Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Israel, the country US liberal Jews love to criticize
As someone who has long been on record as both a feminist and a Zionist, I know how hard it is to maintain both loyalties. Increasingly, what passes for both left-liberal “feminism” and “Zionism,” has been taken over by poisonous, pro-Palestinian propaganda and by a suicidal alliance with Jew-haters, Jew-killers, and barbaric misogynists.2013: When Feminists Were Zionists
I chose not to write about the faux-feminist Women’s Marches of 2017, but I did give two interviews about the issues involved. I experienced some immediate blowback—all on the same day and within hours of each other.
A feminist artist sent round a spirited defense of convicted Palestinian terrorist, Rasmea Odeh, who joined Linda Sarsour as a feminist leader (!) on International Women’s Day. Based on “false news” at Snopes, she and other left feminists are happily persuaded that the Israelis sexually tortured this woman and her father for 45 days before Odeh issued a false confession. To them, Odeh is a hero of the Resistance.
The idea that feminists might believe that the Israelis did something like this was sickening, but even more so, due to their relative silence about the tortures perpetrated by ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban on women.
In June 1975, weeks after Saigon fell, Betty Friedan led a large delegation of American feminists to Mexico City for an International Woman’s Year World Conference hosted by the United Nations. The feminist trailblazer—whose legacy is in the spotlight on International Women’s Day today, 50 years after the publication of her book The Feminine Mystique—traveled south “relatively naïve,” she would recall, hoping “to help advance the worldwide movement of women to equality.” Instead, she endured what she called “one of the most painful experiences in my life.”Pro-Palestinian activist: Support for Israel and feminism are incompatible
The conference’s anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism shocked Freidan—and diverted attention from the feminist agenda. Men, political spouses, or “female flunkies,” she noted, dominated most official delegations. Few of the delegates seemed interested in women’s issues. American feminists were mocked as spoiled bourgeois elites raising marginal concerns to avoid confronting more pressing issues of racism, imperialism, colonialism, and poverty. A thuggish atmosphere intimidated the American feminists, especially in the parallel NGO, or non-governmental organization, conference. At critical moments “microphones were turned off” and speakers shouted down. Friedan recalled in notes found in her papers, which formed the basis of her famous article “Scary Doings in Mexico City”: “the way they were making it impossible for women to speak—on the most innocent, straightforward of women’s concerns, seemed fascist—like to me, the menace of the goosestep.” Friedan saw the Israeli prime minister’s wife, Leah Rabin, booed and boycotted, and she watched, horrified, as the “Declaration on the Equality of Women” became one of the first international documents to label Zionism as a form of racism.
When Third World and Communist delegates moved to link the Ten-Year Plan of Action for Women to the abolition of “imperialism, neocolonialism, racism, apartheid, and Zionism,” some feminist voices finally broke the silence. One European woman delegate told Friedan: “That is clear anti-Semitism, and we will have no part of it.” “If Zionism is to be included in the final declaration, we cannot understand why sexism was not included,” T.W.M. Tirika-tene-Sullivan, heading the New Zealand delegation, shouted. Lacking a two-thirds majority, the Arab and Communist delegates forced through a procedural change requiring only a majority vote to approve a declaration so that the anti-Zionist plank could pass.
Liberal American Jews, many of whom are involved in causes for gender and racial justice, have recently found themselves alienated by those movements’ stances on Israel.Dear Linda Sarsour: Feminism and Zionism go hand in hand
That conflict was seen last year when a platform associated with the Black Lives Matter movement accused Israel of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians and called it an “apartheid state.” The platform drew ire from Jewish groups who had previously expressed support for BLM’s goals of racial justice.
Now the same conflict is playing out with feminist groups whose cause has gained steam since the election of President Donald Trump. A platform for the U.S. affiliate of the International Women’s Strike — a grassroots feminist movement that organized events around the world last Wednesday — calls “for the decolonization of Palestine.”
Responding Monday to critics of the Palestine plank in a platform devoted to women’s rights, Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, an organizer of January’s Women’s March on Washington who also helped plan the Women’s Strike, came forth with a harsh message: feminism and Zionism simply don’t go together.
