Wednesday, July 27, 2016
American Jewish Groups Rally Against Anti-Israel Bias at UN
Over 50 Jewish groups joined forces this week to take action against anti-Israel bias at the United Nations and its agencies, which have often been accused of discriminating against Israel.IsraellyCool: Lethal Journalism Made Simone Zimmerman
The initiative, which was launched by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, consists of a formal declaration and a national and international campaign to “counteract the spate of anti-Israel actions at the United Nations.”
“For years we have witnessed and protested the escalating discriminatory practices and actions against Israel at the UN,” Conference of Presidents Chairman Stephen M. Greenberg and CEO Malcolm Hoenlein said in a statement.
“As we have seen in recent months, this bias is being manifested in outrageous and flagrant ways,” they added. “These actions not only distort the truth about Israel, they also undermine the principles of the UN and its Charter. It has to stop.”
“Despite the efforts led by the United States together with Israel and a handful of other countries, vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric continues to intensify in UN resolutions, reports, and in the official statements from many member states,” the statement continued. “Since November 2012 the Palestinian strategy of using the UN as a weapon against Israel has led to a disturbing increase in the number of anti-Israel resolutions presented in UN bodies.”
They pointed out that resolutions adopted in the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, UNESCO, the World Health Organization, and various other UN sponsored committees and events “reveal an alarming intensification of baseless accusations and demonizing rhetoric against Israel.”
The lethal journalism which comes from both elite media and partisan or hate sites like +972, Mondoweis and Electronic Intifada become the primary source of information for people like Simone.Michael Lumish: Nothing Left # 109
Once those sources have hooked her in, the foreign government funded lying NGO’s like B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence step in to organise tours and feed “the narratives” which these kids have been primed to believe. They’ve bought the indoctrination and now believe the media and main stream politics is run by a shadowy Jewish Lobby which only presents Israel in a positive light.
At the core of all the hardship stories she believes is a replacement ideology of Muslim Arabs as the new Jews. This replacement ideology is stealing our Jewish identity with their fake and invented “Arab Palestinian” claims to obviously Jewish lands. This “Palestinianised” narrative is fed by well funded NGOs into every elite news agency in Israel for their stamp of official approval and then amplified and twisted by the same NGOs out to this lost generation of Jewish youth.
I can’t leave without offering an answer. Just repeating facts and exposing lies isn’t enough. It’s necessary, of course, because it’s a vital weapon in our arsenal. But we need to hit back harder than ever with our own identity story. This Jewish identity story, as has been explained here at Israellycool for a few years, is blind to that nonsense crayon line from 1948 that people like Simone obsess over.
Michael Burd and Alan Freedman from J-AIR, Nothing Left.
3 min Editorial: Leftism and the media
10 min John-Michael Howson
35 min Ruthie Blum, journalist
56 min Martin Sherman, political
1 hr 25 min Michael Lumish, Israel Thrives blog, USA
1 hr 36 min Isi Leibler, Jerusalem
Part of what I like about these guys, aside from the fact that they give me a venue, is that they attract big names.
Anyone who knows anything about the Long War knows about Isi Leibler's and Martin Sherman's contributions to the conversation.
DNC staffers protested Holocaust Remembrance Day statement
Democratic National Committee staff members questioned chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s request for the group to put out a statement in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, leaked emails show.Anti-Hillary Protesters Burn Israeli, American Flags Outside DNC, Amid Chants of ‘Long Live Palestine’
In an email chain from May released as part of the batch of DNC emails leaked by Wikileaks this week, a staffer wrote that a statement marking the day was unnecessary. The chain was first reported by the Daily Caller.
“We aren’t going to do statements for every Jewish holiday unless she wants to do them for every religious holiday and trust me, this Catholic can give you a list of them,” wrote staffer Kate Houghton. “Also when she does an official statement it makes very little sense to have two statements out there in her voice.”
