Monday, January 30, 2017
Isi Leibler: Pseudo-liberal Jews cause great damage
There is only one example in Jewish history to which such behavior can be compared. The Jewish Bolsheviks also turned against their own people and ultimately the revolution consumed them. Unfortunately, the vociferous anti-Trump Jewish activists are a far greater proportion of the American Jewish community than Jewish Bolsheviks were among Russian Jews.Freedom of thought goes on trial in France
It is clear that in the Diaspora, committed Jews will remain overwhelmingly supportive of Israel while the pseudo-liberal or progressive Jews will become less interested in Israel and ultimately lose their identity. Indeed, Christian evangelicals now play a far greater role in promoting Israel than some of the mainstream Jewish groups.
We live in a world of chaos and upheaval.
Now is the time for all committed Jews to unite, stand together and concentrate primarily on securing their own rights. Diaspora Jews who, from their comfortable armchairs, claim a better understanding than Israelis of what is good for their security, should be treated with contempt. Israel is entitled to expect support from committed Jews over the next few years until it stabilizes its relationship with the world and creates an iron barrier to deter its genocidal enemies.
Once the threats to the Jewish people have been overcome, we can and will become more directly involved in tikkun olam and fulfilling Rabbi Hillel's wise advice. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Wednesday 25 January 2017 will go down as a sad day in the annals of the French Republic. It was the day when France’s freedom of thought and expression went on trial: one of France’s leading historians, Georges Bensoussan, 64, was hauled up before a criminal court accused of ‘incitement to hatred.’The Telos Group: The True Identity of the "American Pro-Israeli, Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Peace Movement "
Arraigned against him was the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, together with various other ‘anti-racism’ groups. The hearing went on for a gruelling 12 hours. At the end, a weary Bensoussan announced: ‘for the first time in my life I am having thoughts of leaving the country.’
The drama had begun 18 months earlier. During a TV discussion broadcast on 10 October 2015, Repliques, Bensoussan commented that France could not hope to integrate its Maghrebi immigrants unless it recognised that these immigrants imbibe antisemitism ‘with their mother’s milk’.
Georges Bensoussan, the son of Moroccan Jews, is one of France’s leading historians and editorial director at the Holocaust Memorial in Paris. The author of an 800-page volume on the uprooting of Jews from Arab countries, Juifs en pays Arabes: le grand deracinement 1850-1975, he claims that he was merely paraphrasing the words of a ‘brave’ Algerian sociologist, Smain Laachar. “Everyone knows it but nobody will say it,” Laachar had declared of Arab/Muslim antisemitism.
(h/t Elder of Lobby)
In 2014, the Telos Group was outed as an anti-Israel organization not living up to its "pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and pro-peace" self-description.
Instead of building substantive bridges between Palestinians and Israelis, the bridge Telos appears most intent on building is a financial one between America and Ramallah. Telos's actions demonstrate the organization is pro-PLO/Palestinian Authority, not pro-Palestinian.
Telos is focusing its efforts on enabling a corrupt, oppressive PLO/PA government that has opposed peace on multiple occasions, oppressed its citizens by denying them freedom of speech and protection from religious persecution, and jailed journalists who dare to criticize the PA's undemocratic government and its abuses of its citizenry -- certainly not a pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian/pro-peace agenda.
Peace with Israel is premised on Palestinians no longer supporting their children engaging in terrorist acts against Israel.
While Khalil appeals to UN Resolution 242's "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" to justify his position on Israeli settlements, he neglects to mention that this "land-for-peace" resolution was premised on the Palestinians halting all violence against Israelis and recognizing the State of Israel.
It is time to call the Telos Group for what it really is: Anti/Anti/Anti: anti-Israeli, anti-Palestinian, and anti-peace.
Lessons From a Former Somali Refugee on the Fight Against Islamist Extremism
He came to Canada as a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia. He’s highly regarded across the Canadian political spectrum. He was just appointed as immigration minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.The Intellectual Hypocrisy of Anti-Israel Academic Boycotts
Now 40 years old, Ahmed Hussen has a promising career in front of him. And in these polarized, fragmented times, he is exactly the kind of public figure we need when it comes to clarifying the wider debate about immigration and Islamism, human rights and national security.
