voted down a proposed motion to boycott Israel, according to ACOM, a pro-Israel group based in Madrid which attempts to counter the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment, or BDS, movement in Spain.
Introduced by the far-left Podemos movement, the vote in Santa Coloma, which has a population of about 120,000, closely followed the April 14 failure of a similar motion in Leganes, a city of 200,000 residents in central Spain. The previous month, a BDS motion failed in a city council vote Zamora in northern Spain after the municipal secretary warned aldermen its language was illegal. Later that month, a Spanish court ordered another Spanish city, Langreo, to walk back its vote on BDS, citing discriminatory elements.
Separately, a motion by Podemos to have Spain’s Congress lift its conditions for supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state failed at a poll held on April 13 by congress’ exterior affairs commission.
To understand the significance of the newly announced legal challenge against the American Studies Association’s academic boycott of Israel, we need to go back around 18 months.Stanford Student Senate Passes Resolution Condemning Anti-Semitism
It has been that long since the anti-Zionist fanatic Steven Salaita left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under a cloud. Salaita, who teaches American Studies, departed the school following a bitter struggle that resulted in an offer of a tenured professorship being retracted.
His supporters claimed, as is their habit, that Salaita was being punished for his support of the Palestinians. A more detached reading of the case suggests that Salaita was denied tenure because of a series of bizarre Twitter rants in which he stated, inter alia, that anyone who defends Israel is “hopelessly brainwashed,” that Zionism had made antisemitism “honorable,” and that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to don a “necklace made from the teeth of Palestinian children,” nobody would be surprised.
The Salaita affair was a salutary reminder of just how low standards at American universities have fallen. Salaita was simply one more example of how anti-Zionist advocates abuse academic departments by masking their eliminationist agendas under the cover of “academic” research.
Stanford University’s student senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, including the demonization and delegitimization of Israel, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported last week.'Progressive' Harvard Jews back anti-Israel protester
The passage of the bill comes two weeks after an earlier resolution had been considered and tabled as opponents added numerous amendments to render the bill meaningless. During a debate over the earlier resolution, student senator Gabriel Knight argued that claiming that Jews control the media, economy, and government did not amount to anti-Semitism, and was “a very valid discussion.” Knight, who had been seeking re-election to the student senate, subsequently withdrew from consideration following the furor sparked by his remarks. Another student senator, Hattie Gawande, introduced a motion to censure Knight at last week’s meeting, which was passed at the beginning of the session.
“Although the measure took several weeks to win approval, the final version addresses a range of anti-Semitic sentiment including instances where Israel is used as a veneer to promote hatred of Jews,” said Seth Brysk, the Anti-Defamation League’s central Pacific regional director, in a statement on the resolution. Brysk also praised Gawande “for introducing the motion to censure Gabriel Knight for his ignorant assertions about Jewish power.”
The resolution, which draws on the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, was sponsored by the major Jewish groups at Stanford, including Cardinal for Israel, Chabad at Stanford, Jewish Students Association, Alpha Epsilon Pi, and J Street U Stanford.
A group of self-described ‘progressive’ Jewish students at Harvard Law School has rallied behind Husam El-Qoulaq, a Students for Justice in Palestine activist who smeared former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as “smelly”, during a panel discussion earlier this month.Harvard Law Record Abandons the First of the Five W’s of Journalism
During the event, which included guest speakers Dennis Ross and MK Livni (Zionist Camp), El-Qoulaq asked the former Israeli minister during a question and answer session, “How is it that you are so smelly?”
“A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni,” El-Qoulaq clarified, “she’s very smelly, and I was just wondering.”
The comments, which were widely perceived as drawing upon classic anti-Semitic canards, were quickly condemned by the Harvard Law Record, the school’s student newspaper.
At the same time, however, the university took measures to protect El-Qoulaq’s identity, scrubbing the incident from a video of the event.
El-Qoulaq later apologized, denying that the comments were intended to be anti-Semitic.
Journalists are supposed to find out what happened and tell their readers what they have learned. Historically, there have been five questions that reporters are expected to answer, or at least try to answer, when writing about public events. The questions are:IsraellyCool: Dickie Sliverstein: Was Husam El-Qoulaq’s Question To Tzipi Livni Antisemitic? (satire)
1. Who?
2. What?
3. When?
4. Where?
5. Why?
Apparently, the student journalists at The Harvard Law Record did not get the memo.
When Husam El-Qoulaq, a student at Harvard Law School insulted Tzipi Livni, former Israeli Foreign Minister and current member of the Israeli Knesset, at a public event on Thursday April 14, 2016, (he called her “smelly”), the newspaper initially concealed the El-Qoulaq’s identity.
When, on April 18, 2016, Jewish students who attended the event condemned the statement as antisemitic in a letter to The Record, they did El-Qoulaq the undeserved and unwarranted courtesy of withholding his name from their complaint.