Houghton’s colleague, Senior Communications Adviser Ryan Banfill, replied, “This is about remembering the Holocaust. Never forget,” to which Houghton replied that other genocides should be commemorated in the same way.
A group of anti-Hillary Clinton protesters outside of the Democratic National Convention burned Israeli and American flags, while chanting “Black Lives Matter,” and “Long Live Palestine,” eyewitnesses reported.
According to these reports, documented on cell-phone cameras and uploaded to Facebook and Twitter, pro-Bernie Sanders demonstrators, unhappy with Clinton’s nomination as Democratic presidential candidate, also waved placards reading: “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free,” a slogan employed to call for the elimination of the state of Israel.
Meanwhile, as The Algemeiner reported, inside the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, where the DNC is being held, Palestinian flags were prominently displayed. Activists at the venue were seen holding up signs reading, “I support Palestinian human rights.”
In addition, as Conservative bloggers pointed out, DNC organizers capitulated to protesters demanding the removal of the Mississippi state flag, which depicts the Confederate standard.
Cooperation between the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-Israel groups — like Students for Justice in Palestine – which support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions efforts has been widely touted and documented.
Dems' video on Clinton highlights Gaza ceasefire, Iran sanctions
A video that will be screened at the Democratic National Convention on Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state highlights her roles in achieving a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and in passing sanctions on Iran.Israel Supporters Protest J Street at Dem Convention
The five-minute video released Tuesday is titled "67," as Clinton was the 67th secretary of state, serving from 2009 to 2013. In addition to Iran and Gaza, the video looks at her role in addressing climate change and advocating for women's rights.
Early on the video shows explosions in Gaza, presumably from Hamas' 2012 conflict with Israel, before Shimon Peres, then Israel's president, says "She understands that peace calls for patience."
The video shows Clinton in the region conducting indirect negotiations, with Egypt, to achieve a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. The cease-fire followed eight days of conflict between the two sides -- the second and shortest of three conflicts between Hamas and Israel between 2008 and 2014.
"The secretary really had steel in her spine, and stood up, and the conflict stopped, and a wider war was averted," Jake Sullivan, former director of policy planning for the State Department, says in the video.
A group of pro-Israel protesters made their presence known outside of a panel discussion on the “evolving politics of the Jewish community” put on by J Street, a radical advocacy group that is critical of the Jewish state.Giuliani says Israeli leaders don't want a Hillary Clinton presidency
The Tuesday morning protest, which was organized by the Republican Jewish Coalition, aimed to tie J Street to the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket, a task made easier since Hillary Clinton’s announcement that Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.), a J Street-endorsed politician with extensive ties to the group, would be her running mate. Kaine was one of the senators that decided to boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in 2015.
As attendees such as David Axelrod arrived at Davio’s Steakhouse for the event they were greeted by signs that said Kaine is “bought and paid for by J Street” and pointed to Clinton’s support of the Iranian nuclear deal, which is opposed by the RJC and the majority of pro-Israel groups.
RJC spokesman Fred Brown told the Washington Free Beacon that “today’s Democratic Party is bought and paid for by J Street and their anti-Israel policies” and said that “it’s clear Democrats have moved far out of the mainstream for American Jewish voters.”
Brown pointed to incidents that have already occurred just a day into the convention that illustrate this shift.
“With J Street’s influence over the Democrats, it shouldn’t surprise anyone DNC delegates were flying the Palestinian flag on the convention floor last night,” said Brown, making reference to delegates that brought a flag into the Wells Fargo Center.
Israeli leaders prefer Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States rather than Hillary Clinton, according to former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.IsraellyCool: WATCH: Israeli Playing National Anthem at RNC
“I’ve talked to the members of the Israeli government at the highest levels. I know who they want elected here. It’s not Hillary Clinton. It’s not Obama 3,” Giuliani said in an interview to the Washington Post at the Republican National Convention last week.
