Thursday, March 23, 2017
Ben-Dror Yemini: An economic stick against dark forces
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), one of the organizations operating on behalf of the UN, has commissioned another report against Israel. The ESCWA is made up exclusively of representatives of Arab states, and its most recent executive secretary was Rima Khalaf of Jordan.Exactly 10 years ago today: U.N. banned speech heard around the world. "Human rights dream turned into a nightmare."
Like other reports published on behalf of the ESCWA in recent years, the latest one, which was released last week, was authored by Richard Falk, an American Jew. The conclusions, which were known in advance, were that Israel is an apartheid state.
Falk represents, perhaps more than any other person, the decline and the ridiculing of the rights discourse. His series of actions gave him the third place on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Top 10 Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs list in 2013. For six years, Falk served as a UN special rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” He kept issuing groundless reports, much to the delight of the cheering representatives of the Islamic states. In addition to his admiration towards the dark forces, Falk repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
In the past, Falk met with Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who received his protection and admiration. After American linguist Noam Chomsky and American political scientist Norman Finkelstein expressed their support for Hezbollah, it appears that there is some fatal—perhaps abnormal—attraction between Jews of a certain species and people with a murderous and anti-Semitic agenda. How exactly do “human rights” fit in with support for these people?
Prequel: APPROVED Speeches at UN Human Rights Council (creator of Goldstone report)
FOI docs reveal Liberals glossing over UN group's terror ties
For well over a year, I’ve been talking about the Trudeau government’s flirtation with funding a UN body that has had close connections with terrorist groups, that has employees that glorify terrorism, and that educates children to hate Jews and Israel.Liberals gloss over UNRWA terror links
Of course, I’m speaking of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Canada started funding UNRWA again recently despite some grave concerns and the latest documents I’ve obtained through access to information show a government desperate to cover this up, gloss over concerns and rush the money out the door before Canadians ever knew what was happening.
An email, calls for “strict omerta”, the mafia code of silence. (page 206) While also asking if the payments could go to UNRWA on November 7th.
The announcement of the money wasn’t made until November 15th, a week later. And the plan for rolling this out, included giving a heads up to the NDP and Green leader Elizabeth May, but not to the Conservatives who opposed the move. (page 39)
Why the rush and the secrecy? Because the Liberals knew this would be controversial and they know there are problems with UNRWA.
Ron Prosor: Guterres and Haley Can’t Do It Alone, Democracies Must Stand Up To End U.N. Farce
Good news from the United Nations is rare, so it was a surprise when on Friday and Monday, two positive developments emerged. On Friday, after commendable efforts from both U.N. Secretary General Ant ó nio Guterres and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Rima Khalaf resigned. Khalaf was the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), one of many seemingly innocuously titled U.N. agencies that on closer inspection, is anything but.U.S. $$$$ for UN Rapes
I was the first to call for her dismissal, back in 2014 when she published a report comparing Israel to Nazi Germany—an inherently anti-Semitic position. Never mind that Israel is the only state in the Middle East where the equal democratic rights of minority citizens are enshrined and protected by the rule of law. Or that next door in Syria, genocidal slaughter at the hands of the Assad regime was already long underway. Israel’s identity as a Jewish State is the real threat, Khalaf told us.
For years, she used her agency as a vehicle to ram into Israel’s legitimacy, demonizing the Jewish state and pumping anti-Israeli pollution into the U.N.’s atmosphere. The U.N. provided an environment for such lies to fester. Ban Ki Moon was largely silent in the face of them, even when he knew they were absurd. This year, Khalaf struck again, with a report slandering Israel as an “apartheid state.” Yet Guterres, the new secretary general, spoke up, demanding that she withdraw the report and prompting her resignation. Khalaf’s reports, which rewrote and distorted history, have now been consigned to the dustbin.
Guterres deserves credit, but it will take more than one resignation to bring real change. Reforms are long overdue but desperately needed if the U.N. is to shed its reputation for bloated, ludicrous hypocrisy and restore trust and credibility to international institutions.
Trump’s healthy skepticism of the U.N. is welcome news for Israel. When a U.N. affiliate released a report last week charging Israel with operating an “apartheid state” to victimize Palestinians, Trump’s U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley demanded its retraction and succeeded.IsraellyCool: Hater Vandalizes Nikki Haley’s Wikipedia Page
The Trump administration’s unequivocal support for Israel in the U.N. is a stark improvement over President Obama’s decision to sit on his hands last December, when the U.N. denounced Israel’s West Bank settlements.
