Monday, November 14, 2016
Jewish Groups at Texas U Cancel Lecture by Author Caroline Glick for Fear of ‘Alienating’ Anti-Zionists on Campus
A program slated for Monday, featuring a lecture by renowned American-Israeli writer Caroline Glick — author, most recently, of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East — has caused Jewish and pro-Israel students at the University of Texas at Austin to fear that her message might anger anti-Zionists on campus, The Algemeiner has learned.
“Some people are concerned Glick may not be the best representative for what we are trying to accomplish — that is, promoting our message and advocating for Israel,” Eliav Turk, who sits on the board of both Texans for Israel and AIPAC on Campus, told The Algemeiner. “There are fears she may alienate student groups and minorities we are trying to attract, which have traditionally taken a non pro-Israel stance.”
The students who expressed displeasure with the program — funded by CEO of Davidsohn Global Technologies, Joseph Davidsohn — belong to groups such as Hillel, Texans for Israel and AIPAC on Campus.
Davidsohn called the push-back against Glick disgraceful. “She is being vilified because student groups believe she promotes a one-state solution — which means they clearly haven’t read her book,” he told The Algemeiner. “It is important that students hear her speak and learn an alternative narrative about Israel, not just the one put out by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine or Black Lives Matter.”
Ending Aid to Terrorists (WSJ $)
In his eulogy recently for Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, President Obama spoke of the “unfinished business” of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Now he or Donald Trump have an opportunity to advance the cause—by backing legislation to stop the flow of U.S. tax dollars to Palestinian terrorists.‘Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel’ (REVIEW)
Since the 1990s, as the U.S. and other countries have sent billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians, Palestinian leaders have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in rewards to those who carry out bombings, stabbings and other attacks in Israel. These payments, codified in Palestinian law, are an official incentive program for murder that in any other context would be recognized as state sponsorship of terror. But the U.S. and other Western states have looked the other way while continuing to send aid, giving Palestinian leaders no incentive to stop.
Senators Lindsey Graham,Dan Coats and Roy Blunt have introduced a bill to end U.S. economic aid unless Palestinian leaders stop rewarding terrorists. It’s called the Taylor Force Act, after the 28-year-old U.S. Army veteran stabbed to death in March by a Palestinian in the Israeli city of Jaffa. Other American victims of recent Palestinian terrorism include 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel and 18-year-old Ezra Schwartz.
“They will never achieve peace when you pay one of your young men to kill someone like Taylor Force. That’s inconsistent and it needs to stop,” Mr. Graham (R., S.C.) says. “We’re not going to invest in a group of people that have laws like this. It’s just not a good investment.” The same Palestinian laws guarantee civil-service employment to terrorists upon their release from prison—the bloodier their crime, the cushier their post.“If you’re in jail for five to six years, you come out with the civilian rank of department head or lieutenant in their security forces, you get to choose. If you’re in jail 25 to 30 years, you become a deputy minister or a major general,” Mr. Graham adds.
Mr. Coats (R., Ind.) notes that Congress tried to stop subsidizing terror payments in 2014, but Palestinian leaders dodged that law with a “shell game” that passed payments through the Palestine Liberation Organization, which technically isn’t a recipient of U.S. aid. When lawmakers raised this with the State Department they got only a “tepid” response, says Mr. Coats. One State Department report praised the payments as “an effort to reintegrate” released prisoners into society.
The truth is these payments are blood-soaked gifts from a Palestinian leadership still devoted more to destroying Israel than to building a Palestinian state. This has always been the chief impediment to peace. Mr. Obama is unlikely to act in his final days, but the Trump Administration and new Congress could send a powerful message by passing the Taylor Force Act. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel, by Cary Nelson, (MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights and Indiana University Press, 2016). ISBN 978-0-253-02516-6. 396 pp.
Cary Nelson — whose impressive credentials include being a longtime professor at the University of Illinois, author or editor of over 30 books and president of the American Association of University Professors from 2006-2012 — firmly cemented his reputation as an authority on academic boycotts with his 2015 anthology (co-edited with Gabriel Brahm), The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel.
His new book, which draws on the earlier one and also adapts material written by several other scholars, now offers everything its subtitle promises — and, as we’ll see, more. As such it is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested not merely in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also in its increasingly heated proxy conflict on campuses across the world.
Dreams Deferred aims (its publisher tells us) to “empower readers to be informed participants in conversations and debates,” providing “facts and arguments to assist all who seek justice for both Israelis and Palestinians and who believe the two-state solution can yet be realized.”