The Hasbarafia have been fuming that a Harvard Law student named Husam El-Qoulaq recently asked Zionist Minister Tzipi Livni “why she was so smelly.” They claim this comment by Husam El-Qoulaq was antisemitic.Washington Post Errs on J Street
But once again, these Zio-jerks are lying. There was nothing antisemitic about pointing out Livni stunk. In fact, my secret sauce was at the lecture, and took this photo of her which proves Mr El-Quolac was just commenting on her body odor.
Donation: This is a story you couldn’t read anywhere else in the media but my blog Chicken Olam. Mainstream outlets either cannot or will not publish such stories. Donate or I’ll give you the stinkeye.
The Washington Post's “Biden discusses ‘frustration' with Israeli government,” (April 20, 2016) by reporter Carol Morello, omits important information on J-Street, a non-profit organization that is consistently critical of Israeli government policy but reluctant to fault Palestinian non-compliance with negotiated commitments.German Pastor declares himself an anti-Semite
The Post, noting remarks made at a major April 15, 2016 J-Street event by Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry, called the organization a “self-defined ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace'” group. “Self-defined” is correct, but does not go far enough as CAMERA has pointed out on numerous occasions (see, for example “J Street's Unreported Pro-BDS Partner,” June 18, 2015) this description fails to fully detail J Street's history of one-sided anti-Israel criticisms, partnerships with anti-Israel and anti-Western organizations and the obfuscation employed by the group regarding its funding.
The Post quoted J Street's president and founder, Jeremy Ben-Ami, but failed to note his history of dubious statements. Ben-Ami early on denied that billionaire financier George Soros provided major funding for J Street. As a Sept. 30 2010 article by The Washington Post (“J-Street's wrong turn on its ties to George Soros”) noted, such denials were buttressed by “the group's Web site [which] suggested that J Street had received no funding from George Soros…”
A pastor for the Lutheran Church in Bremen, Germany who boasted that he is an anti-Semite has prompted the Simon Wiesenthal Center to call for his dismissal.French teens attack locksmith mistakenly thought to be Jewish
The pastor, Volker Keller, who is a member of the Bremen city government council responsible for the integration of Muslims for the northern German city, sent an email to this Jerusalem Post correspondent, announcing his embrace of anti-Semitism.
He wrote: “Yesterday evening the anti-Semite Arn Strohmeyer delivered a lecture to me…Best wishes to Israel, Yours truly, Volker Keller, Antisemite.”
The trigger for Keller’s email appears to be a series of Jerusalem Post exposes on Strohmeyer’s alleged modern anti-Semitic views and the city of Bremen’s public funding for, according to critics, hate-mongering events in the Citizens’ House Weserterrassen targeting the Jewish state.
Volker Keller refused to answer multiple Post queries. Renke Brahms, the executive cleric for the Bremen Protestant Church, wrote to the Post by email that the church ”distances itself from every form of anti-Semitism and clearly supports the existence of Israel… Pastor Keller sent a ‘sarcastic email’ and wanted to express that he is not an anti-Semite and feels wrongly defamed. The choice of this form was an extraordinary misunderstanding and is from our perspective, as well as Mr. Keller’s, a completely inappropriate reaction. We have made this clear to Mr. Keller that in his function he is not allowed to write such emails.”
French police arrested three teenagers who are suspected of ambushing, attacking and seriously injuring a locksmith because they believed he was Jewish.Martin Gray, author of best-selling Holocaust memoir, dies at 93
The suspects, all 15, are said to have ordered the services of a locksmith five months ago from a firm whose owners had a Jewish-sounding name, the Paris-based daily Le Figaro reported Sunday. The teens selected the firm after hearing a radio commercial advertising it, a police source said. The newspaper did not name the locksmith firm in question nor the suspects, who are denying the assault charges against them.
When the locksmith showed up at the address given to him over the phone in the eastern Paris suburb of Bussy-Saint-Georges, the teens allegedly beat him, sprayed tear gas in his face and threatened to kill him while at least one of them brandished a knife. The locksmith was not Jewish, according to the report. He required hospitalization after the assault.
Martin Gray, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor whose memoir about his experiences during World War II inspired a successful TV miniseries, has died at 93.How my grandmother’s chutzpah helped Japan’s consul save thousands of Jews
Gray was found in the swimming pool of his second home in Ciney, Belgium, but officials said no foul play was suspected, the BBC reported.
In 1971, the Warsaw native born as Mietek Grayewski published “For Those I Loved,” a best-selling autobiography about life in the ghetto, his escape from the death camp Treblinka and his experiences fighting in the Soviet army. The book also addressed the 1970 death of his wife and four children in a house fire.
Written in French with a co-author, “For Those I Loved” was translated into 26 languages and sold 30 million copies, according to the BBC. The miniseries aired in Europe in 1985.
The story of Chiune Sugihara – the Japanese consul in Kovno, Lithuania, who disobeyed his government’s orders in 1940 and issued transit visas through Japan to thousands of Jews seeking to flee war-torn Europe — wasn’t widely known until 1985, when Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial authority, honored him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.Lali Esposito wins even more Israeli fans with big-hearted gesture
But I grew up hearing Sugihara’s story because he saved my father’s life. My father, the attorney Nathan Lewin, is a Sugihara survivor.