Giuliani has been a close friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for over 20 years, and the two recently met in March at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem.
While he refused to specifically say Netanyahu supported Trump, Guliani stated that, “I’ve known Bibi almost as long as I’ve known Donald, 25 years. I can’t speak for Bibi … But there is no question Donald Trump and a Republican administration would be much better for Israel.”
With all the mudslinging around both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, it’s nice to see (and hear) a ray of light. Davy Nathan, an Israeli musician who moved to the US in 1997 where he studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, played “America” and other classics at the RNC. It’s a moving moment, showing how the US truly is a land of opportunity, home of the free and of the brave.Renowned Women’s Rights Champion Blasts ‘Politically Correct Faux Feminists’ for Attacks Against ‘Zionist’ Star of Wonder Woman Movie (INTERVIEW)
Upon graduating from Berklee, Nathan toured from 2004 to 2015 with the likes of Toni Braxton, Christina Aguilera, Brian McKnight, Patti Laelle, Eric Benet, New Kids on the Block, and Stanley Clarke, and more. He told Israellycool that he got this RNC gig because he works with mega-producer Rodney Jerkins, who is the father of Heavenly, the 6-year-old singer who dazzled the RNC with her medley of American hymns.
A leading feminist who wrote an essay about the superhero Wonder Woman, to accompany a 1972 book about the 1940s comic strip, blasted the women denouncing the star of the new action movie – all for being a proud Israeli.Where is the BDS Movement in the face of the Turkish Stalinist purge?
Responding to hostile social media posts against actress Gal Gadot that began to appear with the release this week of the “Wonder Woman” trailer, author Phyllis Chesler told The Algemeiner, “These faux feminists have been conditioned, like attack dogs on a short leash, to salivate, bark and try to bite the enemy they’ve been trained to assault.”
As was pointed out by pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon on Monday, women were prominent among those tweeting anti-Gadot comments.
Chesler, professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY) and the author of 15 books – most recently An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (2013), about her 1961 marriage to an Afghani and her time spent in his harem – said, “These ‘politically correct’ faux-feminists are afraid to rail against barbaric misogyny, honor-based violence and Islamic gender and religious apartheid as practiced in the disputed territories; they have only been empowered to blame Israel and Israelis — for the crimes committed by others. Do they believe that the Muslim-on-Muslim and Muslim-on-infidel crimes in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan are caused by Israel? Will they reject medical cures and cellphone technology because Israelis discovered them? If not, why reject a feminist Wonder Woman because an Israeli actress is beautiful and talented enough — has been chosen above all others — to play this action figure?”
59,628 professors whose teaching license has been withdrawn. 1,577 university presidents who have been forced to resign. A climate of persecution, denunciation and suspicion in university classrooms and at the Ministry of Education. It is great academic purge that Recep Erdogan launched after the failed coup.Israeli-Dutch Political Group: Netherlands Refuses to Condemn Palestinian Media Honoring Terrorists as ‘Martyrs’
Numbers reminiscent of the Stalinist academic purges in the USSR. In light of this dramatic assault on intellectual freedom in Turkey, one would expect that Western academic legions would be in turmoil to show solidarity with Turkish colleagues, besieged and persecuted. Yet, these Western champions of freedom who have embraced the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) against Israel did not find the time to launch any campaign against the Turkish purge, unworthy even of a raised eyebrow of scandal.
In England, the National Association of Teachers in Higher Education and the Association of University Teachers, which have adopted the boycott of Israel, have been silent about Turkey. Same silence from the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which was signed by 500 American professors. Silence from the 300 Italian academics who promoted the Israeli boycott.
Double standards have already emerged from the words of Curtis Marez, the president of the American Studies Association who voted to boycott Israel. When he was asked why his organization was only attacking Israel and not, for example, China or Saudi Arabia or Turkey, Marez answered: “One has to start somewhere”.