In an interview with The Nation, Sarsour said those who identify as Zionist cannot be feminist because they are ignoring the rights of Palestinian women.
Linda, when you mentioned your “Palestinian grandmother who lives in occupied territory” during your speech at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., I was upset. It felt to me that you were using that incredible historical moment and the spotlight that it shined on you as an opportunity to bash Israel. After Black Lives Matter inserted its own delegitimization of Israel in their publicized platform a few months earlier, your speech left me seriously wondering if there could be a single political movement for a positive cause that I and so many other Jews and lovers of Israel support that doesn’t take advantage of its time on the world stage to launch attacks at Israel.
But people told me I shouldn’t react that way, that your statement wasn’t anti-Israel and didn’t make you anti-Israel. That you were just sharing your personal identity and family story and that I shouldn’t let that taint my view of you or the modern women’s movement you are helping to lead.
And then there was the desecration of the Jewish cemetery in St. Louis on in response to which you raised $100,000. And I was humbled. And impressed. Maybe I was wrong, I thought to myself. Maybe you really don’t have that hate in your heart I thought you did.
But you yourself have proven me wrong. You do have that hate in your heart. And it burns for Zion. And Zionism. And anyone who considers herself a Zionist, a lover and a supporter of the one country in our world created to take on the role of safeguarding the Jewish people (because no other country would). Because in your view, if you are a Zionist then you are not and cannot be a true feminist.
That’s funny, because I know plenty of strong women who stand up and demand and receive the equal voice, rights and opportunities that they deserve as women, as human beings, and as part of God’s great creation.
And you know what, Linda, these women are Jewish and they are Zionists. And their Zionism and their feminism go hand in hand.
European rabbis: EU court’s ruling on religious garb means Jews, Muslims unwelcome
A European Union court ruled that companies can prohibit their employees from wearing religious clothing and symbols, sparking condemnation from a rabbinical group that the decision amounts to saying “faith communities are no longer welcome.”France: The Taboo of Muslim Racism and Anti-Semitism - Part I
The ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also said that customers cannot simply demand that workers remove headscarves if the company has no policy barring religious symbols.
“An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement.
The ruling, which came amid a rise in the popularity of anti-Muslim politicians in Europe over the proliferation of jihadist attacks on the continent and ethnic and religious tensions, was on two lawsuits filed by Muslim employees who were sanctioned for wearing religious symbols or prohibited from doing so.
“This decision sends signals to all religious groups in Europe,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Tuesday. “With the rise of racially motivated incidents and today’s decision, Europe is sending a clear message; its faith communities are no longer welcome. Political leaders need to act to ensure that Europe does not isolate religious minorities and remains a diverse and open continent.”
One of the lawsuits that led to the ruling was by an employee of the Belgian branch of G4S, the London-listed outsourcing and security company. After three years at the firm she decided she wanted to start wearing a headscarf at work for religious reasons. She was fired in June 2006 for refusing to take off her scarf. The company said she had broken unwritten rules prohibiting religious symbols.
March 7, 2017, the 17th Chamber of the Tribunal Correctionel of Paris acquitted Georges Bensoussan, a Jewish Moroccan-born historian, of any "incitement of racial hatred" ("provocation à la haine raciale").Living in Sderot: Ten seconds to save your life
On January 25, 2017, all of France's "anti-racist" organizations -- even the Jewish International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) -- joined the Islamist Collective Against Islamophobia (CCIF) in court against Bensoussan. He was prosecuted for remarks he made in October 2015, during a debate on radio station France Culture about anti-Semitism among French Arabs. Benoussan said:
"An Algerian sociologist, Smaïn Laacher, with great courage, just said in a documentary aired on Channel 3: It is a shame to deny this taboo, namely that in the Arab families in France, and everyone knows it but nobody wants to say it, anti-Semitism is sucked with mother's milk."
The Islamist CCIF send the quote to the public prosecutor, who opened a case against Bensoussan. The charge was simple: "mother's milk" was not a metaphor for cultural anti-Semitism transmitted through education, but a genetic and "essentialist" accusation. "Mother's milk", they claimed, means: "all Arabs are anti-Semitic" -- in other words, that Bensoussan supposedly a racist.
