Tuesday, May 09, 2017
Hungry Hungry Hypocrite
Marwan Barghouti is hungry no more.
Last month, the Palestinian terrorist currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in planning three attacks that claimed the lives of five civilians, took to the pages of The New York Times to tell the world that he will join with many of his fellow incarcerated terrorists and starve himself in protest for what he described as “Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation.”
Like so much of Palestinian nationalism, however, Barghouti’s protest turned out to be just a piece of bad theater, lacking any candor, courage, and conviction. Yesterday, Israel’s prison authority released videos that clearly show the allegedly suffering Barghouti enjoying cookies and candy bars in the privacy of his own cell. Talk about a hungry, hungry hypocrite: as soon as he’s done wolfing down the treat, Barghouti rushes to the toilet and flushes away the evidence, like a furtive smoker in an airplane bathroom.
Having gone on a prolonged hunger strike myself some decades ago, I know what forgoing food does to your mind and your body. I know how hard it can be, which is why I’m not at all surprised to learn that Barghouti just didn’t have what it takes to transcend. Men who have no qualms about murdering innocents are not and can never be resilient leaders, just as national movements focused on advertising and exaggerating their victimhood are not and can never be committed to true reconciliation. Barghouti, poetically, is the perfect embodiment of Palestinian officialdom: speaking of virtue to a gullible international audience before retiring to a corner and indulging in vice. Bon appetite, Marwan, and if you’d like some more snacks, Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation will be happy to provide.
Ben-Dror Yemini: It’s Israel’s duty to expose Barghouti as a crook
Perhaps one day, Marwan Barghouti will lead the Palestinians to a historic compromise. In the meantime, however, he is a Hamas collaborator and an enemy of the possibility to renew the peace process. Weakening him, under the current circumstances, is the right thing to do.Gerald M. Steinberg: Media 'misleading' on Palestinian prisoners
We want peace. We fight for peace. But in the meantime we must remember that we are in a state of war. Not one war, but two wars. One is taking place on the battlefield. Hamas drags us there every few years. This war is being waged on a lower key, both through the knifing and stone-throwing terror attacks and through different other measures targeting Israel nonstop.
The second war is a war on the collective consciousness. A war of demonization. A war that seeks to present Israel as a monster. This war has had quite a lot of achievements.
The jailed terrorists, from Fatah and Hamas, have become full partners in both wars. Some of them try to launch and plan terror attacks from prison. Others try to present themselves as martyrs fighting for “an end to the occupation” or for “liberation.” Every other prisoner tries to present himself as a freedom fighter, and every other prisoner is actually Nelson Mandela. It’s true that they murdered civilians and babies and women and elderly people. And it’s true that when they say “an end to the occupation,” they are referring to Tel Aviv as well. And it’s true that their liberation is sort of like the Islamic State is liberating Iraq and Hamas is liberating Gaza. But in the war on the collective consciousness, they are winning.
Allegations regarding Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners- a group that includes many convicted terrorists guilty of murder, bombings of buses and cafes, and other atrocities- gain international visibility through hunger strikes.
The current hunger strike follows in that tradition, with the participation of members of terrorist organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Islamic Jihad, and Fatah terror groups.
As in previous years, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) joined the public relations campaign, promoting the hunger strikers while failing to acknowledge the reasons for their jail sentences- conviction for violent crimes.
The NGOs leading this media campaign also support discriminatory BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel, and have alleged ties to terror groups.
Daphne Anson: Egg on Their Faces
Whatever Palestinian murderous terrorist Marwan Barghouti (Al Beeb's sanitised "profile" of him here) is eating in his Israeli prison cell, he's certainly got egg on his face with this candid camera gone-viral footage, since he's the purported leader of a hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli gaols.
And that egg is now on the faces of all hoodwinked by him.
People like these, who in support of the hunger strikers (hardly the innocents they are represented to be) made the video below of a display of Palestinian art projected onto the outside of the Tate Modern art gallery in London (yes, Barghouti's image is there somewhere) in which at the outset the dirge-like tones of the narrator talks of "Israeli occupation dungeons"!
