Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Douglas Murray: Islamists are very clear about what they want – we just aren’t listening
Theresa May and other politicians stress we will never give in. And they are right to do so. But beneath the defiance lie deep, and deeply unanswered, questions. Questions which publics across Europe are increasingly dwelling on, but which their political representatives dare not acknowledge.How can you claim to fight jihad while promoting the PLO?
Exactly a year ago, Greater Manchester Police staged a carefully prepared mock terrorist attack in the city’s shopping centre to test response capabilities. At one stage an actor playing a suicide bomber burst through a doorway and detonated a fake device while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‘Allah is Greatest’). The intention, obviously, was to make the scenario realistic. But the use of the jihadists’ signature sign-off sent social media into a spin. Soon community spokesmen were complaining on the media. One went on Sky to talk about the need ‘to have a bit of religious and cultural context when they’re doing training like this in a wider setting about the possible implications’.
Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan was hauled before the press. ‘On reflection,’ he admitted, ‘we acknowledge that it was unacceptable to use this religious phrase immediately before the mock suicide bombing, which so vocally linked this exercise with Islam. We recognise and apologise for the offence that this has caused.’ Greater Manchester’s police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, followed up: ‘It is frustrating the operation has been marred by the ill-judged, unnecessary and unacceptable decision by organisers to have those playing the parts of terrorists to shout “Allahu Akbar” before setting off their fake bombs. It didn’t add anything to the event, but has the potential to undermine the great community relations we have in Greater Manchester.’ Perhaps when the blood has been cleared from the pavements of Manchester, someone could ask how many lives such excruciating societal stupidity – from pulpit to police force – has saved, or ever will save?
In Piccadilly Gardens, at lunchtime on the day after the attacks, crowds of people listened to a busker play the usual post-massacre playlist: ‘All You Need is Love’ and ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.’ But just like the renditions of ‘Imagine’, the buskers are wrong. We need to do more than imagine. We need more than love. Everything is not all right. We need to address this problem, and start at the roots. Otherwise, our societies will continue to be caught between people who mean what they say and a society which won’t even listen. And so they’ll keep meeting, these two worlds.
On Monday night, Ariana Grande was in her traditional suspenders, singing: ‘Don’t need permission / Made my decision to test my limits / ’Cause it’s my business, God as my witness… / I’m locked and loaded / Completely focused.’ Outside, waiting, was someone who was really focused. It is time we made some effort to focus, too.
How can we fight jihad in the West while spending our entire diplomatic capital on creating a state for the trailblazers of that jihad? How can we reward jihadists for their supremacist ideology? When the president talks about making “a deal,” that means creating a Jew-free state in Judea (the irony!), where Jews must be uprooted from their homes and their cemeteries disinterred (this was done during the Gaza pullout). At the same time, Arabs would still be allowed to live in the remaining microscopic Israel. In fact, the reason there are demographic issues in the so-called West Bank in the first place is because every time Arabs illegally occupied it, they killed or expelled all the Jews. Yet when Jews liberated it, they didn’t return the favor. Thus they had to start from zero every time. Why should we reward the evil supremacist ideology by allowing them to achieve the fruits of their supremacism?Col Kemp: Manchester bombing attack on the innocent MUST be the final straw in battle against terror
President Trump is definitely in a better place than the past president when it comes to identifying the evil losers. But until he turns to Abbas and the PLO leadership and calls them evil losers, he will continue promoting willful blindness towards the actual evil we are fighting. It’s not too late for him to abandon the mistakes of the first few months and finally stick a fork in the PLO jihad. That would drain the ultimate swamp championed and idolized by the worst elements of the American and global political establishment.
If the Manchester attacker was Palestinian and the victims Israeli, the terrorist's family would receive a stipend from Mahmoud Abbas. pic.twitter.com/gmTqzYwZwY
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) May 23, 2017
The government must make MI5’s job easier, by reducing the number of terrorist suspects in this country.
All non-British citizens involved in extremism must be deported – that includes those preaching, financing, supporting or preparing for terrorism. Dual citizens must be stripped of British citizenship and deported.
Those who leave the UK to murder, rape and torture with the Islamic State or other jihadist groups must not be allowed to return. They are the most dangerous – blooded in battle and trained in sophisticated acts of mass violence.
Internment must be seriously considered for British citizens who cannot be deported or prosecuted yet intelligence shows are involved in terrorism.
These are draconian measures and they may well infringe the human rights of terrorists. But better that than to leave them free to violently deprive innocent British men, women and children of their lives.