Trudeau, the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, has often been lampooned as a kumbaya do-gooder, devoted to his liberal conscience and slow-witted when it comes to recognizing that fanatics across the world with diametrically opposed views to his are gaining strength and power. I will leave it to readers to judge whether any of that criticism is fair, but I will say that Trudeau’s appointment of Hussen shows a boldness that contrasts markedly with the approach of former President Barack Obama, despite their broadly similar worldview.
Obama, remember, regards the word “Islamist” as an insult rather than a descriptor. But Hussen has a record of actually tackling Islamism in his own community, engaging in the kind of political fight that Obama would most likely have dismissed as a sop to the radical, nationalist right.
Among the many examples of the shameful degradation of values in academia, few are more intellectually grotesque than academic boycotts. And these boycotts, in their present form, are almost exclusively targeted at Israeli scholars and institutions.PMW founder Itamar Marcus explains issues of PA media
In the latest example, the members of the American Historical Association (AHA) recently debated two petitions. The first, which was ultimately rejected by the AHA’s Council, urged the AHA to review and investigate “credible charges of violations of academic freedom in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories,” whether by “constituting a fact-finding committee, authorizing a delegation or issuing an investigative report.”
The second petition recommended that the AHA issue a statement, which it did, affirming “the rights of students, faculty and other historians to speak freely and to engage in nonviolent political action expressing diverse perspectives on historical or contemporary issues.”
Putting aside the absurdly paranoid notion that any anti-Israel activism is suppressed or otherwise limited on campuses anywhere, what actually terrified these intellectual hypocrites, it seemed, was the possibility that — once they had publicly announced their enmity for Israel, Zionism and Jewish affirmation — they would be held accountable for their toxic views. They worried that they would be named for what they are: anti-Israel activists whose rabid ideology can, and should, be made transparent, exposed and understood.
NGO Monitor: Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat: January 2017 Funding Update
The Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (“Secretariat”), a funding mechanism jointly funded by Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Norway, funds multiple non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel. Some NGOs have promoted antisemitic rhetoric and have apparent links to terrorist organizations.Crimes against Humanity: "Normal" Treatment of Middle Eastern Women
Since November 2016, a number of funding changes have been made by the donor countries:
Norway
On November 21, the Secretariat released its quarterly newsletter. The emblem of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had appeared on previous Secretariat publications, was no longer on its letterhead. According to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs grants portal, Norway had committed NOK 5 million (approximately $600,000) to the Secretariat. This initial funding, first reflected in the Secretariat’s July 2016 newsletter, was supposed to have been distributed in 2016 and 2017. In January 2017, the grants portal of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs adjusted its grant to the Secretariat, reflecting that all funds had been transferred in 2016. No further Norwegian funding appears to be allocated to the Secretariat.
Mullahs seem to prefer protecting inhuman laws to protecting humans.Muslim Brotherhood Ally Falsely Smears Senator to Block Terror Designation Bill
Most full coverings for women are black, which absorbs heat, and are made not of cotton but of non-porous cloth - in the scorching heat.
In a province of Indonesia, Aceh, a woman, accused of being intimate with her boyfriend is caned, in front of a jeering crowd. Later, a photograph of the screaming woman is published as a token of pride for the men who had just exacted this "justice" -- on her; no consequence for the boyfriend. It was a lesson to remind women to submit to their place in society.
Turkey last year presented a bill for tackling its widespread child-marriage issue: the Turkish government introduced a bill that pardons a rapist if he marries his victim. The victim is not consulted.
All forms of exploiting women are presented as divine law, sharia, in which women have no say, which they are unable to use in their own defence, and which they are forced to accept as their fate.
These are countries where men are not only permitted, but invited, to consider woman a pet -- to be killed, burned with acid, benzene or a weapon of choice supposedly to preserve a family's "honour".