The decision of the court to acquit of Bensoussan is a key moment for freedom of speech in France in general, and for the freedom to speak about Muslim anti-Semitism in France.
Less than 1 km from Gaza and the target of over 10,000 rockets, Mayor of Sderot, Alon Davidi, tells Sheila Gunn Reid why he stays in what he describes as “the front line in the battle against evil”.
Miles McInnes: Arafat Was Right! (And Gay)
Gavin McInnes' leftwing brother Miles followed him all the way to Israel, and it's no surprise whose side he's on.
Israeli left-wing activist claims to have been detained over BDS activity
Well known Israeli activist Jeff Halper said he was briefly detained by police in the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement and that he believed it was because they suspected him of activity relating to the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment Movement.The South African Who Doesn’t Know What Apartheid Is
Halper, who immigrated to Israel from the US in 1973, heads the left-wing Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
Last Wednesday Halper took a group of British tourists to see Ma’aleh Adumim, where he discussed with them issues relating to ` Israeli settlement activity. He traveled with the group on their bus and they had dropped him off so he could board an Egged bus to Jerusalem, but just before the bus left the settlement it was stopped by police officers, who entered the bus and asked him to get off with them, Halper said.
The officers put Halper in their patrol car and drove in the direction of the police station, but then stopped and asked him to get out, he recounted. They asked him to take out all the material he had in his bag, such as the maps and the information he had for the group he had just led, Halper said.
The first thing to notice is that Essa makes no distinction between the status of Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinian Arabs living in the disputed territories. As far as Essa is concerned they are all discriminated against by Israel.Revealed: Head of Catholic St Thomas University’s Student Government Tweeted That Jews Will ‘Get What’s Coming’ to Them
In truth, the Palestinian Authority has its own governing bodies, parliament, ministries, diplomatic representatives, social services, courts, police force, etc. Unlike the Bantu policy of the South African government, the autonomy arrangements in the West Bank were fully voluntary, arrived at by negotiation between the state of Israel and the internationally recognized “sole representative” of the Palestinian people.
According to Essa:
Israel has some 50 laws that discriminate against Palestinian Muslims and Christians. It defines itself as a “state of the Jewish people”, but boasts of being a democracy. From the inception of the state in 1948 until 1966, Palestinian citizens of Israel lived under a harsh military rule; they were treated as enemies of the state, had curfews and were not allowed to leave their towns. Today, Palestinian are discriminated against in terms of education, healthcare and legal services. For instance, since 1948, about 600 new towns for Jews have been built while not a single new Palestinian town has been recognised or developed. Palestinians are refused building permits.
A number of points to address these charges:
The ’50 discriminatory laws’ that Essa refers to are nothing of the sort. Instead the anti-Israel NGO Adalah created such a list that has been appropriated by others looking to demonize Israel.
The president of a Minnesota school’s undergraduate student government (USG) once tweeted, “yahood [Jews] will get what coming for them [sic],” a covert campus watchdog group revealed.Palestinian Terrorist to Speak at Hyatt Regency in Chicago, Hotel Heir Pritzker Remains Silent
Mayzer Muhammad of St. Paul’s University of St. Thomas has a history of antisemitic rhetoric on social media stretching back to 2014, Canary Mission found, including calling supporters of Israel “the scum of the earth,” referring to Israel as a “racist apartheid state” and claiming the country is “murdering innocent people every day.”
Muhammad was previously the president of the campus chapter of the Muslim Student Association.
Muhammad’s last public comments about Israel, identified by The Algemeiner, date back to the month before he won his uncontested bid for USG in April 2016. At the time, he reposted a video from AJ+ — an online media channel run by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network — in which a voice alleged to be that of an “Israeli border officer” is heard yelling in Arabic, “We are the occupation army” and threatening to kill “the children, the youth, the old people.” Muhammad said the video depicted “[t]he reality of what goes on in Palestine.”
According to Tcath, "the top leadership of Hyatt is both aware fully of JVP and Odeh and who they are" -- and that includes hotel heir J.B. Pritzker, who has remained deafeningly silent through it all.Independent or PressTV? Indy piece on Israel cites ‘analysis’ of fringe extremist and 9/11 truther
While Pritzker may not be involved in the day-to-day operations of the hotel chain, he is still a stakeholder and his voice could have lent weight to efforts to prevent terrorists and terrorist-sympathizers from being given a platform at the Hyatt Regency.