How many more scenes of carnage on our streets must we endure, with teenage boys and girls ripped apart by explosives and shrapnel designed to cause maximum death, wounding and disfigurement, before we take serious action?
Alan Dershowitz: Terrorism Persists Because It Has Been Rewarded
The Palestinian Authority also glorifies terrorists by naming parks, stadiums, streets and other public places after the mass murderers of children. Our “ally” Qatar finances Hamas which the United States has correctly declared to be a terrorist organization. Our enemy Iran, also finances, facilitates and encourages terrorism against the United States, Israel and other western democracies, without suffering any real consequences. The United Nations glorifies terrorism by placing counties that support terrorism in high positions of authority and honor and by welcoming with open arms the promoters of terrorism.Manchester: Europe Still 'Shocked, Shocked'
On the other hand Israel, which has led the world in efforts to combat terrorism by reasonable and lawful means, gets attacked by the international community more than any other country in the world. Promoters of terrorism are treated better at the United Nations than opponents of terrorism. The boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) tactic against Israel is directed only against Israel and not against the many nations that support terrorism.
Terrorism will continue as long as it continues to bear fruits. The fruits may be different for different causes. Sometimes it is simply publicity. Sometimes it is a recruitment tool. Sometimes it brings about concessions as it did in many European countries. Some European countries that have now been plagued by terrorism even released captured Palestinian terrorists. England, France, Italy and Germany were among the countries that released Palestinian terrorists in the hope of preventing terrorist attacks on their soil. Their selfish and immoral tactic backfired: it only caused them to become even more inviting targets for the murderous terrorists.
But no matter how terrorism works, the reality that it does will make it difficult if not impossible to stem its malignant spread around the world. To make it not work, the entire world must unite in never rewarding terrorism and always punishing those who facilitate it.
When ISIS attacked the Bataclan Theater in Paris in November 2015, it did so because, in its own words, it was "where hundreds of pagans gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice." A year earlier, ISIS had forbidden all music as haram (forbidden). Many Islamic scholars support the idea that Islam forbids the 'sinful' music of the West.Mark Steyn: "Dangerous Woman" Meets Dangerous Man
It should, therefore, not be a surprise to anybody that Islamic terrorists might target a concert by the American pop singer Ariana Grande in Manchester on May 22. In addition, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned last September that terrorists are focused on concerts, sporting events and outdoor gatherings because such venues "often pursue simple, achievable attacks with an emphasis on economic impact and mass casualties".
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Manchester suicide bombing, in which a device laced with screws and bolts was detonated. Twenty-two people, children and adults, were murdered in the explosion that ripped through the Manchester concert area; more than 50 people were wounded. While the media is describing the use of nail bombs at the concert hall as a new and surprising tactic, it is in fact an extremely old one, practiced by Arab terrorists on Israelis for decades.
Nevertheless, after hearing of the Manchester terrorist attack, politicians once more communicated their by now old-routine of "shock" and "grief" at the predictable outcome of their own policies. The usual platitudes of "thoughts and hearts" being with the victims of the attack, accompanied professed shock.
But the arithmetic is not difficult: Poland and Hungary and Slovakia do not have Islamic terrorism because they have very little Islam. France and Germany and Belgium admit more and more Islam, and thus more and more terrorism. Yet the subject of immigration has been all but entirely absent from the current UK election campaign. Thirty years ago, in the interests of stopping IRA terrorism, the British state was not above preventing the internal movement within its borders of unconvicted, uncharged, unarrested Republican sympathizers seeking to take a ferry from Belfast to Liverpool. Today it declares it can do nothing to prevent the movement of large numbers of the Muslim world from thousands of miles away to the heart of the United Kingdom. It's just a fact of life - like being blown up when you go to a pop concert.Brendan O'Neill: After Manchester: it’s time for anger
All of us have gotten things wrong since 9/11. But few of us have gotten things as disastrously wrong as May and Merkel and Hollande and an entire generation of European political leaders who insist that remorseless incremental Islamization is both unstoppable and manageable. It is neither - and, for the sake of the dead of last night's carnage and for those of the next one, it is necessary to face that honestly. Theresa May's statement in Downing Street is said by my old friends at The Spectator to be "defiant", but what she is defying is not terrorism but reality. So too for all the exhausted accessories of defiance chic: candles, teddy bears, hashtags, the pitiful passive rote gestures that acknowledge atrocity without addressing it - like the Eloi in H G Wells' Time Machine, too evolved to resist the Morlocks.