David Collier: The science of hating Zionists, why most anti-Zionism is antisemitic
Some pieces are easy to write. I go to an event and hear people suggest that the Zionists were responsible for the holocaust, or witness mention of Jewish power. If it is a speech by Max Blumenthal or Tom Suarez, I will hear tales of Jewish conspiracy. I return home, analyse the recordings, research, and write. It is an easy process to follow.The Star of David becomes a Swastika in Germany
The more difficult pieces are those that challenge the narratives. The message is not a simple ‘one-liner’. There can be discomfort in internally challenging deeply held beliefs, an inability to ‘cross the divide’. People are even uncertain sometimes ‘which side’ the piece is on.
This is one of those items. To make the journey with me, you need to let go of some of your beliefs. Ignore statements that challenge your history and set aside all you know about the creation of the conflict between 1917 and 1967.
I am going to ask you to immerse yourself inside the Palestinian narrative. I am doing so because I am going to use their narrative, not just to show that Zionism is a movement of national liberation but to forcefully drive home the idea that the Balfour apology campaign, anti-Zionism and the entire settler colonial paradigm are all knee deep in antisemitic thought.
It is not the first time that a large museum in Europe takes part in inciting hatred against Israel and the Jews.NGO Monitor: Examining the NGO Security Discourse on Urban Warfare
At the Antonopoulou Art Gallery in Athens, Alexandros Psychoulis has created a work of “art” from Palestinian Arab suicide bombers’ explosive vests.
The museum of the Jeu de Paume in Paris held the exhibition of Ahlam Shibli that glorifies Palestinian suicide bombers as “martyrs”.
At a museum in Stockholm there was “Snow White”, a tub full of red water on which a white boat floated with the photograph of the suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat, who massacred twenty-one Israelis at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa.
Now a huge artistic panel in Cologne, Germany has been exhibited: If you look it from the right you see a swastika, if you move to the left the swastika turns into a Star of David. It’s just a matter of perspective whether you see the Nazi symbol or the flag of Israel.
It did not happen in Iran, where Ayatollah Khamenei walks over the Israeli flag to polish his shoes. It happened in Germany and it is not an initiative of an Islamic group or neo-Nazis, but of a renowned art gallery. The work is signed by the artist Juraj Kralik. Juan Romero Cárdenas, director of the Spanish gallery Kir Royal, proudly claims the installation for himself, saying that “the ‘Four Seasons’ is about two state symbols, the symbol of Germany until 1945 and the current symbol of the State of Israel”.
NGOs (non-governmental organizations) or CSOs (civil society organizations) have become important actors in international human rights frameworks, in general, and with respect to armed conflicts in particular. NGOs, both individually and through wider transnational advocacy networks and global civil society frameworks, make pronouncements, publish reports, and submit evidence regarding allegations of human rights and international law violations in a wide range of venues. They are also influential in setting the agendas of United Nations bodies, legal structures such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), and other frameworks that consider issues related to the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL).JPost Editorial: From Bataclan to Mike’s Place
Click here to view the article
Parisians marked the one-year anniversary of a string of gun and bomb attacks perpetrated by Islamist nihilists in a most fitting way – they celebrated life.France marks year since attacks with somber silence
Refusing to be intimidated by those who see the freedoms afforded by Western culture as anathema, hundreds returned to the Bataclan, the Paris concert hall which was transformed into the epicenter of the jihadist rampage, and danced to music played by rock star Sting.
“Tonight we have two tasks to achieve,” Sting declared. “First, to remember those who lost their lives in the attack, and then to celebrate life and music in this historic place.”
Georges Salines, who lost his 28-year-old daughter, Lola, at the Bataclan, told AFP the concert was “almost a taking back of the space for music and fun from the forces of death.” Salines was among the 250 to 300 survivors and victims’ family members present.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls vowed Saturday that Islamist terrorism would be defeated.
“Terrorism will strike us again,” Valls warned in a statement, “But we have in ourselves all the resources to resist and all the strength to beat it.”
France marked the anniversary of Islamic extremists’ coordinated attacks on Paris with a somber silence on Sunday that was broken only by voices reciting the names of the 130 slain, and the son of the first person to die stressing the importance of integration.Poll highlights consequences of BBC omission and under-reporting
Michael Dias lauded the lessons his father Manuel, an immigrant from Portugal, taught him so youth can integrate instead of turning themselves into “cannon fodder.”