Before taking office, Trump dismissed the U.N. as “just a club for people to get together, talk, and have a good time.” In fact, it’s much worse than that, and the president’s budget shows he’s ready to shake things up.
Our new president knows that “globalism” is code for exploiting American generosity and sacrificing American interests. He’s having none of it.
Although we are the U.N.’s largest backer, the organization has ignored the real threats to American security. It has done nothing to halt Islamic terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS, instead ginning up false claims against Israel.
Better to spend U.S. dollars fortifying our own defense capabilities rather than on U.N. peacekeeping boondoggles around the globe.
This is what you are currently greeted with when you go to the Wikipedia page for Nikki Haley, the current US Ambassador to the UN:Arabs protest to UN chief about withdrawal of Israel ‘apartheid’ report
Haley’s new career as Donald Trump’s “Permanent Representative to the UN” was mired in controversy following a strong display of her subservience to Israeli interests at the UN in early March, 2017. Stridency of Haley’s (hyperbolic) reaction to a report titled “Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” by the UN agency “Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)”, has taken many independent UN observers and analysts by surprise[21].
The report, authored by a beacon of the international movement against the murder and oppression of Palestinians by Israel, Richard Falk, and Virginia Tilley (Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale) hardly deserved such condemnation. Haley’s vigorous demands for the immediate withdrawal of the report and her personal abuse of Richard Falk [22]suggested that Haley was attempting to outdo her neocon sycophant predecessors on the job such as Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke and Samantha Power.
An Arab delegation met with the UN secretary-general Wednesday to protest what Palestinian Authority Ambassador Riyad Mansour called the “bullying tactics and intimidation” that led to UN withdrawal of a report that accused Israel of establishing an “apartheid regime.”Follow the money
Mansour said the meeting with UN chief Antonio Guterres “was not a pleasant experience for all of us,” following the secretary-general’s order to remove the report from the UN website and the resignation of senior UN official Rima Khalaf after she refused to withdraw it.
The report was swiftly condemned by US and Israeli officials, who reportedly called on the UN to reject it. Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said it had been published without any prior consultations and did not reflect his views.
Mansour said he and the ambassadors of Oman and Iraq delivered a message to Guterres during what he also called a “very frank but warm discussion about a painful subject to all of us.”
“We care about the UN and the secretary-general, and we do not accept methods that are not in the culture of the United Nations,” Mansour said. “You know by that what I mean — some people who are trying to inject bullying tactics and intimidation.”
He stressed that “it is our collective responsibility to do everything we can to defend the UN and what it stands for.”
In the 1970s, an "innocent" Geneva-based charity organization was exposed as supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization. Unmasked as PLO sympathizers, the Swiss feigned innocence, claiming the group was merely "fostering cooperation." The Israeli defense establishment agreed. The group was, indeed, fostering cooperation between two terrorist groups -- Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.David Singer: Palestinian Arabs migrants have borrowed the word "Diaspora"
At the time, the PLO was able to turn fundraising for terrorist activity into an art form. Since the Palestinian Authority's creation in 1994, Hamas has emerged as the dominant Palestinian organization in raising funds for terrorism.
The global fundraising network, headed by Kuwaiti Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, operates in dozens of states. Some nations, like Iran and Syria, sponsor terrorist directly, albeit covertly; other countries, like some European nations, disguise this support by funding "innocent" aid groups; and others still, like Turkey, do so overtly, by funding what they call education and welfare ventures.
The recent arrest of Muhamad Murtaja, the manager of the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency in Gaza, who allegedly embezzled [>>http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=41267] millions of the aid group's funds and funneled them to Hamas, may embarrass Ankara. Murtaja, a member of Hamas' military wing, was named to his position over the role Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has assumed in aiding the "besieged" Palestinians in Gaza.
Conference spokesman Said Ziyad al Aloul supports this conclusion: “We as Palestinian diaspora have the right to organize and tell the traditional Palestinian leaders what we think is the best way forward,"David Friedman confirmed as US ambassador to Israel
Anees Fawzi Kassem - the head of the conference - said the Oslo Accords were the worst deal possible and had resulted in Palestinians being unable to represent Palestinians: ."We are gathered here today to demand that we the people of Palestine be given our voice back,"
Khalid Turaani, another spokesperson for the conference reportedly claimed: "It is high time that Palestinians come together to ensure that a weak donor-bondaged [PLO] doesn't give away any more of our legal historic and moral rights in Palestine,"
Kassem’s and Turanni’s sentiments will resonate with those Palestinian Arabs living under PLO rule whose voices have been silenced whilst being denied free, fair and transparent elections since 2006.
Negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the Oslo Accords were always destined to founder since the PLO Charter states that Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan are:
-An indivisible territorial unit and
-An indivisible part of the Arab homeland
-The 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything based on them since then are null and void.
-Jews do not constitute a single nation with an identity of its own
-Jordan and Israel’s 1994 Peace Treaty rejected these PLO deal-breakers.
Oslo’s demise opens the possibility of Jordan and Israel redrawing their existing international boundary to mutually divide the 'West Bank' between their respective States.
President Trump should jump to seal the deal.
President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to be US envoy to Israel, David Friedman, was confirmed by the Senate Thursday, in a 52-46 vote that went almost entirely along party lines.What a ‘kippah walk’ in Berlin won’t tell you about anti-Semitism
The 57-year-old bankruptcy attorney, a Hebrew-speaker and longtime friend of the president’s, will now be the United States’ representative to the Jewish state, considered one of the most sensitive diplomatic assignments, overcoming a confirmation process that had been fraught with controversy.
Two Democrats joined 50 Republicans in voting for Friedman — Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
A vocal and financial supporter of the settlement movement, Friedman has been outspoken in his belief that West Bank settlement activity is not an obstacle to peace and that Israel does not face a “demographic threat” to its Jewish character if it fails to separate from the Palestinians, a break from US policy over the last decades.
He told The Times of Israel in November 2016 that Trump would not apply pressure to Israel over approving settlement construction projects in the West Bank, saying he would not “dictate to Israel where it can and cannot build.”
It’s literally become old hat: Sending a Jew wearing a kippah into the streets of a European city to see how non-Jews react. A so-called “anti-Semitism test,” it’s been done, ad nauseam.The Forward Flirts with Holocaust Denial While Smearing Gorka
So I was a bit surprised last week when I saw yet another article on the topic on the website of the German newspaper Die Zeit. Reporter Mariam Lau accompanied Berlin Chabad Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal on a walk through a heavily Muslim neighborhood to see how people would react.
Predictably, the usually cheerful and upbeat Teichtal — who, as Lau noted, can’t help but look Jewish with his black hat, beard and long coat — drew many stares and at least one overt anti-Semitic comment as he walked down Sonnenallee, a boulevard that’s known to some locals as Arabic Street.
When I posted the article on Facebook, little did I expect a firestorm of reactions from opposing Jewish camps: Those who firmly believe Europe is a hotbed of Muslim anti-Semitism; those who think the danger is exaggerated for political purposes, and those who find such experiments to be non-scientific and therefore prove nothing.
Why was this “test” done now?
Last month, the Forward published an article accusing the forefathers of the Israeli right of Nazi collaboration. It is a false charge that, according to respectable Holocaust scholars, amounts to Holocaust denial.Jewish group slams 'specious accusations of anti-Semitism'
And yet the same publication is now leading a smear campaign against a pro-Israel and evidently philo-semitic foreign policy adviser to the President of the United States, Sebastian Gorka, accusing him of Nazi ties.
The Forward even seems to suggest Gorka should be stripped of his U.S. citizenship — a cause that has now been taken up by three Democratic U.S. senators.
The Forward claims, in a particularly lousy piece of journalism, that Gorka is a member of a group that was engaged in Nazi collaboration.
It is perhaps not going to surprise many readers of Breitbart News that this claim is utter nonsense. As a Hungarian researcher of 20th century history, and particularly Holocaust history, it is easy to point out the faults with the Forward’s reporting.
The Forward’s inauthentic style of reporting is displayed by the audio recording of the conversation it apparently had about Gorka with a member of the so-called Historical Vitézi Rend, which it posted online — but without translating the conversation from Hungarian, creating the appearance of transparency but actually practicing the opposite.
The interviewee called the charges against Sebastian Gorka “highly unfair.” That, however, was not reported in the Forward’s piece.
Perhaps the Forward should atone for its flirtations with Holocaust denial rather than smearing others.