As I asked around Europe all last year: What's the happy ending here? In a decade it will be worse, and in two decades worse still, and then in three decades people will barely recall how it used to be, when all that warmth and vibrancy of urban life that Owen Jones hymns in today's Guardian is but a memory, and the music has died away, and Manchester is as dull and listless as today's Alexandria. If Mrs May or Frau Merkel has a happier ending, I'd be interested to hear it. If not, it is necessary not to carry on, but to change, and soon - before it's too late.
After the terror, the platitudes. And the hashtags. And the candlelit vigils. And they always have the same message: ‘Be unified. Feel love. Don’t give in to hate.’ The banalities roll off the national tongue. Vapidity abounds. A shallow fetishisation of ‘togetherness’ takes the place of any articulation of what we should be together for – and against. And so it has been after the barbarism in Manchester. In response to the deaths of more than 20 people at an Ariana Grande gig, in response to the massacre of children enjoying pop music, people effectively say: ‘All you need is love.’ The disparity between these horrors and our response to them, between what happened and what we say, is vast. This has to change.Manchester Bomb Suspect Said to Have Ties to Al-Qaeda
It is becoming clear that the top-down promotion of a hollow ‘togetherness’ in response to terrorism is about cultivating passivity. It is about suppressing strong public feeling. It’s about reducing us to a line of mourners whose only job is to weep for our fellow citizens, not ask why they died, or rage against their dying. The great fear of both officialdom and the media class in the wake of terror attacks is that the volatile masses will turn wild and hateful. This is why every attack is followed by warnings of an ‘Islamophobic backlash’ and heightened policing of speech on Twitter and gatherings in public: because what they fundamentally fear is public passion, our passion. They want us passive, empathetic, upset, not angry, active, questioning. They prefer us as a lonely crowd of dutiful, disconnected mourners rather than a real collective of citizens demanding to know why our fellow citizens died and how we might prevent others from dying. We should stop playing the role they’ve allotted us.
As part of the post-terror narrative, our emotions are closely policed. Some emotions are celebrated, others demonised. Empathy – good. Grief – good. Sharing your sadness online – great. But hatred? Anger? Fury? These are bad. They are inferior forms of feeling, apparently, and must be discouraged. Because if we green-light anger about terrorism, then people will launch pogroms against Muslims, they say, or even attack Sikhs or the local Hindu-owned cornershop, because that’s how stupid and hateful we apparently are. But there is a strong justification for hate right now. Certainly for anger. For rage, in fact. Twenty-two of our fellow citizens were killed at a pop concert. I hate that, I hate the person who did it, I hate those who will apologise for it, and I hate the ideology that underpins such barbarism. I want to destroy that ideology. I don’t feel sad, I feel apoplectic. Others will feel likewise, but if they express this verboten post-terror emotion they risk being branded as architects of hate, contributors to future terrorist acts, racist, and so on. Their fury is shushed. ‘Just weep. That’s your role.’
Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old British man believed to have killed 22 people in a suicide-bomb attack, had ties to al Qaeda and had received terrorist training abroad, a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News on Tuesday as the United Kingdom raised its terrorist threat level to the highest category.3 more arrested in Manchester, terrorist’s Libya ties probed
The U.S. intelligence official, who has direct knowledge of the investigation, said Abedi, whose family is of Libyan descent, was identified by a bank card found in his pocket at the scene of the explosion after an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena. The identification was confirmed by facial recognition technology, the official said.
Abedi had traveled to Libya within the last 12 months, one of multiple countries he had visited, the official said. And while he had "clear ties to al Qaeda," the official said, Abedi could have also had connections to other groups.
[Manchester Attack: Another Attack May Be Imminent, Prime Minister Says]
Members of his own family had even informed on him in the past, telling British authorities that he was dangerous, according to the intelligence official.
British police and intelligence agencies arrested three more suspects Wednesday in connection with Monday night’s Manchester suicide bombing and moved quickly to secure key sites across the country, including Buckingham Palace and the British Parliament at Westminster.Singer Morrissey Blasts Immigration, England's 'Petrified' Terror Response (Leftist Faces Melt)
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the bomber, identified as British-born Libyan Salman Abedi, “likely” did not act alone when he killed 22 people and wounded dozens at an Ariana Grande concert Monday night in Manchester. She said he had been known to security forces “up to a point.” Officials are examining Abedi’s trips to Libya as they worked to piece together his allegiances and foil any new potential threats.
Police said three men were arrested Wednesday in south Manchester, where a day earlier a 23-year-old man was also arrested and a number of homes were searched.