The Dutch government refused to condemn Palestinian media references to terrorists as “martyrs,” claiming such labels are protected by freedom of speech, a Dutch-Israeli political group claimed on Tuesday.Using Emotion to Battle BDS
According to a statement by Likud Netherlands, the Dutch government was asked by the group whether it agrees with Palestinian news agency Ma’an’s referring to the terrorist who stabbed to death 13-year-old Hallel Ariel in her Kiryat Arba home as an “Islamic martyr.”
The question was posed to the government due to its previous funding of the news agency by the Dutch Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat.
In a response to Likud Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs defended its support of Ma’an — which it said “adds to the awareness of human rights of the Palestinian population” — as a form of promoting “media pluralism” and a “part of the freedom of expression.”
“I understand your worry surrounding the use of the word ‘shahid’ (martyr). Different interpretations of this word, however, are possible, which makes this discussion difficult,” the ministry wrote in a Dutch-language statement and translated by The Algemeiner.
Calling to mind the expression, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” the Ministry stated: “Through Palestinian eyes, this word is considered for somebody who perished in the fight for ‘the Palestinian struggle’ and ending the Israeli occupation.”
Emotion is similarly at play whenever we try to “turn the tables” on our enemies by trying to utilize their tactics against them (by running events designed to highlight the human rights catastrophe that is the Arab world, for example). “Naming and shaming” is another popular tactic often invoked by Israel’s supporters as a means to “bring the battle to the enemy.”Jewish Football Team Owner Smeared as Racist in New York Times Sports Column
Now there is nothing wrong with either of these approaches per se. But it is worth determining whether a tactic is being used to push towards a strategic goal vs. getting something off our chest. “Naming and shaming,” for example, has been extremely effective at exposing funding sources for anti-Israel groups, which furthers the strategic goal of making it difficult for our enemies to receive needed funds. But a different campaign to name and shame individuals has led to division among anti-BDS ranks, which might or might not be worth it depending on the strategy behind such a campaign.
There is a simple test we can use to determine if our choice of tactics is based on emotion (such as anger or the need to “do something,” regardless of its effectiveness) vs. strategy which strengthens our side and weakens the other. Specifically, if we can articulate the goals our tactics are meant to achieve and can provide a plausible mechanism whereby those tactics will lead to the results we desire, then we are acting strategically.
In contrast, if our explanation for what we’re doing seems contrived, or includes implausible steps required to lead to effective action, then perhaps we are thinking with our heart (or gut) vs. our heads, potentially making mistakes that will weaken our forces while strengthening our opponents.
A sports columnist for the New York Times has used his farewell column to smear a Jewish football team owner as a racist.BBC News, PA Balfour agitprop and British history
William C. Rhoden, stepping down as a full-time columnist of the Times after “nearly 35 years” at the newspaper, devoted his final column to replaying a clash from 50 years ago between Art Modell, the owner of the Cleveland Browns, and Jim Brown, the great running back who played for that team.
As Mr. Rhoden tells the story in his column:
When the Browns opened camp in 1966, Brown was among the missing. He was in London, filming “The Dirty Dozen.” Shooting had been delayed because of weather, but the Browns’ owner, Art Modell, didn’t care. He wanted his star running back in training camp and made his dissatisfaction public. Modell threatened to fine Brown $100 a day if he did not show up for training camp….Mr. Rhoden writes that “Brown’s retirement stands out because he defied a wealthy white owner who insisted on controlling the narrative.” Even though describing Modell — a Jewish high school dropout who grew up poor and who borrowed heavily to buy a team in which all his wealth was locked up — as a “wealthy white” is itself an act of controlling the narrative, and not necessarily in a fair or accurate way.
He was making a power play to assert his control, to put his star fullback, who was gaining fame as an actor, in his place.
Modell saw himself as a liberal and would always remind Brown that he gave more to the N.A.A.C.P. than Brown probably did.
“That plantation type of attitude, I hated that,” Brown said.