Does murderer Barghouti's cell look like a dungeon to you?
Which Media Won’t Let Its Readers Judge Marwan Barghouti’s Sneaky Snacks?
The Guardian has previously had no problem embedding videos from various sources portraying Israel in a negative light. For example:Marwan Barghouti Announces ‘Gluten Strike’ Until Demands Met (satire)
The Times has also promoted a small number of videos in the past, including the Elor Azaria shooting and a B’Tselem video appearing to show Israeli settlers shooting live ammunition at a group of stone-throwing Palestinians as Israeli soldiers look on. However, there are also examples of reports that refer to videos but, like the Barghouti story, don’t include the video itself or a link to the video from an outside source.
- A video showing Israeli teenagers dancing with guns at wedding and stabbing a picture of Palestinian child killed in an arson attack;
- A video released by B’Tselem showing the moment IDF soldier Elor Azaria shoots dead a wounded Palestinian terrorist in Hebron minutes after he had stabbed another soldier;
- A Palestinian video purporting to show an assault by IDF soldiers on AFP journalists at a West Bank demonstration;
- A B’Tselem video purporting to show an Israeli police officer kicking a nine-year-old Palestinian boy.
The media should be free to show videos which apparently show unacceptable behavior by Israelis. But it works both ways: why won’t The Guardian (and to a lesser extent, The Times) expose its readers to a video that calls into question the credibility of a prominent Palestinian figure?
Is The Guardian only interested in promoting one side of the conflict? If so, then there is a clear double-standard at work.
Backing away from his previous full hunger strike, former Palestinian militant leader Marwan Barghouti has vowed to maintain a completely gluten-free diet until his demands are met.IsraellyCool: Hey Dad? Next Yom Kippur Can I Fast “Marwan Barghouti Style?” (satire)
“Until me and my fellow prisoners are either released or given a fair trial, I will abstain from eating any food or beverage products containing gluten,” Barghouti told The Mideast Beast. “If my suffering does not spur the Israeli people to demand justice, then nothing will.”
Barghouti, jailed for his role during the Second Intifada, had initially been on a full hunger strike, but over the weekend video emerged of him eating cookies and candy in his jail cell. Though Israel was quick to label him a hypocrite, Barghouti explained that they were in fact gluten free snacks and he was simply eating them to enhance his suffering.
“Have you ever tried a gluten free cookie?” Barghouti asked. “If I have to survive on them for much longer, Israel will certainly be brought before The Hague.”
Today Jews worldwide are asking their parents, therapists, significant others, rabbis, and spouses whether it would be possible to observe this year’s Yom Kippur” Marwan Barghouti style”: by pretending to refuse to eat, but then secretly eating.Israel to Employ Jewish Grandmothers to Force-Feed Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike (satire)
Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti has been described as a leading proponent of non-violent resistance, except, you know, he sort of like ordered the killing of a whole bunch of people and stuff. Anyhoo, Marwan has been leading a Hunger Strike among Palestinian prisoners, but with a really cool twist: he ate candy bars while sitting on his prison toilet when nobody was looking. And he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those pesky meddling Jews who filmed him in the act of chowing down.
The Daily Freier wanted to learn more about this hot trend of “No Hunger-Hunger Strikes” so we hit the streets of Tel Aviv to speak with real Israelis as soon as they finished walking their dogs, reading Ha’aretz, smoking spliffs, and drinking cafe hafuch.
First the Daily Freier spoke with its very own Lee Saunders to get a proper British take. “I’m quite excited. I’ve literally already planned out my fast for this year….So I won’t eat anything from 8 in the morning until around 11. And then, BAM!, I sneak off to the loo and eat some Jaffa cakes. Brilliant!”
In a move widely condemned as cruel and unusual punishment, Israel has announced that it will begin force-feeding Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike by employing Jewish grandmothers to guilt them into eating.
“Security prisoners are interested in turning a hunger strike into a new type of suicide terrorist attack through which they will threaten the State of Israel,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told The Mideast Beast. “We have no choice but to unleash our own form of terror.”