These laws, put in place by the governments and the clergy, provide a safe escape for criminals, suc
An Islamic organization long accused of being part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s network in America has been caught trading in lies as part of an effort to ensure the Brotherhood is not designated as a terrorist entity in the United States, according to information obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.British Band Duran Duran, Canada’s Bryan Adams, Australian Nick Cave to Perform in Israel in Coming Months
The Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a Muslim advocacy group that was named by the U.S. government as part of a vast network supporting the terror group Hamas, recently launched an effort to block a bill that would formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization. Many other countries, including Israel and Egypt, have already approved similar legislation.
In its efforts to block the bill and smear Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), the senator spearheading the designation effort, CAIR recently claimed that the bill “was written by a disgraced former FBI agent who has made a career out of bashing Muslims and Islam,” according to a CAIR press release.
CAIR officials claimed that this purported revelation stains the reputations of Cruz and former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.), who helped draft the original bill.
The British band Duran Duran will be performing in Israel this summer, preceded in March by Canadian singer Bryan Adams, the Hebrew news site Walla reported on Monday.Oscar-Nominated Film Peddles Anti-Jewish, Anti-Israel Narrative
In addition, according to the blog Israellycool, UK-based Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave has announced he will be performing in the Jewish state for the first time since 1998. In 2014, Cave reportedly declared support for activists who broke into an Israeli-owned weapons factory in the English county of Staffordshire.
Duran Duran — formed in Birmingham in 1978 — was scheduled to appear in Israel in 2011, but it canceled that trip, in addition to the rest of its European tour that year, due to problems with lead singer Simon Le Bon’s vocal cords.
Among the new wave and synthpop group’s best-known hits are: “Is There Something I Should Know?” “Save a Prayer,” “Rio,” Girls on Film,” and “Paper Gods.” The band is made up of Le Bon, bass guitarist John Taylor, Keyboardist Nick Rhodes, and drummer Roger Taylor.
Adams, who is also a philanthropist and political activist, raised money at a benefit in London for Palestinian refugee children in 2006. In 2007, he was slated to perform in Tel Aviv and Jericho, as part of the OneVoice Movement concert series, to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the concert was called off due to security concerns.
Although filmed in Israel with Israeli actors, it was submitted as a “Palestinian” film. In the film, a Jewish family invades a Catholic convent. The ensuing culture clash is creative, with the occasional dose of dark humor. But many of Khalil’s ideas are sidetracked by his dislike for Jewish Israelis.BBC reporting on Israeli offer to take in Syrian refugees
Minutes into the film, viewers are treated to the Jewish visitors causing the nuns to break their vow of silence, destroying a Christian statue, and later even violating their own religious beliefs. Both Khalil and Daniel Yáñez Khalil, who co-wrote the script, either are ignorant of Jewish religious practice or seek to use the film as an opportunity to denigrate Judaism.
The film begins with a car, driven by Jews, destroying a Mary Magdalene figure outside the convent. The Jewish family then loudly knocks on the convent’s door — in stark contrast to the silent surroundings at the convent — and demands help.
It is here that “Ave Maria” takes absurdity to a new level. Moshe, an observant Jew, refuses to use a cell phone to call a taxi because it is Shabbat. When a nun refuses to make the call for him, he quickly changes his mind and makes the call. His strict observance of Judaism seems to instantly vanish into thin air because he does not want his family to be inconvenienced by spending a night at the covenant. But now he demands a Jewish cab driver, not an Arab one, suggesting bigotry.
On the same day, the evening edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ included an interview by Tim Franks with Gal Lusky of the charity ‘Israel Flying Aid’.ABC Down Under Corrects on Settlements in Under a Minute
“Millions of Syrians have fled the civil war. Their search for refuge has become one of the defining stories of recent years. Now there’s been an unusual offer for 100 orphans from Syria to be given homes in Israel. They share a border, Israel and Syria, but they also consider each other enemy states.”
The fact that the BBC managed to report this story accurately, impartiality and without needless politicisation should not of course be noteworthy – but it is.