Alas, it comes as no surprise though, considering the Democratic mega donor and aspiring gubernatorial candidate is classically self-loathing. As Tcath told the Beacon, Pritzker has long organized protests against pro-Israel efforts in the city. The hotel heir even organized "against a fundraiser to help the Jewish state during Hamas’s bombing campaign of Israeli citizens."
Jewish or not Jewish. Man or woman. This is the true face of the Left. And as always, it proves ugly to the core.
Even by Indy standards, this is just bizarre. Their Middle East correspondent, Bethan McKernan, contextualized an article on Donald Trump’s recent invitation to Mahmoud Abbas by citing the “analysis” of a fringe extremist named Ralph Schoenman.IsraellyCool: “State of Palestine” Showcased at Berlin Tourism Fair
The March 13th article cites Schoenman – the “leading academic” thusly:
US President Donald Trump’s extended invitation to Palestinian Authority PresidentMahmoud Abbas to discuss bringing peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not affect the Israeli right wing’s “long-term desire” of “pushing the Palestinian population out of the West Bank,” an American academic and anti-war activist has said.
…
“The outline of what they intend to discuss [is] ways in which for Abbas can provide some sort of covering sanction for the plans of Trump to accommodate himself to the agenda [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has with respect to Palestinians and the occupied territories,” Ralph Schoenma, author of the influential 1988 book ‘Hidden History of Zionism’, said on Monday.
So, who is Ralph Schoenman?
He’s a fringe Marxist, 9/11 conspiracy theorist and fraudulent scholar who’s erroneously claimed that Jews dominated the slave trade and that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis to create the Holocaust.
“The State of Palestine,” which exists in the eyes of some terror-loving United Nation members, had a booth at the ITB – the largest tourism trade fair in the world that takes place every year in Berlin.New Israel Fund of Canada: Trump is a “source of danger to Israel”
It was located in a different hall than Israel, which was situated peacefully next to Jordan and Egypt. On the last day of the event on Sunday, March 12, in the afternoon, the “State of Palestine” was completely empty, while Israel’s was still happening.
So what does the “State of Palestine” have to offer, judging from the brochures they left? Firstly, bad grammar. English copy editors should be able to find a lot of work in the State of Palestine. Just take a look at the introduction to Jenin. Let’s say the dull brochure does not make Jenin particularly appealing.
To “Palestine’s” credit, it did not list major Israeli cities (except for Jerusalem) in their territory, but they called the “State of Palestine” by Israel’s common designation, “the Holy Land.” Although, the designation is not entirely inaccurate, since the land the State of Palestine covets for itself is Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Biblical civilization.
Joan Garson, the Chair of New Israel Fund of Canada (NIFC) and former past chair of ARZENU, the international organization of Reform and Progressive Zionists, believes that “fear” in the Jewish community pushes people to the right side of the political map and emboldens Israeli nationalism.Labour Gorton Favourite 'Israeli Government Are Like Nazis'
Speaking at NIFC conference in Jerusalem, Garson expressed her hope that “many are beginning to understand President Trump as a source of danger to Israel.”
The following are excerpts from Joan Garson’s speech (February 2017):
NIFC is about our shared Canadian values, and our support for those who act at the grassroots to bring change in Israel that advances those values…
We in Canada, extraordinarily, went from the right to the left in what is now a source of national pride… Our role in Canada is, at least now with the current government and the broad support felt for it, to build on the pride being shared in Canadian values and turn that to support for our work in Israel…
Fear in the Jewish community in Toronto and Canada determines the opinions for many on the right, and impacts on the way politics in Israel and the politics of President Trump are heard – and the real, horrifying expression of anti-Semitism in North America now is reinforcing that fear.
Fear for Israel and the Jewish community is a key motivator. In part, it explains support for expressions of Israeli nationalism and even increased anxiety for Israeli security.