The Coalition for Jewish Values, an Orthodox Jewish advocacy group, today harshly condemned “specious accusations of anti-Semitism” coming from sectors of the Jewish community, directed at US government officials and the Trump Administration as a whole, dismissing these allegations as “unfounded, damaging, and embarrassing.”Non-Jewish Founder of Israel Society on Ireland Campus Encourages Peers to Join Activist Movement Following Success of First-Ever ‘Peace Week’
CJV Senior Rabbinic Fellow Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer remarked, “these recriminations are clearly motivated by politics, as they lack logic and defy objective facts. Critics are deliberately ignoring the Administration’s concrete actions of friendship and vocal support for the State of Israel and Jewish values.”
“We have seen this repeatedly,” said Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Director of the CJV. “Steve Bannon, Michael Anton, Sebastian Gorka, and President Trump himself. Unless you redefine anti-Semitism as ‘advocating conservative values,’ not one of these men qualifies.”
CJV Senior Rabbinic Fellow Rabbi Dov Fischer added, “Jewish Americans owe a profound and deep apology to these men and to so many others in American conservative circles who have been slandered as ‘anti-Jewish’ despite their profound, consistent, and lifelong support for Israel, the Jewish community and Jewish interests.”
The founder of Ireland’s only on-campus Zionist student society told The Algemeiner Wednesday that he encourages his peers around the country to “jump into the pro-Israel movement,” as his group has been enjoying a positive response to their first-ever “Peace Week.”Watchdog Launches Pictoral Social Media Project to Expose Antisemitic Activity on Campus
Alan Lyne, president of the Israel Society at the almost entirely non-Jewish Maynooth University, said, “Students who stumbled upon our [Peace Week display of a] mock Western Wall were intrigued and stayed to ask questions — and we consider every good conversation or debate we have with someone a success. That’s what other universities’ students need to realize: just find five, 10 people as passionate as you are and give [pro-Israel activism] a shot; if you succeed even a little, it’s a step in the right direction.”
“Though many Irish are brainwashed from a young age to identify with Palestine, the university students I’ve encountered are concerned with doing their own research, and don’t intend to rely on what they hear from the media about the Middle East,” Lyne said. “Ireland’s campus environment is ripe for groups like ours to have an impact.”
“When you tell people that if it weren’t for Israel they wouldn’t have that smartphone in their hands, they listen,” he noted, adding that he doesn’t believe concentrated efforts of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement will come to Maynooth anytime soon.
A new social media project aims to visually expose anti-Jewish activity on campus, the head of the organization behind the initiative told The Algemeiner.SJW Protesters At Ryerson University Scream Their Anti-Semitism
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, head of campus watchdog group the AMCHA Initiative, was referring to her organizations’s latest venture of gathering the myriad of images of antisemitic incidents at universities posted online and organizing them in a single easy-to-find location. Viewers of the photographs, she said, “hopefully will be left with a better understanding of what is going on.”
“It’s one thing to write and read about an antisemitic incident; it’s quite another to see it. The phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ could not be more apt,” she said.
The AMCHA Initiative regularly monitors more than 400 campuses across the US for classical forms of Jew-hatred — such as a Hitler-themed Valentine’s Day card handed out at Central Michigan University that read, “my luv 4 u burns like 6,000 Jews” — or its newer form of rabid anti-Zionism. According to Rossman-Benjamin, while many of the photographs — which only highlight activity from 2017 — are of classical antisemitism, “an overwhelming majority of the activity we have been recording overall is related to Israel.”
Over the last few months, college campuses have seen an uptick in antisemitic activity. As recently as last week, as reported by The Algemeiner, fliers reading “ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege” were distributed at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
On Wednesday night, Ryerson University became the latest campus affected by the typical onslaught of protesters when conservative students express dissenting views from typical campus Marxism. But this time these “Social Justice Warriors” quickly descended into blatant anti-Semitism.BDS accuses Israel of ‘repression’
Ryerson Campus Conservatives hosted Rebel Media host and founder Ezra Levant. The allocution was mainly about the importance of free speech but also touched on radical Islamic ideology and Jewish issues on campus.
A group of them infiltrated the audience and interrupted, screaming “No Islamaphobia” in an attempt to shut down the lecture. The audience responded by chanting “Don’t shut down the Jews,” chased them outside with help of Ryerson security, then promptly continued the event.