Prisoners in the early stages of a hunger strike will simply be told they “haven’t touched [their] cholent” and reminded that there are starving children in Africa who would love a nice brisket. If the hunger strike continues, the prisoners are told that their cousin not only finishes his matzah ball soup but asks for a second helping. In stage three, which will only be implemented in the most serious of cases, the prisoners will be reminded that they’ll “miss [their] Nana’s kugel once I’m dead.”
As is the norm, the policy earned swift condemnation from the UN Human Rights Council. Many of Israel’s usual backers, however, were hesitant to defend this policy.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'Anti-Semitism Is Back ... Because Of Islam'
Anti-Semitism's prevalence in the West is positively correlated with the size of its Muslim demographic, said Ayaan Hirsi Ali in a Monday-published interview with Dave Rubin, speaking specifically of anti-Semitism in Europe:
"We thought that after 1945, the end of the Second World War, that there was this enormous insight in the West; no more anti-Semitism. Never again ... But in Europe anti-Semitism is back, and it's back because of Islam."
Left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets regularly ignore or deny anti-Semitism as a social pathology prevalent among Muslims, opting instead to present false narratives of “the world’s oldest hatred” as primarily acute among white Christian conservatives and Republicans.
Ali exposited on contemporary manifestations of the West’s interactions with Islam and Muslims, particularly focusing on mass migration of Muslims to the West in recent decades. She offered a broad division of Islam's adherents into two categories: Mecca Muslims and Medina Muslims; the former more interested in personal and mostly apolitical elements of the faith (i.e. praying and fasting), the latter more motivated by Islamic tenets promoting Islam's fusion with politics (i.e. dawa, Muhammed's military conquests of the Arabian peninsula) and prescribing its domination of the world.
Rubin proffered that leftists “hold Islam hostage” through their reflexive degradation and intimidation of Islamic reformers, effectively preventing reformation efforts to promote less overtly political brands of Islam. “It’s the liberals, unfortunately, the Left, that is holding the more extreme elements of Islam in power," he said.
Islamic reformers, said Ali, are “marginalized, sidelined, and threatened” by wide swathes of Muslims and leftists.
Anti-Zionists and Anti-Semites
To put this simply: a tiny anti-Zionist sect that the state of Israel considers a dangerous cult was driven out of a town in Guatemala. The mayor of that town has been jailed by the Guatemalan government. SJP’s headline: Zionist settler-colonialism persecutes indigenous people.PMW: As FIFA meets, Palestinian Football Association glorifies terror
One would like to think that the drafters of the petition are ignorant and too busy to Google “Lev Tahor,” though that would be bad enough. But the petition actually ties itself in knots trying to explain why Lev Tahor, though anti-Zionist, is actually Zionist. “Any and all anti-Zionist work,” they say, must also be anti-colonial, and that the community of Lev Tahor cannot be anti-Zionist, due to their threatening lack of respect for indigenous peoples.” Not ignorance, then, but malice, is behind the petition.
Let’s set aside the fact that it is absurd to describe two hundred ultra Orthodox Jews, part of a sect with few worldwide adherents, as a colonizing threat to a nation of 16 million. What’s really striking here is that any activity that threatens indigenous peoples can now be, SJP thinks, described as Zionism. In fact, the petition is is refreshingly open in calling Zionism an active partner in the worldwide assault on indigenous peoples: “the convergence of white nationalism and Zionism simultaneously endangers indigenous populations in Mesoamerica and across the world.”
Preposterously, in the very next sentence, the petition’s drafters announce the concern that the hidden worldwide activity of—just some mind you—Jews, could lead to anti-Semitism. This feeble attempt at self-exculpation cannot disguise the fact that National Students for Justice in Palestine has thrown its weight behind a petition that blames Jewish nationalism for the ills of all indigenous peoples and includes even anti-Zionist Jews among the Zionists. There is no definition of anti-Semitism so narrow as not to include this repulsive petition.