Among the favourites to win Labour’s Manchester Gorton selection contest is North West MEP Afzil Khan. According to local sources Khan has been lining himself up for the Gorton seat for many years. This tweet from 2014 could be a problem:IsraellyCool: Why Report From Yemen When There Is Bacon In Jerusalem?
At the time Marie van der Zyl, a Board of Deputies vice president, and Sharon Bannister, president of the Manchester Jewish Representative Council said:
“We are deeply disappointed by these tweets, [which are] still deeply offensive… There is no place for antisemitism in our politics.”
He has now deleted the tweet. Labour MPs and councillors have been suspended for less…
I wrote a long time ago about the disastrously high civilian death rate in Yemen. That gets nothing like the breathless coverage which Israel’s unbelievably careful airstrikes in Gaza get. I also wrote about the tragedy of ending a millennia of Jewish life in Yemen, with Jews finally driven out by Muslims fighting each other.Superficial BBC News report on Naharayim killer’s release
When so many journalists are hanging around Israel, enjoying the safety, security, fine restaurants and other amenities, you have to look at all the places where they don’t go. These journalists love the easy life here: pre-written, pre-researched “stories” are handed to them in the form of “research papers” by far left NGOs with strong anti-Israel agendas. That’s not happening in Yemen. Kudos to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times for actually trying and reporting why he can’t go to Yemen.
A major part of the complaint against Lethal Journalism in Israel is undue and overblown attention on Israel. It’s worth remembering this from Matti Friedman’s earth shattering revelations from inside AP in Israel (Aug 2014):
Staffing is the best measure of the importance of a story to a particular news organization. When I was a correspondent at the AP, the agency had more than 40 staffers covering Israel and the Palestinian territories. That was significantly more news staff than the AP had in China, Russia, or India, or in all of the 50 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It was higher than the total number of news-gathering employees in all the countries where the uprisings of the “Arab Spring” eventually erupted.
The report tells readers:CAMERA Prompts Correction to New York Times Editorial
“A military court deemed him mentally unstable at the time and sentenced him to life in prison.
In Jordan, this usually means 25 years. However, some lawmakers had lobbied for him to be freed early.”
It does not however clarify that “some lawmakers” actually means the vast majority of Jordan’s MPs.
Readers are also told that:
“Daqamseh is seen as a hero by some opposition activists in Jordan, who oppose the country’s peace treaty with Israel, signed in 1994.”
In fact, over the years Daqamseh has been championed by a range of supporters besides the euphemistically titled “opposition activists”, including Islamists, ‘human rights’ activists, trade unionists and lawyers – not least the former Justice Minister.
Remarkably, the BBC’s report did not make any mention of the enthusiastic welcome given to Daqamseh upon arrival in his home village and the article was not updated to include the remarks he made in an interview with Al Jazeera.
After CAMERA contacted New York Times editors about an error in a March 9 editorial, the newspaper commendably published a correction setting the record straight.Concordian Article Replete with Anti-Israel Bias
The March 10 correction notes,
An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated the United States' position on settlement building in the occupied territories. It has been highly critical of the activity, but has not consistent held it to be illegal.
The original editorial claimed that the United States "has consistently held that settlement building in the occupied territories is illegal."
As CAMERA explained in its critique of the editorial, ever since the end of the Carter administration the US has consistently avoided characterizing settlements as illegal.
On March 11, the Concordian Newspaper featured an article by Aysha White on how a panel discussion organized by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) was interrupted by pro-Israel protesters.Hungary’s Ugly State-Sponsored Holocaust Revisionism
The article which was about an event for “Israel Apartheid Week” (IAW), was marred on many accounts.
Firstly, the article described IAW as “a week aimed at creating international awareness of the settler-colonial relationship between Israel and Palestine, and the Palestinian apartheid. SPHR advocates for an end to Palestine’s colonization and aims to promote awareness of Palestinian culture and identity.” Nowhere did the article mention that the event is a hate-fest directed only at Israel, nor did it acknowledge Jewish legal, religious, and historical rights to the land of Israel, and Arab minority rights in the Jewish state. There’s no foundation to the “apartheid” slur featured in the article (please read “10 reasons Israel is not an ‘apartheid’ state” by HRC’s Jake Beaumont in the Huffington Post)
Secondly, nowhere did the article mention that pro-Israel groups like Israel on Campus Concordia have condemned the interruption saying that freedom of expression should be respected.