Under heavy security, President Francois Hollande unveiled a plaque outside the French national stadium the Stade de France “in memory of Manuel Dias,” pulling away a French flag covering it on a wall at one of the entrances to the French national stadium, where Dias was killed on November 13, 2015, by a suicide bomber.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo joined the president at six other sites where crowds ate, drank or reveled in music at the Bataclan concert hall. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Three teams of extremists coming from neighboring Belgium targeted six bars and eateries, turning scenes of Friday night fun into bloodbaths.
BICOM recently published the results of an opinion poll carried out in the UK concerning, among other things, attitudes towards Israel and the BDS campaign. While the results on those topics have grabbed headlines, another section of the poll is no less interesting.
BICOM reports that the poll results indicate that:
“ISIS is seen as the greatest threat to both Britain and Israel. 75 per cent think the terror group is a threat to the UK, while 60 per cent think it is a threat to Israel. Hamas is considered a threat to Britain by 15 per cent of respondents, and Hezbollah by 14 per cent of respondents. This numbers more than doubles to 35 per cent and 32 per cent respectively when respondents are asked if Hamas and Hezbollah are considered to be a threat to Israel.”
The organisation links the findings to media coverage.
Analysis: What can be done about Europe’s listless pursuit of Hezbollah terrorists?
After murdering five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver in 2012, two Hezbollah operatives who were put on trial in absentia on Thursday at a Sofia court remain secure in Lebanon. The lethargy surrounding the efforts to capture the two mirrors the glacial-like pace of the trial.Anti-Israel Hate Group Met With Protests
Procedural difficulties in serving legal notification to all of the Israeli victims, including 32 wounded in the terrorist attack in Burgas, caused a second postponement until December 12.
“Iran and Hezbollah were behind the Burgas bombing, just as they were responsible for the atrocities in Argentina. But in Europe, the fear of confronting both are daunting, as they have been for many years,” Prof. Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor and lecturer in political science at Bar-Ilan University, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
The former head of Bulgaria’s counter-terrorism unit and the US government believe both suspects – Lebanese-Canadian Hassan el-Hajj Hassan and Lebanese-Australian Meliad Farah – are in Lebanon. In a sign of waning enthusiasm, there has been no significant action to compel the Lebanese government to extradite the Hezbollah operatives.
Bulgaria asked the Lebanese to cooperate in 2013, but was swiftly rebuffed. Bulgarian officials have been tight-lipped about their plan to arrest the men.
Students who traveled from across the country to attend the annual gathering of a group that advocates the destruction of Israel were met by a group of peaceful protestors that branded the students as members of a pro-terrorist hate group.IsraellyCool: Chemical Brothers Pour Acid On BDS Calls
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group funded and organized by a network that in the past was implicated in raising money for the terrorist group Hamas, held its annual conference last weekend at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. SJP has emerged as the most prominent campus advocate of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The conference served as a training seminar for students working to expand anti-Israel activism on their campuses. The aim of the protest, according to its student organizers, was to let SJP know that “anti-Semitism, attacking free speech, and promoting hate will not go unchallenged” at GMU.
The group of about thirty protesters carried signs illustrating SJP’s anti-Semitism and its endorsement of terrorism into the student center where the conference was being held. The protesters were stopped at the entrance to a group of classrooms where the SJP seminars were being held by a contingent of SJP members. The SJP activists linked arm in arm with their backs turned toward the protesters behind several campus police officers, creating a blockade that stopped members of the protest group from entering the conference space.
Earlier this month:The Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun + 3 more songs - live in Israel 2016
A growing network of UK artists, musicians, film makers, and other cultural influencers are coming together to stand against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. There are at least 1,000 such individuals who’ve added their names to its ranks. They call themselves Artists for Palestine, and they’re petitioning quite strongly against the Chemical Brothers‘ upcoming performance in Tel Aviv.
An open letter to the influential electronic duo, so celebrated for its spectacular live performances, argues against the scheduled Nov. 12 appearance in caustic language.
Daniel Pipes: UK Internet Provider O2 Blocks Me
O2, the second-largest mobile telecommunications provider in the United Kingdom, has banned my website to anyone under 18 years of age.Israel journalists accuse Facebook of infringing on freedom of speech
The fine print reads: "To prove your age you'll need to have your credit card handy. Click Continue below or call our free automated service on 61018." In other words, you have to go to a lot of trouble to read or see my work, something presumably few casual internet surfers will bother to do.