Just days before the international football organization FIFA is set to meet for its annual Congress, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), a member of FIFA, has once again chosen to use football to honor and promote terror.Ruthie Blum: A Slap in the Face to Democracy: Canada's "Anti-Islamophobia" Motion
The official Palestinian Authority daily Al Hayat Al-Jadida reported yesterday that the Palestinian Football Association this week continued its supervision of the annual football tournament named after Abu Jihad - Khalil Al-Wazir, the arch-terrorist responsible for the murder of 125 Israelis:
"The Jerusalem Al-Nasser club has successfully organized the Prince of Martyrs Khalil Al-Wazir [Abu Jihad] Championship for the 23rd consecutive year... This is under the supervision of the Central Branch of the [Palestinian] Football Association and under the joint auspices of the Central Branch of the [PLO] Supreme Council for Sport and Youth and the Jerusalem Clubs Association."
[Official PA daily Al Hayat Al-Jadida, May 8, 2017]
The PFA's holding of the tournament this week is a slap in the face to FIFA, which prides itself on FIFA members using football to promote peace, and prohibits FIFA members from promoting racism, hate, and terror.
"While the NCCM's open letter does not directly call for Sharia law or the criminalization of criticism of Islam, it does advance the notion that the famously tolerant nation of Canada must set up anti-racism directorates in each province to track instances of Islamophobia, institute a mandatory course on systemic racism for Canadian high school students, and train its police officers to use bias-neutral policing." — Josh Lieblein, The Daily Caller.Bassem Eid: Palestinians need real support, not self-serving BDS
"Now that Islamophobia has been condemned, this is not the end, but rather the beginning... so that condemnation is followed by comprehensive policies," wrote Samer Majzoub, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate of the Canadian Muslim Forum -- presumably meaning that the next steps are to make it binding.
"The objective of Jihad... warrants that one must struggle against Kufr (disbelief) and Shirk (polytheism) and the worship of falsehood in all its forms. Jihad has to continue until this objective is achieved." — ICNA Canada website.
I know from speaking with my fellow Palestinians every day that the average Palestinian is mostly concerned with putting food on the table and educating their children. The average Palestinian wants dignity more than identity. They want employment for themselves and their children. Palestinians want an economy that provides meaningful jobs.Academic Activist Network Finds Success Promoting ‘Inherently Connected’ Pro-Free Speech, Pro-Israel Causes
Nothing is being done to establish an economic infrastructure in the Palestinian territories because no one is willing to invest in the West Bank, let alone Gaza. There is practically no Palestinian-controlled industry in the West Bank or Gaza.
We Palestinians suffer from a lack of leadership. Our leaders – both from Hamas and Fatah – are corrupt. Mahmoud Abbas was elected President in 2005 for a four-year term, and he is still in power, despite the fact that there has been no election since 2005. He refuses to hold elections. We Palestinians have no legitimate leadership. Even though the world still pretends that he is the legitimate President, no one, including Israel, believes that he represents anyone anymore. He has no authority to speak with Israel about peace or a permanent solution.
Palestinian leaders have mishandled negotiations so badly that today, the very idea of a two-state solution, is in tatters. Although most Israelis still wish to reach such a solution, there is practically no confidence among Israelis that it can be achieved under current circumstances.
Hamas, which has repeatedly demanded the destruction of Israel, is clearly not interested in a two-state solution. There is little indication that Abbas wants it either because he refuses to even discuss that possibility with Israel. More importantly, Abbas has no credibility to deliver such a solution.
A young academic activist organization has found success helping faculty members on campuses across the US promote what founders see as the “inherently connected” causes of supporting freedom of speech and Israel.SPME BDS Monitor: Boycott Movement Advances in April
Kenneth Waltzer — the executive director of the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) — told The Algemeiner on Friday his organization has taken a lead in aiding academics who are combating the “new reality of illiberalism on campuses” by guiding them on how to be vocal opponents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Waltzer said many faculty are “bothered by the aggression of BDS and its simplistic, one-sided history of Israel,” but that some academics require guidance through the unfamiliar world of activism.