How do you go from 4,000 outposts to 4,000 homes in under a minute? Only Down Under.LBC’s James O’Brien fails to challenge Haneen Zoabi’s lies about Israel
On Monday, the Australian Broadcasting Network (the other ABC) posted a news story about Israel's "Normalization Law," a bill to legalize settler houses illegally built on private Palestinian land, with this incorrect headline:
CAMERA's Israel office informed the network that the bill would affect a (speculated) 4,000 homes and not 4,000 outposts. Mistaking individual residential units for entire settlements has been a staple media error, one that CAMERA has corrected time and again.
Nevertheless, we were pleasantly surprised when the network (@abcnews) responded to a
tweet in record time – less than a minute – promising to correct the headline:
Over at BBC Watch, our colleague Hadar Sela recently examined the failure of a BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ host to challenge the propaganda of Balad MK Haneen Zoabi – who was in the UK for a series of speaking engagements – during an interview last week. Whilst she was in London, Zoabi was also interviewed by LBC host James O’Brien, who similarly failed to challenge multiple distortions and falsehoods by the extremist Arab Israeli MK.Comparing BBC R4 ‘Today’ interviews with two Israeli MKs – part one
You can hear the full interview here, but here’s a glimpse of the almost entirely unchallenged propaganda by Zoabi.
Zoabi claimed that “84% of Palestinians were expelled” during 1948.
This is not true. Whilst some of the Palestinians who fled the war “were forced from their homes by the Jewish military”, most left due to “in response to exhortations by Arab military and political leaders” or were “fleeing the heavy fighting that surrounded them”. Regarding the former example, the fact that some Palestinians were forced from their homes during the Arab war against the nascent Jewish state does not mean it can be characterised as “ethnic cleansing”.
On January 23rd presenter Sarah Montague spoke with Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely.Comparing BBC R4 ‘Today’ interviews with two Israeli MKs – part two
So what did audiences hear in this interview? They heard an Israeli MK interrupted at least seven times in a six minute-long interview. They heard Hotovely’s statements and positions challenged on numerous occasions – including Montague’s inaccurate claim that “only” Israel has a different “interpretation” of international law than the one promoted by the BBC.
Listeners also heard Montague twice inaccurately state that the area of land designated to a Palestinian state according to the two-state solution principle has already been fixed – with the added implication that negotiations on topics such as Jerusalem and borders are in fact superfluous.
And of course listeners heard Montague’s inappropriate editorialising in the form of the statement “Israeli Jews in settlements; they are flourishing. Of course the Palestinians are not” which clearly breaches editorial guidelines on impartiality.
The January 24th edition of the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme included an interview with Balad MK Haneen Zoabi who was in London for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign AGM and other speaking engagements.Swastikas found at Stanford University for second time in a month
None of Zoabi’s blatant propaganda and incitement concerning Israel was challenged by Husain – including her inaccurate claim that the entire city of Jerusalem is “occupied”, the lie that Israel “expelled 85% of the Palestinians in 1948”, the falsehood of “87 racist laws” (with Zoabi adding yet another one since she made a similar claim at the PSC AGM just three days earlier) or the unsourced allegation that 30 thousand ‘Palestinians’ are being ‘evacuated’ “from the Negev” (it was 13,000 at the PSC AGM) – which of course actually relates to the Umm al Hiran story and the generously compensated relocation close by of Bedouin squatters.
In fact, the only time that Husain did intervene to correct misleading information was to clarify that Britain had voted in favour of UNSC resolution 2334.
In short, Haneen Zoabi was given a completely unfettered platform from which to spout her predictably one-sided propaganda (in which Palestinians are exclusively portrayed as victims and Arab belligerence and Palestinian terrorism are erased) in an obviously more sympathetic environment than was evident in the previous day’s interview.
The fact that Mishal Husain failed to challenge even one of Zoabi’s many falsehoods means that the BBC cannot possibly claim that this interview was intended to meet its public purpose remit of enhancing “UK audiences’ awareness and understanding of international issues”.
Swastikas were discovered last weekend at Stanford University for the second time in less than a month.Two stand trial for stealing Auschwitz artifacts
“Several” swastikas were found on the buildings of the university graduate housing, known as Escondido Village, the Stanford Daily reported.