Thirdly, Nahla Abdo, a professor in the department of sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa, accused Israel of “racism,” “ethnic cleansing”, and “genocide” without Concordian reporter Aysha White including a rebuttal to these outrageous accusations.
Opposition to this revisionist crusade reached a critical phase in January 2014, around the same time that plans for the occupation memorial were unveiled. After the director of a government-subsidized historical center phlegmatically referred to the 1941 deportations of Jews living under Hungarian authority as a “police action against aliens,” outraged leaders of the Hungarian Jewish community announced they would cease cooperation with the government on activities marking the 70th-anniversary Holocaust Remembrance Year. Orbán decided to postpone work on the monument until after national elections in April, at which point consultations on its design would resume. But just two days after his party, Fidesz, secured a landslide victory, Orbán reneged on his promise and workers returned to the construction site, which by then had to be patrolled by police to keep protesters at bay. In an open letter to Orbán, 30 members of the U.S. Congress stated that while “Hungary is an important ally and partner of the United States,” it should “build an appropriate memorial that tells the entire Hungarian story of the Nazi Occupation, not one that whitewashes the truth.” Orbán was unmoved. The Hungarian government completed its controversial memorial in the dead of night, slipping the bronze angel and eagle into the square disguised in metal foil.Poland Identifies Minnesota Man as Former Nazi Commander
Budapest’s Memorial to the Victims of the German Occupation is distinguished not only by its revisionist message but also its vulgar design. Holocaust memorials tend to be solemn and subtly allegorical. Around the corner from the iconic Brandenburg Gate, Berlin’s more accurately named Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe—2,711 black concrete stelae arranged in a mazelike pattern on a sloping plaza—immediately unsettles visitors with its figurative representation of the Holocaust’s unfathomable depth. Elsewhere in Budapest, “Shoes on the Danube Bank” displays 60 pairs of iron footwear fastened to the river’s stone embankment, marking the last standing place of Jews who, every day during the 1944-1945 winter, were ordered to take off their shoes before being shot by Arrow Cross militiamen, the Nazis’ Hungarian accomplices.
Poland has identified a Minnesota man as a former Nazi commander who allegedly ordered the murder of 44 Poles during World War II.No jail time for Canadian man convicted of online anti-Semitism
The Associated Press has named the man as Michael Karkoc, 98, who resides in Minneapolis. He was born in Lutsk, Ukraine, in 1919.
Prosecutor Robert Janicki stated that a long investigation led authorities to conclude that Karkoc commanded “a unit in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion.”
Janicki only identified the man as Michael K:
“All the pieces of evidence interwoven together allow us to say the person who lives in the U.S. is Michael K., who commanded the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion which carried out the pacification of Polish villages in the Lublin region,” Janicki said.
Karkoc’s son blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for this “misinformation or disinformation” about his father. He also said his father never went to Poland.
A Canadian man convicted of spreading anti-Semitic material online was sentenced Monday and banned from posting publicly on the internet, but will not serve any jail time.Russian sauna owner in hot water for comparing resort to Auschwitz
Arthur Topham, a 70-year-old former teacher and miner from Quesnel in British Columbia, was found guilty in 2015 of promoting hatred against an identifiable group on his website, Radical Press.
Topham has run the website, described as anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic, since 1998 and was first charged in 2012.
Topham was given a six-month conditional sentence barring him from publicly posting online, as well as a curfew.
At the sentencing hearing, attended by several of his supporters, Topham told the court that the website had already been taken down, and said, “I have also deleted all of my Facebook, Yahoo… I have no online presence,” according to Canada’s CBC News.
He did not appear to have changed his opinions, and didn’t show regret for posting the material.
A Russian sauna owner has been making particularly cynical use of the Holocaust recently, advertising his resort as being "hotter than Auschwitz."100% protection against video cyber attacks
The Abwehr sauna, named for the German military intelligence corps, is in Siberia, next to a freezing river. Visitors to the sauna are invited to dip in the river afterwards, a popular custom in Russia.