In contrast, O2 makes available without having to prove anything no end of Islamist and related websites, including such anti-Zionist delights as Al-Muntada Trust, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, and Friends of Al-Aqsa.
O2 is a subsidiary of Telefónica, the giant Spanish multinational with annual revenues of over €50 billion and assets worth about €125 billion. So far as I can tell, no other division of Telefónica has banned me in this way.
A group of Israeli journalists and media and advertising professionals is accusing Facebook of a “harsh infringement” on their freedom of speech, saying they cannot remain silent any longer as the social network giant “tramples over” their freedom of expression by blocking posts.Why doesn’t the Guardian’s hate crime coverage mention Christian victims?
In a letter to Adi Soffer-Teeni, the Facebook Israel General Manager, a group of over 40 journalists and media, advertising and content professionals and social media activists — both religious and secular, from the left to the right of Israel’s political spectrum — called on Facebook to conduct itself in a “responsible manner” and be more transparent with its policies on blocking content.
They called on the social media company to publish a detailed guide to what words it will block from its site and to enforce that policy in a unified and transparent matter.
The media activists claim the social media giant started blocking their content about three months ago and that this censorship reached a peak in the past few days. Many of the users were blocked over content posted a year ago and even two to seven years ago, the letter said.
The authors said that they use the Facebook platform as their core activity for traffic and distribution of their content and they are no longer willing to accept “Facebook’s harsh infringement of our freedom of speech and that of our community.”
In a recent article in The Spectator, Ross Clark asked a very good question: why has the Guardian ignored hate crimes against Nissar Hussain, a former Muslim from Bradford who converted to Christianity and has been the victim of constant threats and attacks over the past few years.Hamas a “Fundamentalist Political Party?”
[Hussain] has already had to move house once. Last November, he was attacked in the street by louts who left him with a broken kneecap and a fractured forearm. Last Thursday, police had to move him to a safe house outside Yorkshire.
That someone in Britain can be subjected to a hate campaign, over so many years and by different people, based purely on their choice of religion is shocking. But not apparently newsworthy enough to qualify for coverage in the Guardian. Neither does the BBC appear to consider Nissar Hussain’s case to be newsworthy – you had to read the Mail, the Telegraph or the Mirror to find out about it.
In the Guardian mentality, you cannot carry a story of an ex-muslim persecuted for his apostasy for fear of inspiring hate against muslims. Thus a genuine case of hate crime is ignored on the grounds it could lead to other, imagined hate crimes.
London’s Evening Standard reports on the visit to Israel of a British right-wing activist. Included in the story is this description of Hamas:Celebration at Warsaw synagogue nixed over security scare
Hamas is a Palestinian fundamentalist political party which controls the Gaza strip. Israel has often accused it of fostering extremism, which Hamas denies.
A fundamentalist political party that Israel accuses of “fostering extremism?”
Seriously?!
How about suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings and thousands of rocket attacks on Israeli civilians? Doesn’t that make Hamas a terrorist organization?
Is there that much doubt about the nature of Hamas that the Evening Standard resorts to conjecture?
A complaint has been sent to the Evening Standard. Watch this space.
The Board of the Jewish Community of Warsaw cancelled a celebration of Poland’s Independence Day in the city’s historic Nozyk synagogue, reportedly citing security concerns.Songstress Regina Spektor says she is Jewish because of antisemitism
The Jewish community learned of the cancellation Thursday, the eve of the scheduled celebration, which was to be held on Independence Day.
Among the scheduled speakers were Anna Chipczynska, president of the Board of the Jewish Community of Warsaw; Polish chief rabbi Michael Schudrich, who was to recite a prayer for Poland, and Anna Cialowicz, author of an anthology of pre-World War II articles titled “My Jewish Warsaw.”
Attendees of the ceremony were to have been limited to members of the Jewish community and guests invited by the board.
American singer-songwriter Regina Spektor is known for her colorful performances and soulful lyrics, but also as a prominent Jewish cultural icon. It may be a surprise, then, that Spektor said antisemitism is curiously to thank for her Judaism, The Guardian reported on Sunday.Google, Amazon use Israeli app for team-building fun
On Jewish oppression, Spektor spoke of the every day reality of her brother, an Orthodox Jew who wears a black hat and is frequently harassed for his faith. “They get on him, shouting ‘Shalom’, that kind of thing. But I see antisemitism everywhere. It’s built into the fabric of our lives."