“They find the organizational infiltration of departments and professionals associations by BDS thugs intolerable,” he said of AEN’s members, the number of whom has grown to more than 400 faculty at over 170 campuses since the organization launched in 2015. “There are many groups working with students, but there was no one working with faculty to address these problems.”
Waltzer said AEN members often as act as advisers to students facing BDS campaigns, acting as liaisons in the joint efforts of student campus groups, local Jewish organizations and university administrators. He said AEN members also volunteer to speak at open forum debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to offer a perspective on the issues that was was absent from many university conversations.
The “intersectional” structure of anti-free speech movements is successfully having a chilling effect on any speech deemed “controversial,” and threatens to make pro-Israel stances de facto “conservative” speech — and hence unacceptable.There were several important BDS developments in the political sphere. The Texas House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill forbidding state entities from doing business with companies boycotting Israel. The bill is expected to be signed by the governor in May. Similar bills also passed the Kansas House and the Minnesota legislature.Palestinian flag flies over Dublin City Hall
The manner in which BDS advocacy has become a passport to wider progressive acceptance has been demonstrated by the invitation by a City University of New York branch to Linda Sarsour to deliver a commencement address, a decision the school has defended. Sarsour was recently featured, along with convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, at the “Jewish Voice for Peace” convention.
Elsewhere, Democratic New York City Council candidate, Palestinian-American Khader El-Yateem, announced his “100 percent support for BDS.” El-Yateem received support from Linda Sarsour. Another City Council candidate, Thomas Lopez-Pierre, is running on a platform opposing “greedy Jewish landlords.” In a similar case, a British parliamentary candidate, Ashuk Ahmed, was suspended by the Liberal Democratic Party after it was revealed that he had alleged that other parties were controlled by “Zionist paymasters” and that ISIS was created by “Jewish media and their gentile pawns.” A second Lib Dem candidate, David Ward, was also suspended for antisemitic comments.
On a more positive note, in the international sphere, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated: “A modern form of antisemitism is the denial of the right of the State of Israel to exist.” The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross representative to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Jacques De Maio, stated, “No, there is no apartheid here, no regime of superiority of race, of denial of basic human rights to a group of people because of their alleged racial inferiority.” And French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron renewed his condemnation of BDS, which he called “anti-Zionist moves, thus profoundly antisemitic.” It is unlikely these forceful statements will influence BDS rhetoric.
The Palestinian flag flew Tuesday over City Hall here, a day after the city council capped a month of stormy debate with a decision to raise it. It will remain through the end of the month.Can Jonathan Greenblatt Fill Abe Foxman’s Shoes at the ADL—and Does He Want To?
Pleas by Israeli Ambassador to Ireland Ze’ev Boker for impartiality fell on deaf ears ahead of the May 8 vote. Likewise defeated was a proposal by a Fine Gael party councilperson to include a clause calling for both Israeli and Palestinian flags to fly in acknowledgment of “the suffering of civilians on both sides.”
Presented in early April, the original proposal called for the Palestinian flag to be flown for 28 days beginning May 15; the dates were subsequently amended.
In a letter to council members before the vote, Boker said many Israelis who came to Ireland to work and have since made their homes here would be offended by the flag.
Yet Greenblatt would obviously be happy if his only problem were criticism from Mort Klein. The fast-moving and polarized political climate poses a challenge, too—one that may be exacerbated by what Greenblatt’s opponents see as his partisan reflexes. In November, the ADL opposed Steve Bannon’s appointment as White House chief strategist, calling him the “man who presided over the premier website of the alt-right, a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists.” A few days later, while maintaining its critique that Bannon and sections of the alt-right have an affinity for each other, the ADL clarified that it was unaware of any anti-Semitic statements made by Bannon personally. Weeks later, Greenblatt walked back a tepid endorsement of Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison as a candidate for Democratic National Committee chair after a 2010 tape emerged of Ellison saying that U.S. Middle East policy is driven by Israel.BBC’s Yolande Knell reports on Archbishop of Canterbury’s ME visit
Seth Mandel, the op-ed editor of the New York Post, said that under Foxman, the ADL was often accused of being overzealous. But at least Foxman was consistently overzealous. “The ADL under Jonathan Greenblatt appears to be picking and choosing,” Mandel said.