BBC amplification of the latest pseudo-legal agitprop from the vexatious Palestinian Authority came in the form of an article which appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page on July 26th under the misleading title “Palestinians plan to sue Britain over 1917 Balfour act“.ABC apologises for another attack on Israeli Jews
The Balfour Declaration was of course a statement of British government policy – not an “act” as this headline states.
Later on in the article, readers were further misled by an inaccurate portrayal of the end of British administration of the Mandate for Palestine.
“Israel declared its independence in 1948 after the UK mandate expired.”
The mandate did not ‘expire‘: the British government chose to terminate its administration of the mandate originally granted by the League of Nations.
Remarkably, the article omitted any mention of British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Mandate Palestine before, during and after the Second World War.
As Gerard Henderson and I discussed on my show last night, there is a disturbing pattern to the ABC’s mistakes regarding Jews and Israel:Obsessive criticism of Israel and its humanitarian impact in two images
An ABC spokeswoman blamed “moderator error” for allowing the tweet by Twitter user supercatsimon to air prominently [on Q&A]. “Any young radicals who join ISIS or Israel should not be allowed into Australia,” it read…
“An audience tweet was broadcast on Q&A which implied false equivalence between ‘radicals joining ISIS’ and Israel,” an ABC spokeswoman said. “It was a moderator error. Q&A apologises for any offence and removed the tweet from future broadcasts."…
Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council’s executive director Colin Rubenstein last night said several tweets on Monday night displayed “raw bias” and the moderators should be reviewed…
Last week [Communications Ministre Mitch] Fifield demanded the ABC explain how Muslim man Khaled Elomar, who had denigrated two female politicians online, was allowed to ask Pauline Hanson a question.
Though Tonge’s latest outburst didn’t at all surprise us, we were struck by the the contrast, in the Middle East section of the Independent, of two seemingly unrelated stories which appear next to each other on their site. The one on top is about Tonge’s latest remarks on Israel and the Palestinians. The one below is a video story about a Syrian (non-Palestinian) boy trying desperately to get the world’s attention:Polish court upholds controversial restitution law
The article features Syrian children in holding pictures of the popular character Pokeman in hopes that an evocative image of innocent children victims of Syrian violence juxtaposed with the culturally iconic picture will get the attention of the international community.
Some may note that photos of the Syrian children holding Pokeman were staged – designed specifically to elicit sympathy and media attention. But, of course, that’s exactly the point. There is a finite number of reporters within any news organization, and an equally limited quantity of space in any newspaper. It is a zero-sum game. Disproportionate, obsessive coverage of one conflict necessarily results in less coverage of another conflict.
Whilst Tonge’s claim that Israel causes ISIS has been rightly criticized as the kind of extreme rhetoric which fuels antisemitism, let’s not forgot the broader harm done by Tonge and people of her ilk who possess a bizarre fixation only on suffering putatively meted out by Jews. We should ask not only why the world is so obsessed with Jews, but also why on earth child victims in one of the most bloody conflicts in history have to resort to such gimmicks to get the attention of journalists and ‘progressive’ activists around the globe.
A constitutional court in Poland rejected a motion to scrap a law that critics say is preventing restitution of property that once belonged to Jewish families in Warsaw.UK man faces jail for sending Jewish MP anti-Semitic threats
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal on Wednesday gave its ruling on a review requested by the World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, which challenged the constitutionality of a law passed last year by the Polish Parliament that limits the rights of claimants to restitution for private property in the Polish capital.
WJRO objects to the legislation because it precludes claims in Warsaw for former owners and their families who missed the 1988 communist-era deadline for filing claims, including those who fled abroad to escape communist rule or anti-Semitism.
The law transfers property to the state treasury or the City of Warsaw unless all former owners of the property or their families come forward before 2017 and prove their right to the property.
“It thereby effectively extinguishes the rights of those who did not or could not come forward – because, for example, they do not know of their right to the property,” WJRO said in a statement Wednesday in which the group expressed “disappointment” with the decision.