She went on to say, however, that it is because of antisemitism that she was a Jew at all. Having been born in Russia, “The only reason I’m Jewish is probably antisemitism. Think about Soviet Russia – religion is illegal. So there’s no cultural Judaism, no tradition. The only thing that made Jewish people marry other Jews is that they didn’t want to be called ‘kikes’. They knew they wouldn’t hear the word ‘zhid’ come out of their husband’s face when they had their first marital fight. So it’s the only reason a lot of us exist.”
Before coming to the United States, she often faced discrimination herself. “Non-Jewish friends would say: ‘You’re not like other Jews,’ or ‘You’re smart for a Jew.’ It was institutionalized," she said.
Israeli startup Strayboots has set out to help employers take advantage of the maxim that an engaged employee makes a more productive employee.Lockheed selects Elbit for Israel F-35 training center
A global provider of mobile experiences for corporate team building, group adventures and city exploration, Strayboots has set up scavenger hunts and other activities in over 50 cities worldwide, serving hundreds of people every day.
“We offer experiences for employees, to bring them out of their comfort zone,” said Ido Rabiner, CEO of Strayboots. “A job is not just a job; it’s also a way to forge links with colleagues and to learn teamwork. It’s a fun life experience that lasts.”
The company was founded in Tel Aviv in October 2015 by Rabiner, 38, with two other American partners, Jeremy Brooks and Scott Knackmuhs.
The new training center for F-35 stealth fighter aircraft will be at the Nevatim airbase in the NegevMultinational ‘Stamp Olympics’ opens in Jerusalem
US aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin today announced that it had selected Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT) to operate the new training center for F-35 stealth fighter aircraft that it plans to build in the Nevatim airbase in the Negev, one month before the scheduled arrival of the first of the 33 modern F-35s ordered by Israel from the US manufacturer.
Due to the high costs of flight time in the Stealth fighter, at least 50% of the training and instruction in operating its systems will take place in advanced simulators, thereby saving a great deal of money on the training processes for the pilots who will fly the advanced fighters. Lockheed Martin will manage the new training center, and according to the company's announcement, Elbit will operate it, after having won a recent tender. The final agreement between Lockheed Martin and Elbit will be formulated in the coming months, and the training center itself will be ready for complete operation over the coming year.
Neither Elbit Systems nor Lockheed Martin have disclosed particulars about the full price of the agreement between them, but informed sources estimated the amount at several million shekels. Elbit Systems is very experienced in operating pilots' training centers for a variety of aircraft, and the company provides outsourcing services to the air force in operating a training center for F-15 and F-16 airplanes at the air force base in Hatzor.
Holy Land philately will be the theme of the Jerusalem 2016 Multinational Stamp Exhibition organized by the Israel Philatelic Federation and the Israel Post Company/Philatelic Service, November 13-17 at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem.Aerosmith to rock Tel Aviv at start of farewell Europe tour
Three stamps depicting unearthed mosaics in Israel, designed by Meir Eshel, are being issued on November 13 coinciding with the Jerusalem 2016 Multinational Stamp Exhibition. This one shows a third-century mosaic found in Lod. Photo courtesy of Israel Post Company
Stamps issued on November 13 coinciding with the Jerusalem 2016 Multinational Stamp Exhibition include this one showing a third-century mosaic found in Lod. Photo courtesy of Israel Post
About 80 exhibitors, mainly private collectors, each will display up to eight frames (16-page stamp books) to an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 visitors including many Israeli schoolchildren.
Judges representing the invited countries’ national philatelic federations – United States, Hungary, Germany and Spain – will join Israeli experts in choosing the award-winners.
Individual exhibitors also are coming from Brazil, Canada, South Africa, France and Ukraine.
The best-selling American hard rock band of all time, Aerosmith, due to break up after 46 years together, will kick off its 17-concert farewell tour, “Aero-Vederci Baby,” in Israel in May.Mannequin Challenge in the Israel Navy
Tickets to the event, at Tel Aviv’s HaYarkon Park, went on sale on Monday, costing NIS 250 to NIS 870 ($65 to $225).
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, and included on both Rolling Stone’s and VH1’s lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, Aerosmith has — according to the band’s website — sold more than 100 million albums and won four Grammy Awards, eight American Music Awards, six Billboard Awards, and 12 MTV Awards.
The band has toured every year since 2001, with the exception of 2008.