Mandel called Greenblatt out in mid-April on Twitter for sending a public letter to Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, offering to educate Spicer and his colleagues about the Holocaust after Spicer said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was worse than Hitler because Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons. Mandel told me that Spicer “got deservedly slapped around for” comments that were “indefensible and ahistorical.” But he said that Spicer apologized and no one truly believes that he is a Holocaust denier. The ADL letter, sent after Spicer’s apology, “was the ADL basically signaling to the public that the organization was treating Spicer’s comment as borderline Holocaust denial, and that opens a real can of worms for people,” Mandel said.
Mandel’s tweet read:
This is unhinged & I would appreciate it if @JGreenblattADL would stop spitting on the graves of my relatives for his pet partisan projects. https://t.co/5zghHHUAR1— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) April 13, 2017
The next day, ADL staffers and supporters flooded Mandel with similarly worded tweets, many of which included the same typo: “Not sure how Holocaust education is spitting on our ancestor’s graves. Stop spreading #FakeNews.”
For an organization that has made fighting online harassment a central part of its mission, the optics of what Mandel perceived as a “coordinated campaign” were terrible. ADL spokesman Gutnick denied the tweet storm was a “coordinated campaign.” In an email to Tablet, he said that the tweets were the result of “a staffer who was tired of Mandel’s repeated attacks against our CEO, who took it upon himself to encourage a group of employees and supporters to respond.
“Once we learned of this, we asked the individuals involved to stand down,” Gutnick added.
Residents of the Israeli communities located near the border with the Gaza Strip are not just “under threat” from the terrorists that Knell coyly describes as “militants”: attacks do frequently happen. However, seeing as the BBC has refrained from informing its English-speaking audiences of any of the eight incidents of missile attacks that have taken place since the beginning of this year and throughout the whole of 2016 only reported one attack, readers would be unlikely to be able to fill in the blanks for themselves.Reviewing original BBC reporting on the Six Day War
The archbishop also visited Christian institutions in Nazareth including a school and four churches. Regardless of how the people he met there choose to self-identify, Yolande Knell collectively describes them as follows:
“The archbishop has visited Palestinian Christian communities in Nazareth and in Bethlehem, where he prayed and ate falafel with Christian mayor, Vera Baboun.”
Referring to a story she has often promoted in the past, Knell also tells readers that:
“He [Welby] was due to meet Christian families in the Cremisan Valley, whose land is affected by the construction of Israel’s West Bank barrier.”
One item on the archbishop’s itinerary which Knell left out of her coverage was a visit to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to pay tribute to UK student Hannah Bladon who was murdered last month in a terror attack in the city.
All three articles include a side box titled “In Context” which was added much later on. Two of those inserts include the following claim:For New York Times, Story of Filipino Workers in Israel Is All About the ‘Occupation’
“It [the war] also displaced some 500,000 Palestinians who fled to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.”
No reference is provided to support that claim of half a million displaced people. Other sources, however, cite lower figures: the Palestinian American Council says some 360,000 people were displaced in 1967, the PLO says 200,000 and the ADL cites an estimate of 250,000.
The anti-Israel Palestinian interest group ‘Badil‘ published a document in 2004 referring to 400,000 displaced people, half of whom had previously been displaced during the 1948 war. However, in later years ‘Badil’ apparently tweaked that figure by 100,000 and material sourced from that NGO which appeared on the UN website in 2013 claims 500,000 displaced persons in 1967.
While the source of the figure promoted by the BBC is unclear, what is obvious is that the unsupported claim has been promoted to visitors to the BBC News website for well over a decade.