I also have a family connection to something that few others have known until very recently — the answer to a long-unsolved mystery surrounding Sugihara’s rescue of an estimated 6,000 Jews.
Why did the Dutch consul in Kovno, Jan Zwartendijk, begin issuing the “Curaçao visas” – the Dutch endorsements that appeared to permit travel to the island of Curacao, Holland’s territory off South America upon which Sugihara relied when issuing visas? Why did Zwartendijk begin writing in Jewish passports that a visa was not needed to travel to Curaçao?
The answer: my late grandmother. Peppy Sternheim Lewin, the recipient of the first Curacao visa, is the “missing link” in the story.
Argentinean pop star Lali Esposito has a huge following in Israel. But the Casi Angeles star, who was in Tel Aviv for an April 24 concert, won even more hearts when she sent a moving video message to a Jerusalem terror victim.'There are no politics here': Israel treats baby from Gaza
Eden Dadon, 15, is presently hospitalized with severe burns after being caught in the Hamas-sponsored suicide bombing attack on a Jerusalem bus on April 18. Dadon had bought a ticket to see Esposito live in concert in Tel Aviv.
“Hello Eden, this is Lali, I’m sending you a big, big kiss. I think you must understand something in Spanish, because I understand that you are a fan of mine and all the works I took part in. I want to thank you from my whole heart for all the love,” the South American singer-actress said in a video message she sent to Dadon.
“Everyone came to me in order to speak about you and how you’re a devoted fan,” the star continued. “Let there be no doubt, the next time I come to Israel you will be in the front row, enjoying the performance. I love you, kisses.”
The heartwarming message was reported in local media.
Israeli doctors performed life-saving surgery on a 3 year-old Palestinian Arab from Gaza last month, they revealed Tuesday, insisting to the press that politics has no effect on human life and obligation.InterNations Report: Israel Fourth Best Place to Raise your Children
Three year-old Saliman was suffering from a benign tumor on his spine - and was close to paralysis.
"The pathology of the child was difficult," Josh Schroeder, senior surgeon at Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein-Kerem Medical Center, stated to Walla! News Tuesday. "He arrived with an advanced tumor, with considerable pressure on his spine."
"He could not stand and look forward," he described.
Schroeder added that the team - which had never seen a growth this big before - reconstructed the boy's spine to give him "a better quality of life."
"We will follow up with him throughout his life, and intervene [again] if we have to," he said.
According to the InterNations survey’s Family Life Index, in a roundup of the world’s 41 top countries to raise a family in, the best three countries are Austria, Finland, and Sweden. And right behind those wealthy, industrialized European nests of socialized everything and the baskets of goodies from the nanny state, in fourth place, you’ll find a country that’s been fighting for its life for almost 70 years, with a huge security budget, supposedly enormous gaps between rich and poor, and ceaseless ethnic strife — and there, according to the survey’s criteria, is the fourth best place on the planet to raise your children. Go figure.Review: In ‘Pumpkinflowers,’ a New Style of Middle East Combat
For comparison — the UK came in at 22nd place. The US in 25th place. France in eighth. New Zealand came fifth. Saudi Arabia is in 41st place, so, in case you were planning to go raise your kids in the Kingdom, we can advise you, based on these findings — don’t.
After the success of InterNations’ first Expat survey in 2014, the second annual survey report involved 14,400 expatriate respondents, in one of the biggest topical surveys worldwide. The information benefits mainly the group’s 1.8 million members, who are interested in moving, living, and working abroad. By providing insights into expat life in 64 countries, from Argentina to Vietnam, the report is a valuable resource for people seeking temporary or long-term relocation.
The Expat Insider survey included questions on demographics, basic facts about moving abroad, and daily life in the respective country. The questionnaire especially emphasized individual satisfaction with various aspects of expat living. Survey participants cover a variety of people from 170 countries of origin and all kinds of backgrounds. The section regarding the “family life index” evaluates the best places to raise children, based on three categories:
During the 1990s, Matti Friedman and his fellow Israeli soldiers fought in a string of conflicts that never collectively earned a name. These battles existed in historical parentheses, wedged between Israel’s first Lebanon War, in 1982, and its second, in 2006.
But that didn’t make the conflict any less real. At the time, Israel was embroiled in an endless, lethal sequence of skirmishes in southern Lebanon, hoping to secure the border against incursions by Hezbollah. In “Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story” Mr. Friedman has written a top-notch account of this under-analyzed war, persuasively arguing that it heralded a new style of combat in the Middle East, though no one knew it at the time.
“Suicide car bombs, roadside explosives, booby-trapped boulders, videotaped attacks, isolated outposts, hit-and-run, a modern military on hostile territory fighting a long, hopeless war against a weaker but more determined enemy for unclear and ultimately unattainable goals — before Iraq, before Afghanistan, there was this protracted affair in Lebanon,” Mr. Friedman writes.
The writer, a former correspondent for The Associated Press in Jerusalem and the author of “The Aleppo Codex,” was assigned to a Lebanese outpost that soldiers called “the Pumpkin.” (In the jargon of Israeli radiomen, “flowers” are the wounded — hence the book’s title.)
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