The Stanford University Department of Public Safety has been working on the case in cooperation with the Palo Alto police but has not yet named any suspects, the student daily newspaper reported.
At the end of December, during the university’s winter break, swastikas with inverted arms were drawn on campus buildings and signs and on buildings in Palo Alto, where the university is located, accompanied by phrases such as “No Jews allowed,” the Mercury News reported earlier this month.
Two Belgians risk up to a decade behind bars in Poland if found guilty of stealing parts of an electric fence from the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp, Polish prosecutors said Monday.The trial of the two men is set to open in the southern Polish city of Krakow on February 28.Global Credit Ratings Agency Moody’s Lauds Israel’s Economic Policy
The two fifty-year-olds, identified only as Yann P.-B. and William H., were detained last July as they tried to remove three porcelain electrical isolators. Although charged, they were not arrested, prosecutors in Oswiecim, where the camp is located, told AFP on Monday.
All objects at the former Nazi death camp, including its electric fence, are the property of the state museum on a site that is on UNESCO's World Heritage list. Several people have tried to make off with barbed wire while one particularly brazen gang walked out with the camp's infamous "Arbeit macht
frei" ("Work makes you free") sign in 2009, sparking a global outcry.The mastermind of that theft, a Swedish neo-Nazi, was jailed for two-and-a-half years.
A new report by international credit ratings agency Moody’s praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon for the economic policies they have been leading in the Jewish state.Adelsons donate mobility scooters to disabled IDF veterans
Moody’s had affirmed Israel’s A1 credit rating last September, assessing the country’s economic outlook as stable. In the new report, issued Thursday, Moody’s economists examined data on Israel’s debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, figures that were released last week by Kahlon and outgoing Finance Ministry Accountant General Michal Abadi-Boiangiu. The ratio reached an all-time low of 62.1 percent in 2016, an accumulated 9-percentage-point drop from Israel’s debt-to-GDP ratio in 2009, amounting to around 100 billion shekels (more than $26 billion).
Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson have donated some 160 mobility scooters to disabled Israel Defense Forces veterans through the Friends of the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization.Eilat hotel named best in Mideast by TripAdvisor
"This scooter is my legs. After many difficult years, this will allow me to get to many places which until now were just impossible," Nissim Ben Shabat, 53, who was wounded during the 1982 Lebanon War, told Israel Hayom Sunday.
One of the veterans to receive a mobility scooter was border policeman Ronny Goslan, 43, who lost his legs when he jumped on a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in 2002.
The youngest disabled veteran to benefit from the donation is 38, while the eldest is 90.
The Adelsons decided to donate the mobility scooters to disabled IDF veterans after visiting a Tel Aviv rehabilitation center in 2016.
A luxury Eilat resort was named the best hotel in the Middle East, and the 25th best in the world, by TripAdvisor’s 2017 Traveler’s Choice Awards.16 Arabs from Israel making a difference on the world stage
The world’s most popular travel planning and booking site last week announced the winners of its annual user-generated awards, and Herods Vitalis Spa Hotel Eilat was ranked among the best properties in the world.
Thousands of 5-star ratings on the TripAdvisor website placed Herod’s first in the “Top Hotels Overall” category for the Middle East, and the 25th best in the category’s global ranking.
The Aria Hotel in Budapest, a luxurious music-themed boutique property, took the overall number 1 spot for 2017.
Hossam Haick is trailblazing tomorrow’s technologies for sniffing out disease.
Kossay Omary and Rabeeh Khoury developed one of the smallest computers in the world.
They’re not the only Arab Israelis making waves in the global community. Jamil R. Mazzawi founded Optima Design Automation, a startup developing software for self-driving cars. Mahmoud Huleihel made a breakthrough in the field of male infertility.
“There are so many excellent Arab experts that even many within Arab society don’t know about them,” says Makbula Nassar, manager of the A-List project, an online database of Arab Israeli superstars making strides in culture, sports, medicine, environment, fashion, diplomacy, education and technology.