I went outside to attempt and reason with them despite recognizing this would probably be a futile effort. I inquired about their perspective but was met with persistent shouting and sirens. I began taking photos of them only to have them cover up their faces. “Why are you covering yourself up, are you ashamed of your activities?” I asked, but I was met with rape whistles to drown out my voice.
But what happened next was the most disturbing aspect of the evening. The protestors chanted, “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.” They were referring to the Jordan River to the east and the Mediterranean sea to the west, an area that represents the entirety of Israel. Ironically, they later screamed, “No anti-Semitism” (protesting, of course, a Jew speaking about Jewish issues).
I am grateful that Ryerson security was present and effective but I hope that the Ryerson administration issues a statement against the anti-Semitic protest that occurred last night, as this is a pervasive problem within the University.
I am doubtful that this will occur.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on Wednesday accused Israel of "repression" after its leader was arrested over alleged tax fraud.Israel and International Law – the latest from Cork
Qatari-born Omar Barghouti, founder of both the BDS movement and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion he committed tax evasion over the past decade, concealing $700,000 in earned income from tax authorities.
During a raid of Barghouti’s house, police say they found credit cards and purchase records confirming the allegations against him. After being taken into custody, he was transferred to Haifa for interrogation before being released on bail.
Barghouti was raised in Egypt but received permanent residency status after he married an Israeli Arab woman. He currently resides in the northern Israeli town of Acre (Akko) and studied at Tel Aviv University, despite his own calls to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
A BDS statement on Wednesday denounced his arrest and claimed it was part of a wider campaign against Barghouti.
It was reported yesterday that Professor Alan Johnson, editor of Fathom, had decided to withdraw from the rescheduled conference. This followed an announcement that Richard Falk, booster of Atzmon, had been invited to give a keynote paper. (Some noted that the involvement of Oren Ben Dor might already have been seen as a sufficient disincentive to participate.)Minister Gilad Erdan opposes Haaretz newspaper
Discussing this on Twitter made me feel that, for some, antisemitism seems shrouded in mist – a bit like Oren Ben Dor’s prose – even when the issues are clearcut, and don’t hinge on Israel.
One person involved in the conference came up with a string of deflections:
- Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism.
- A claim that there is ‘no agreed definition of antisemitism’. I guess that’s true, but does it have to stop us calling it out?
- Wondering why the strongest criticisms had been directed against non-conformign Jews. I think remembering that Ben Dor said ‘there is something so Jewish in that which has provoked the holocaust’ provides a clue.
- an assertion that the conference doesn’t welcome antisemites. (!)
Minister Gilad Erdan published a post on his Facebook account in which he claims that "Haaretz is disconnected from reality in Israel."Student Leader: Rampant Anti-Israel Activity on Belgian Campuses Has Jewish Students Desperate to Make Their Voices Heard
Erdan was reacting to an editorial in Haaretz which said that "The struggle against the Israeli occupation, whether from Israel or abroad, is legitimate, just and moral - and every person of conscience is entitled to participate in it. Moreover, the means of struggle in question, boycotts and nonviolent sanctions, are legitimate in view of the illegal status of the settlements."
The minister wrote that "a newspaper that calls on Israelis to oppose the struggle I am waging against the boycott against Israel and the BDS, apparently does not really understand what is happening here."
"Instead of Haaretz simply admitting that they support a boycott of Israel, they launched an attack on me, which of course will not deter me even if they continue to write lies about how I operate.
The head of Europe’s Jewish students umbrella group told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that rampant anti-Israel activity on Belgian campuses has Jewish students desperate to have their voices heard.New York Chapter of ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’ Pays Social Media Tribute to ‘Martyrs’ Killed While Carrying Out Terrorist Attacks Against Israelis
Benjamin Fischer, president of the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS), said four universities turned down appeals to cancel events featuring Palestinian terrorist Salah Hamouri, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine arrested in 2005 for plotting to assassinate Israel’s former Sephardic chief Rabbi, the late Ovadia Yosef. Despite a letter-writing campaign to university directors, spearheaded by EUJS and the Belgian Union of Jewish Students (UEJB), Hamouri was allowed to speak throughout February and March — during “Israeli Apartheid Week” — on the topic of Palestinians’ treatment in Israeli prisons at the University of Antwerp, the Free University of Brussels, the Catholic University of Louvain and the Catholic University of Leuven.