For the Times, in other words, even a warm feature on the relationships between Filipino domestic workers in Israel and elderly Israelis turns out to be all about the “occupation” and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian Arabs.Sunday Star Times Publishes Vile Cartoon
In this case, though, the Times‘ narrative — that, from a peak of 100,000 Palestinian workers in the late 1980s, the Palestinians were barred from entering Israel and “began to vanish from Israelis’ view” — is, as usual, misleading to the point of total falsehood
Don’t take my word for it. Here is a headline from the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, published in March 2015: “Number of Palestinians Working in Israel Doubled Over Four Years, Central Bank Says.” The subheadline of the Haaretz article said, “Palestinians have been displacing foreign workers because they are more reliable and stay at their jobs longer, the central bank said.”
The Haaretz article went on to report: “The number of Palestinians from the West Bank working in Israel both legally and illegally doubled in the past four years to about 92,000 in 2014, in many cases displacing overseas guest workers, the Bank of Israel said yesterday.”
Another Attempted Stabbing, Another Headline FailFairfax media outlet, Stuff, published fake news in January 2017, which led to a stream of anti-Semitic comments on social media. Now, the most recent edition of Fairfax’s Sunday Star Times has chosen to print a vile cartoon suggesting new New Zealand Foreign Minister, Gerry Brownlee, is being controlled by a bloodthirsty Israel. It is worthy of being included in the annual Iranian-sponsored Jew-bashing cartoon contest.
Sharon Murdoch’s work depicts Foreign Minister Brownlee and Israel’s Prime Minister in dialogue against a backdrop of buildings alight with fire. The illustration of Netanyahu and Brownlee looking over the devastation is very similar to an anti-Semitic cartoon that another Fairfax outlet, The Sydney Morning Herald, ran and subsequently apologized for in 2014.
However, it is the dialogue of Murdoch’s cartoon which is more appalling. The two politicians are discussing Brownlee’s statements about Resolution 2334 being “premature” and that McCully is no longer in office. Netanyahu asks Brownlee if he has had McCully killed, to which Brownlee responds “…um…yes…yes, Minister McCully is dead. Or he will be dead, later on this afternoon.”
Neither funny, nor clever, the cartoon draws on lowest common denominator stereotypes and anti-Semitic tropes. The schoolboy pun (“Minister Brownnose”) expressing Brownlee’s supposed obsequience to Netanyahu, while pathetic, can be overlooked. However, the grotesque suggestion that Netanyahu would order the killing of a statesman whose policies and actions he disagrees with goes beyond reasonable and responsible boundaries of political satire.
On Sunday, a teenage female Palestinian assailant who attempted to stab police officers was shot dead by security forces at the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.Germany indicts Swede in ’92 murder of Jewish woman
This was The Australian‘s headline choice for a Reuters report on the incident:
"Israeli police kill girl in attack attempt"
It falsely implies that the Israeli police are the aggressors in what was an attack initiated by a Palestinian. It also fails to make clear who was responsible for the “attack attempt,” even leaving the possibility that it was the Israeli police who were responsible.
Considering Reuters itself used this headline – “Israeli police kill Palestinian girl who tried to attack them in Jerusalem – police,” it appears that The Australian has been particularly lazy when it comes to its own version.
We’ve contacted The Australian to request a more appropriate and accurate headline.
Prosecutors in Germany said they have indicted a 63-year-old Swedish man over the killing of a Jewish woman in Frankfurt 25 years ago.Anti-Semitic fliers dropped in Montana
The suspect, John Ausonius, is known as “Laserman” in Sweden for the gunsight he used in a series of shootings of immigrants in the Nordic country during the 1990s. He was convicted of one murder and nine attempted murders, and sentenced to life in prison.
Prosecutors in Frankfurt said Tuesday that Ausonius is also suspected of killing 68-year-old Blanka Zmigrod, an employee at a Moevenpick restaurant, on February 23, 1992, and taking her handbag.
German prosecutors reopened the case in 2014 as part of a nationwide effort to review suspected far-right killings.
Zmigrod, was shot in the head while she was on her way home, according to the German-Jewish weekly Juedische Allgemeine.
Hundreds of anti-Semitic fliers were dropped in front of homes in Bozeman, Montana.NBA Great Ray Allen Is on a Mission to Educate Everybody About the Holocaust
The fliers featuring a photo of a haredi Orthodox rabbi calling for a white genocide were distributed over the weekend, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.