Singer/songwriter Steven Patrick Morrissey, best known simply as Morrissey, the one-time frontman for the legendary 80s punk band The Smiths, is again making left-wing faces melt, this time with a statement released in the aftermath of the horrific terror attack Monday night in Manchester, England. Morrissey (again) criticized his home country's immigration policies, along with the weak, tired, clichéd responses from England's politicians and queen.Tel Aviv City Hall lights up in solidarity with Manchester
In his Facebook blast, Morrissey made five main points:
1. "[Prime Minister] Theresa May says such attacks 'will not break us', but her own life is lived in a bullet-proof bubble .... 'will not break us' means that the tragedy will not break her, or her policies on immigration."
2. "[London mayor] Sadiq Khan says 'London is united with Manchester', but he does not condemn the Islamic State."
3. "The Queen receives absurd praise for her 'strong words' against the attack, yet she does not cancel today's garden party at Buckingham Palace - for which no criticism is allowed in the Britain of free press."
4. "Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the attack is the work of an 'extremist'. An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?"
5. "In modern Britain everyone seems petrified to officially say what we all say in private. Politicians tell us they are unafraid, but they are never the victims."
Morrissey then closes with this truth: "How easy to be unafraid when one is protected from the line of fire. The people have no such protections."
The Tel Aviv Municipality illuminated the facade of its building on Tuesday night in the colors of the UK's Union Jack flag in a show of solidarity with the British city of Manchester after a suicide bombing killed 22 people at a concert there.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai expressed his condolences to the victims of Monday night's attack that occurred at the Manchester Arena at the end of a concert by American pop singer Ariana Grande.
"A sad morning here in Tel Aviv as our hearts go out to the people of Manchester. Tonight we will light the Municipality with Union Jack," the mayor said.
Hamas condemns Manchester attack (not satire)
Among the many who condemned Monday’s terrorist attack in Manchester, Britain, was the Hamas terrorist group, itself the perpetrator of many terrorist attacks.Michael Lumish: This Week on Nothing Left
"We condemn the bloody onslaught against the innocent in Manchester, express solidarity with the families of the victims and the wounded in the wake of their tragedy," said senior Hamas official in Qatar, Izzat al-Rishq, according to Yediot Aharonot.
Hamas has condemned past attacks in Europe, including last July’s truck attack in Nice, France, in which 84 people were murdered.
The Nice attack, like the Manchester attack, was claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group.
The group has also spoken out against the bloodshed in Syria, condemning the chemical attack in Syria's Idlib province this past April.
This week Michael and Alan speak live with Maj-Gen Jim Molan (ret) who visited Israel to examine the situation regarding Hezbollah on the northern border; they chat with Isi Leibler about the Trump visit to Saudi Arabia, and then speak with studio guest Georgina Downer from the Institute of Public Affairs, a right-wing think tank in Melbourne.Facebook only removes Holocaust denial if facing legal action – report
We then hear from Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist on the plight of European Jewry.
3 min Editorial: Julia Gillard
11 min Maj-Gen Jim Molan (ret) on Hezbollah
34 min Isi Leibler in Jerusalem
51 min Georgina Downer, Inst of Public Affairs In the Studio
1 hr 14 Giulio Meotti, plight of European Jewry
Facebook instructs moderators to ignore Holocaust denial posted to its website unless it came from one of four countries — out of more than a dozen countries where it is illegal — and only then if it is reported, the UK Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday.‘Dignity Strike’ Day on Campuses Across US: Call to Action for ‘Solidarity’ With Hunger-Striking Palestinian Terrorists
The four countries are France, Germany, Israel, and Austria and the content is to be removed “not on grounds of taste, but because the company fears it might get sued,” the report said, citing training manuals for moderators at the social media giant.
Earlier this week the daily said that over a period of months it was able to review more than 100 training documents.
Facebook “does not welcome local law that stands as an obstacle to an open and connected world,” one manual says and only recommends removing or blocking Holocaust content when “we face the risk of getting blocked in a country or a legal risk.”
Examples of allowed content in the other countries where teh social media giant doesn’t fear legal action was a post that said “Never again Believe the Lies” with a picture of a concentration camp, according to the report.
“We believe our geo-blocking policy balances our belief in free expression with the practical need to respect local laws in certain sovereign nations in order to remain unblocked and avoid legal liability. We will only use geo-blocking when a country has taken sufficient steps to demonstrate that the local legislation permits censorship in that specific case,” a training manual explains.
“Some 14 countries have legislation on their books prohibiting the expression of claims that the volume of death and severity of the Holocaust is overestimated. Less than half the countries with these laws actually pursue it. We block on report only in those countries that actively pursue the issue with us.”
University students across the US released a “call to action” for activists to fast on Tuesday in “solidarity” with Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails, who have been on a hunger strike for over a month.Who Is Linda Sarsour?