A British man who sent death threats and anti-Semitic messages to a Labour MP was charged with harassment at a Newcastle court on Wednesday.Ann Coulter: Did Clinton have Sanders supporters ‘gassed’?
John Nimmo, 28, was charged with two counts of causing stress and anxiety for sending Luciana Berger pictures of knives with messages warning her that she would “get it like Jo Cox” and to “watch your back Jewish scum, regards your friend the Nazi.”
Labour MP Cox was shot and stabbed by a far-right activist on June 16 in Birstall, West Yorkshire.
Nimmo admitted to sending the harassing messages during the Wednesday court hearing and was remanded into custody until his August 24 sentencing.
In 2014, Nimmo spent two months in jail for sending harassing tweets to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and Labour MP Stella Creasy.
On Wednesday, Berger told the court that Nimmo’s threats caused her “huge distress” and that she was “concerned for my safety and felt immediately threatened.”
Conservative political pundit Ann Coulter has come under fire on social media for tweeting after Hillary Clinton was nominated as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, “Where are the Bernie supporters tonight? Did Hillary have them gassed?”A new nanotech approach for treating stomach cancer
Coulter was slammed for her choice of image in the Twitter post on Tuesday night during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
“Deliberate choice of words. Antisemitism gets the sick attention this narcissist seeks,” was one reply.
Coulter is no stranger to anti-Semitic controversy.
Where are the Bernie supporters tonight? Did Hillary have them gassed?
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) July 27, 2016
A potential oral nanomedicine treatment for stomach cancer has been developed at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology using a combination of anti-cancer drugs and a chemo-resistance reversal agent, which eliminates gastric tumors’ resistance to chemotherapy drugs.Rebound effect seen on energy-efficient cars
The treatment could be self-administered at home by the patient — eliminating the need for hospitalization, which is dangerous for immunocompromised cancer patients due to drug-resistant pathogens widespread in hospitals.
The new treatment modality is based on a transport platform developed as part of Maya Bar-Zeev’s doctoral dissertation at the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, under the joint supervision of Prof. Yoav Livney of the Faculty of Biotechnology Engineering, and Prof. Yehuda Assaraf, Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Director of the Fred Wyszkowski Cancer Research Laboratory at the Technion.
Their study proving the effectiveness of this regimen was published in the journal Oncotarget, earlier this year.
The unique transport platform packages the drugs in beta-casein. Caseins are the main proteins found in milk, in structures called micelles. The natural role of casein micelles is the transfer of calcium, phosphorus and protein from mother to baby through breast milk. Beta-casein’s spatial structure allows it to encapsulate substances that are not water-soluble.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researchers have discovered that an Israeli policy to reduce taxes on energy-efficient cars, and thereby reduce energy consumption, actually had the opposite effect as more people took to the roads.Woody Allen and William F. Buckley on the Israelis and Palestinians (1967) (funny but serious)
Environmentalists have shown time and again that expected gains from more efficient technologies often fall short of goals. This is known as the “rebound effect.”
Profs. Ofir D. Rubin and Stav Rosenzweig and PhD student Aviv Steren studied the magnitude of the rebound effect in relation to an Israeli policy implemented in 2009 to subsidize energy efficient cars by adjusting the taxes paid upon purchase of a new car. They found that this policy actually caused drivers to use their energy-efficient cars more often.
The researchers discovered a rebound effect of 40 percent – that is, the anticipated energy savings of the new tax scheme were reduced by 40% because the owners drove their cars much more often. In other words, for every 100 liters of fuel the government had hoped to save, it could only save 60 liters. This situation reflects a sub-optimal outcome of the policy.
“Our study can help policy makers to more effectively design environmental policies, such as subsidizing energy efficient cars or taxing fuel,” said Rosenzweig, noting the importance of the study because global transportation accounts for one fifth of global energy costs and a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