Vatzislav Boab claimed on his website that "Auschwitz is a rest."
When a local newspaper asked Boab why he chose to make such an offensive reference to the Nazi death camp, Boab dismissed the criticism, saying, "Why do you need to know? Why don't you try yourself? Do you know what they did in Auschwitz? They burned people, yes? My sauna is so hot that it's even hotter than Auschwitz."
The newspaper said it had called on local authorities to take measures against Boab, but they had responded indifferently.
Russian media expert Alex Tenzer slammed the comparison, saying he was "shocked at how low people will stoop for publicity."
A Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researcher has developed a new technique that could provide virtually 100 percent protection against cyberattacks launched through internet videos or images, according to a university statement.Five of Israel’s largest tech deals
“Any downloaded or streamed video or picture is a potential vehicle for a cyberattack,” says Professor Ofer Hadar, chair of BGU’s Department of Communication Systems Engineering. “Hackers like videos and pictures because they bypass the regular data transfer systems of highly secure systems, and there is significant space in which to implant malicious code.”
Cybersecurity is a hot-button issue in today’s digital world. Recent WikiLeaks allegations against the Central Intelligence Agency of hacking techniques that bypass security encryption, made the issue even more urgent.
Hadar says downloaded and shared videos and images are a growing target for cyberattackers.
US giant Intel announced Monday it would buy Israeli car tech firm Mobileye for more than $15 billion (14 billion euros), the largest cross-border tech deal in the Jewish state’s history.Pricey Mobileye buy puts Intel in fast lane of competitive industry
Mobileye makes advanced driver assistance for car manufacturers, and has already collaborated with Intel and BMW to develop self-driving cars.
For Israel, it will be seen as a sign of the self-styled “Start-Up Nation” coming of age, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailing the deal.
Here are a few of the largest Israeli tech deals:
The acquisition by Intel Corp. of Israel’s Mobileye, a maker of chips for car cameras and driver-assistance features, is a typical tale of an Israeli start-up that has grown from within the folds of the local academia and then found an exit.Analysis Israel's biggest ever tech deal is science fiction come to life
This tale, however, is a blockbuster, and Intel’s $15-billion acquisition will entrench Israel as a leader in the highly competitive autonomous car industry.
The acquisition announced Monday — at a price that represented 35 percent premium to the market value of Mobileye — represents the biggest ever for a tech company in Israel; it is the largest deal to date involving semi-autonomous and autonomous driving technology. The creation of a joint enterprise in Jerusalem will spawn additional entrepreneurs in the field and create a go-to country for investors who will be seeking to find the next blockbuster, according to analysts and industry players.
Mobileye was founded in 1999 by Prof. Amnon Shashua, a professor in computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an expert in computer learning and machine vision; and Ziv Aviram, a businessman with a knack of turning companies around from loss to profit, and restructuring organizations. The two aimed to use technology to increase road safety by helping avoid collisions, as opposed to mitigating the severity of collision-related injuries on which the auto industry was focused at the time.
The technology the two developed — a single-lens camera with a chip — was inspired by human vision, which uses just one eye for depth perception such as shading, texture and motion. This camera became the primary sensor that is used in their array of products that help drivers avoid collisions and also in future-enable autonomous driving.
The biggest foreign takeover in Israeli financial history is obviously a landmark for Israeli business and innovation, but even more than that – it is a milestone in the rapidly evolving revolution of the driverless car.
As a deal, Intel’s $15.3 billion purchase of Mobileye dwarfs anything Israeli that was ever bought, eclipsing, for instance, Google’s purchase of the driving navigation system Waze for $966 million, and exceeding by 50% last year’s combined foreign purchases of Israeli firms.
The Mobileye deal is big not only in terms of cash, but also in terms of its place in Israel’s history of technological innovation.
The 18-year-old Jerusalem-based Mobileye has established itself as a major producer of driving assistance systems that are now built into cars, warning drivers of approaching vehicles, pedestrians, obstacles and road margins.
Mobileye holds 70% of this vital innovation’s global market. The system, which deploys cameras and sensors, is in the same league as such famous Israeli inventions as drip irrigation, the computer flash drive or the Iron Dome missile interceptor.