“The directors told us that it was a matter of free speech, and they would permit the programs to go forward as planned,” Fischer said, noting that EUJS “took the unusual step of asking an event to be shut down, because we thought, in this particular instance, the campuses had gone too far.”
In a statement, UEJB wrote, “We cannot understand and even less accept that our free and democratic universities would welcome in their halls such speakers, who will spread words inciting violence,” referring to Hamouri, who was released to Hamas in 2011 after seven years in Israeli prison, as one of 1,000 Palestinian terrorists swapped for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit.
An anti-Israel student group took to social media earlier this month to honor “Palestinian martyrs” killed while carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis.IsraellyCool: Reader Post: Roger Waters’ Latest Act of Hypocrisy
In a Facebook post on March 12, the New York City chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (NYC SJP) shared an Arabic-language video commemorating “the work done by Palestinian female fighters.” The video was originally uploaded to social media by Pulsetine, a non-profit organization that claims to “tell the story of Palestine.”
One of the “martyrs” highlighted in the video is Fatah female suicide terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who took part in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre. Mughrabi was among a group of terrorists who hijacked a bus and opened fire on passing traffic. After Israeli forces stopped the bus and entered into a gun battle with the perpetrators, Mughrabi blew up the bus with a grenade, killing 38 Israelis, including 13 children.
Another terrorist featured in the video — one who survived her own attacks — is Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), responsible for a series of airplane hijackings. A picture of a young Khaled wearing a keffiyeh while holding a rifle has become an iconic image used by anti-Israel activists to promote violent “resistance” against the Jewish state.
Roger Waters, who used his opportunity while gracing the stage at the event in California late last year to bash Israel yet again, will soon embark on a huge North American tour in support of a new album.IsraellyCool: WATCH: Richard Gere’s Latest Display Of Ignorance
As many may remember, this is the tour that Citibank and Amex refused to sponsor due to Waters on stage anti Israel rantings at Oldchella. I can only hold my breath in anticipation of how Waters will incorporate his Tolkien world view that Israel is Mordor into his new album and tour.
One of the venues he will be playing is the American Airlines Arena in Miami. The AAA is a county owned facility managed by the Miami Heat Organization which is owned by the Arison family. The Arison family also own Carnival Cruise Lines. They are also one of the most prominent, wealthy, and philanthropic Israeli families in America. The patriarch, Ted Arison, fought in the Jewish Brigade during World War 2 and was an officer in the War for Israel’s Independence. His daughter Shari Arison is one of the wealthiest women in Israel and controls the Ted Arison Foundation, which according to its website has invested more than US$420 million in social causes in Israel. His son Micky runs the family business including the Miami Heat, AAA arena and Carnival Cruise Lines.
It certainly seems like strange bedfellows for the most prominent anti Israel, some say anti Semitic, and avowed BDS champion to do business with a family so prominently linked with Israel and pro-Israel causes. There are many venues in South Florida that could have hosted Waters that did not involve such Israeli connections.
Why are these parties in this equation?
While I as an attorney in Miami have no connection with Roger Waters, other than the thousands of hours I listened to Pink Floyd over the years, I sought contact with those close to the Miami Heat and Arison family for answers. I sent a letter to one of their attorneys outlining my concern that Waters playing his concert in a county owned facility could violate Florida’s new anti-BDS law, and that it was disturbing that the Arison’s would give Waters a stage to bash Israel.
Hollywood himbo Richard Gere has already announced himself as a most ungracious guest of this country. And in keeping with his biased view of the conflict, he took a tour of Hebron with Israel-bashing group Breaking the Silence. This is what the cameras caught him saying.IsraellyCool: Israel Basher Peter Beinart Disparages Judaism
“It’s exactly what the old south was in America. Blacks knew where they could and couldn’t go and it was well-understood. You didn’t cross it or you would’ve gotten your head beaten or you’d get lynched.”
A very interesting choice of words, given the only people who have had their heads beaten in and been lynched here are Jews who had the misfortune of going in to palestinian controlled territory.
P.S Richard, King David – who you played in a movie, – was anointed King of Israel in Hebron, and reigned there for seven years. Yet you believe Jews do not belong there?
It is no secret that columnist, journalist, and self-proclaimed “liberal Zionist” Peter Beinart is an Israel basher. He does it with aplomb, all while arguing that anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism.Misleading headlines at Guardian and Financial Times
But his own mask seems to be slipping, revealing what lurks beneath. And it ain’t pretty.