There does not appear to be such a person as the rabbi named in the flier. The rabbi is quoted as saying that it is “in the Jewish interest… that whites experience a genocide,” describing violence against women and children.
Bozeman Police told the newspaper that the police do not know who distributed the flier and that there is no active investigation into the act, though officers are continuing to take reports of flier sightings.
“There is a fine line between what’s allowed by law as far as free speech coupled with whether it’s a direct threat of any kind,” Sgt. Travis Munter with the Bozeman Police Department said “It doesn’t take much for something like this to turn into a crime. But it hasn’t gotten to that point.”
Last December, retired NBA champion Ray Allen was named a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by then-President Barack Obama. Allen said he was honored to be named to the organization’s board and that he was looking forward to being “a vehicle for positive change and inclusion of all people.” But Allen has long been an advocate for Holocaust education, beginning with his days at UConn, and as a rookie for the Milwaukee Bucks.The Lone Star state welcomes the Israel water industry
In a recent interview with ESPN’s The Undefeated, Allen talked about how Herb Kohl, the former owner of the Bucks, took him on a two-hour tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington during one of his first seasons in the league. “I was blown away,” said Allen. “I thought, ‘This is a place that everybody should go to.’ It’s just like one of those things that every kid should go to, every person that [if] you’re in D.C., you should come through this museum. And now, since then, the African-American museum had been built, and I believe the same thing about that museum. Both can teach the same lessons.” In fact, the visit apparently affected Allen so much that he’s made a point to take his teammates (on the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics, e.g.) there ever since.
Last week, Allen, now a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, visited Poland for three days with a few friends. The trip was organized by Simon Taylor, a Boston-based rabbi who works at NCSY, a Jewish youth organization, and Jonny Daniels, the founder and executive director of From The Depths, a Holocaust preservation organization that’s run entirely by millennials.
On May 5, 2017, the Israeli Economic Delegation of the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry in Texas and the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce co-hosted a first-of-its-kind event in the city of Austin for 200 key players from the Texas water industry and government.IsraellyCool: WATCH: How Did Israel Become The Country Of Start-Ups?
The event presented innovative Israeli water technologies developed to meet market demand for improving and optimizing water consumption on municipal and state levels.
“This is a significant event for the water industry, and the first of its kind in the state of Texas,” noted Shay Luvshis, the new Israel Economic Attaché in Houston.
“We are proud to support the Israeli water industry and hope to become the main interface for Israeli-Texan water trade in an effort to promote the successful cooperation between the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry and the Ministry of Energy and the leading water industry authorities in Texas.”
Among the presenting companies were Elbit Systems of America, Amiad Water Systems, BioPetroClean, Master Meter and Netafim.
An interesting video put together to try explain Israel’s success as a technological powerhouse.
Interesting thoughts, although I would place way more emphasis on the ‘IDF culture factor,’ as was explained in the book Start-up Nation: IDF service provides potential entrepreneurs with the opportunities to develop a wide array of skills and contacts, as well as experience exerting responsibility in a relatively un-hierarchical environment where creativity and intelligence are highly valued.
Formerly Anti-Israel Medical Journal Dedicates Entire Issue to Israel's Healthcare System
The Lancet shifts gears after it issued a critical letter to Israeli medical personnel over 2014 Gaza war
After publishing a harshly-worded letter critical of the Israeli Defense Forces during the 2014 Gaza war, the prestigious British medical journal, the Lancet, shifted gears and dedicated its latest issue to Israel's healthcare system.
Professor Karl Skorecki, director of medical research and development at Rambam hospital in Haifa, commended the Lancet for its change of heart after the most recent edition was published on Monday.
"It's the most comprehensive overview of the Israeli health system published in a major journal," Skorecki said to i24NEWS about the issue, entitled "Health in Israel."
This edition of the Lancet features ten articles which range from showcasing Israeli lifesaving medical devices and detailing groundbreaking genetic research among the country's diverse population to highlighting Israeli efforts to treat Syrian refugees injured in the civil war.