Beinart tweeted the following to Brigitte Gabriel, a voracious critic of Islam, presumably in the wake of the latest Islamic terror attack in Britain.
Peter BeinartLeaving aside the fact Beinart is wrong to compare what we celebrate on Purim (our salvation from a program of extermination) with Islamic terrorism (pursued to establish an Islamic Caliphate to ursurp Western civilizazation), there is no question he is attacking Judaism here. Not Israel. Not Zionism.
hey @ACTBrigitte, I know u think Koran is uniquely murderous + Jews dislike violent texts. But we just celebrated a holiday called Purim...
When Brigitte Gabriel points out the absurdity of his comparison, Beinart changes tact, reverting to his Israel bashing.
The Guardian2nd Montreal mosque hosts imam speech calling for death of Jews
Today, we tweeted a critique of a Guardian headline accompanying a March 21st article on accusations against the NGO World Vision. The headline read: Inquiry clears World Vision Gaza of diverting funds to Hamas“. The strapline read: Australian government review finds no evidence for Israel’s 2016 allegations that the NGO siphoned off millions of dollars a year to the Islamist group“.
We then emailed editors noting that, as the text in the actual article makes clear, the Australian government inquiry only concluded that no Australian taxpayer funds were diverted to Hamas by World Vision. It didn’t address the broader Israeli investigation into whether the NGO diverted other funds to Hamas. Also, as the text in the article makes clear, the internal investigation by World Vision is still ongoing and hasn’t yet reached a conclusion.
Financial Times
Also today, we tweeted the following in response to an article at Financial Times (pay wall) with a headline that read: “Dubai leads Middle East in start-ups, local rivals rush to follow”.
We emailed Financial Times editors, noting that, five paragraphs down in the article, we’re told that Israel was not included in the report which ranked Dubai first in Mid-East start-ups. Of course, Israel leads the Mid-East in start-ups, and in fact has the fifth highest number of startup companies in the world. So, the headline’s claim that “Dubai leads the Middle East in start-ups” is simply not accurate.U.S. News & World Report Removes Erroneous References to Tel Aviv as Israel's Capital
CAMERA's Israel office today prompted correction of a U.S. News & World Report article which twice erroneously referred to Tel Aviv as Israel's capital ("Israel-Syria Feud Takes New Turn"). The March 20 article had originally stated:
Shortly after CAMERA's Israel office alerted editors to the erroneous references to Tel Aviv as Israel's capital, as opposed to Jerusalem, they commendably corrected. In the amended article, "Israel" appears in place of Tel Aviv.
A second Montreal mosque hosted an imam offering a speech demonizing Jews and quoting from the Quran to kill them.Seriously, imams, try decaf
In a speech last December at the Dar al-Arkam mosque, Muhammad bin Musa al Nasr described Jews as “the most evil of mankind” and as “human demons,” the CIJNews reported Monday. He then quote from the Quran: at “the end of time … the stone and the tree will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me – come and kill him!’”
The mosque allowed the imam, a prominent member of the hard-line Salafist movement in Jordan, where he lectures at the al-Ahliyya University in Amman, to deliver more than a dozen other speeches as well.
B’nai Brith Canada has filed a complaint against al Nasr, the second recent complaint about a Montreal imam.
A video released earlier this month by the Middle East Media Research Institute showed Sheikh Wael Al-Ghitawi in November 2014 delivering a sermon at the Al Andalous Islamic Center in the St. Laurent borough against the “people who slayed the prophets, shed their blood, and cursed the Lord …”
Dear Jew-hating imams:Celebrating Berlin’s first-ever Jewish food week
With B’nai Brith having revealed on Tuesday yet another video that it says shows an imam in Canada preaching violence against Jews, I have to ask: What is it with you people?
Do you actually believe, as you keep insisting in your whacko sermons, that the Hadith is accurate in saying that some day the rocks and trees are going to cry out to you that Jews are hiding behind them and for you to come and kill us?
Like, seriously, WTF?
I won’t dwell on the fact Muslims of your ilk (meaning not all Muslims), have been trying to kill Jews for generations, including siding with Hitler in World War II.
As you may have noticed, you’re not having much success.
Indeed, every time Muslims of your ilk have launched a holy war against Israel in the modern era, the evil, demonic Jews -- your words -- have handed you your heads on a platter.
It was standing-room only at Fine Bagels, a bakery tucked inside the Shakespeare and Sons bookstore in the former East Berlin. Bookshelves lined the walls, cafe tables were arranged end to end, and, smack in the middle of the space, sat a large bowl of grated potatoes.Israeli Firms Expected to “Flood” Aussie Exchange Amid Boom in Business Ties
Tonight would be all about Polish-Jewish food, and the crowd was ready.
The event, which attracted some 70 participants, was one of several in the surprise success story of Nosh Berlin Jewish Food Week, billed as the “first-ever Jewish food week” in Germany’s capital. It began on March 17 and runs until the 25th.
Nosh Berlin was cobbled together on a shoestring budget by German journalist Liv Fleischhacker and American Jewish entrepreneur Laurel Kratochvil, who co-own Fine Bagels.
“My nana gave me $1,000 to organize this,” said Kratochvil, who came to Berlin six years ago from Prague, where she’d been living since 2007.
Her nana, or grandmother, is Helen Fine of New England, whose recipes (many inherited from her own mother) form the backbone of the bagelry’s menu.
Kratochvil told JTA she thought she’d organize a couple of workshops and a Shabbat dinner. “But it’s become something much bigger,” she said.
Thirty years ago, Australians thought of Israel – if they thought of it at all — in terms of oranges and bathing suits, quips Johnny Weiss.Medieval Jewish cemetery uncovered in Rome
As founder and managing director of the Trans-Tasman Business Circle, and as former national CEO of the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce, Weiss has helped introduce Israel to Aussies as a source of innovative technology.
“In the old days, you’d have to convince people to go to Israel and now everybody knows … the ‘Start-Up Nation’ is a fantastic partner for Australian companies. Everyone has read the book and now they want to see the movie,” Weiss tells ISRAEL21c.
About 30 Australian business delegations visited Israel in 2016. The most sought-after Israeli technologies are in cybersecurity, communications, medicine, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Trade between Israel and Australia officially stands at $1.1 billion annually. But it’s probably twice that amount when you factor in Israeli exports facilitated through third-party countries, as well as Israeli information technology being snapped up in Australia, mostly in cybersecurity.
Italian archaeologists have discovered part of the so-called Campus Iudeorum, the long-lost cemetery used by Rome’s medieval Jewish community.Archaeologists uncork 100-year-old liquor stash left by British troops
The discovery of 38 graves, with skeletal remains intact, was announced at a news conference this week at The National Roman Museum. A stone with part of a Hebrew inscription also was found.
The site, with graves dating from the 14th century to the early 17th century, was uncovered during excavations carried out during the restructuring of the Palazzo Leonori as the new headquarters of an insurance company.
Archaeologists dug down as deep as 26 feet below the surface. Pictures published by Il Messaggero shows graves arranged in rows. The newspaper quoted archaeologist Marzia Di Mento as saying that most of the recovered remains appeared to be of men, and wood fragments and nails indicated that the bodies had been placed in wooden coffins before burial. Two of the skeletons, the report said, apparently women, wore golden rings.
After battling their way up through Ottoman Palestine 100 years ago, British soldiers garrisoned in Ramle took a break from the fighting and tossed back a few drinks.
Many drinks, at that.
Excavations carried out last week during the construction of a new highway east of Ramle in central Israel turned up the remains of a building used by British soldiers in General Edmund Allenby’s army who were stationed there between November 1917 and September 1918. Outside the ruined building, archaeologists with the IAA found the soldiers’ garbage pit, in which were plates and cutlery, uniform buttons, belt buckles, and hundreds of liquor bottles.
Ron Toueg, an archaeologist with the IAA who headed the salvage operation, told The Times of Israel that the trove included three intact bottles of Gordon’s Dry Gin, a bottle of Dewar’s whisky, beer bottles, wine bottles, and bottles of mineral water, including one from Johannesburg, South Africa.
The dig also turned up several items that helped narrow down the time the building was in use: the silver tip of a British officer’s swagger stick marked with the letters RFC — Royal Flying Corps — which became the Royal Air Force in April 1918; and a medallion with the face of King Fuad of Egypt, who ruled from October 1917 until March 1922, with the words in French “Long live Fuad, king of Egypt”; and the bottom of pocket watch with an inscription for a one-year warranty by its manufacturer in New York.