The “Dignity Strike” has primarily been a social media initiative, with participants tweeting under “#DignityStrike36” and similar permutations of the phrase, but the campaign also has the official support of students from the following institutions: Northwestern University, University of Chicago, DePaul University, Columbia University, University of California (UC)-Irvine, UC-Davis, UC-Riverside, UC-San Diego, Hunter College and Stony Brook University.
Aviva Slomich, the international campus director for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) on Campus, criticized campaign organizers for having described the striking Palestinians as “political prisoners.” She told The Algemeiner that a failure to recognize that many are terrorists “may come from a place of willful blindness, where the students are refusing to confront the truth of their heroes.”
Slomich noted that although the spring semester has already come to an end at some of the universities mentioned on the strike’s Facebook page, “the students can still make an impact in reaching their peers via social media.”
She is a woman who has two sets of standards.Dartmouth Student Who Confronted Sarsour About Her ‘Take Their Vaginas Away’ Tweet Laments Administrative, Student Support for Controversial Anti-Israel Activist
She poses as a universal activist who embraces all marginalized people, but she excludes anyone whose views do not completely align with hers.
She is a white woman who poses as a woman of color, but she denies other white women the stage she seizes for herself.
She poses as a black feminist, but she refuses to fight for women's rights in Muslim societies and tries to silence other black and Muslim feminists who expose oppression against women.
She poses as an opponent of anti-Semitism and a proponent of racial justice who fights for Palestinian national self-determination, but she denies Jews the same right.
She demands free speech for herself and for her BDS campaign, but shuts down the free speech of anyone who disagrees with her.
In summary, Linda Sarsour is a poseur who uses others to promote herself.
He said he was “disappointed” when Sarsour dodged the issue.Linda Sarsour’s Little Lie about her vile attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Big Deal
“I also let out a chuckle or two at the richness of her refusal to answer my question based on my race and gender,” he added. “Here is someone talking about inclusivity, meanwhile displaying gross prejudice.”
Gilad Skolnick — the director of campus programming for CAMERA on Campus — told The Algemeiner that his group had worked with students to prepare for the Sarsour event, from developing questions to producing fliers on Sarsour’s views to hand out to attendees.
Ultimately, said Skolnick, Sarsour’s ideology is seen best in her “crude language, complete with making fun of the student’s ethnicity, and waffling about whether
or not her anti-woman tweet existed exposes her as nothing more than the angry, racist, sexist provocateur that she is.”
Port said he worries about the direction his college is headed in, noting that OPAL’s support of the Sarsour program paired with its refusal to co-sponsor an event featuring an IDF soldier are part of a series of “egregious insults” toward the Jewish community in recent months, including the promotion of a supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to a major administrative role. (Following controversy over the appointment both within and beyond the Dartmouth community, the faculty member withdrew from the position.)
Sarsour, who recently said feminism and Zionism are inherently incompatible views, is scheduled to give the commencement speech at a City University of New York graduation ceremony on June 1.
The students in the audience almost certainly thought this was a denial that Sarsour ever sent the tweet given the way in which Sarsour denied that the questioner had proof she sent the tweet.“Anne Frank Center” has dropped off media radar since exposé one month ago
Call it a “little” lie.
But it’s a big deal because Linda Sarsour is a rising star in the regressive movement, which seeks to normalize Islamist oppression of women in the name of feminism.
Sarsour’s attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the real Linda Sarsour, as is her race-baiting of the white questioner. The rest is just for show.
Will being caught in this “little” lie damage Sarsour? Unlikely. She’s the Commencement Speaker at the City University of New York graduation this year, so her star is still rising.
In the month since The Atlantic article there have been almost no media mentions of Goldstein or the Anne Frank Center.PreOccupiedTerritory: BDS Hoping To Gain Control Of Parent Committee At Preschool (satire)
A Google search reveals the Anne Frank Center being mentioned in mid May when a memorial for Anne Frank was vandalized in Idaho. Goldstein was quoted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in connection with that incident, but other than that, his media mentions have been almost non-existent.
I’d send a screen shot, but there’s almost nothing there to screenshot.
The Anne Frank Center gained a big following based on bashing Trump, and it Facebook page posts still regularly receive hundreds and sometimes thousands of shares.
But in terms of being a media attack dog, the Anne Frank Center no longer has any teeth. Which probably is a good thing, maybe they’ll go back to, you know, being known for teaching people about Anne Frank, instead of exploiting her name and memory for political purposes.
Activists working to promote academic, commercial, and political boycotts of Israel are aiming to place their allies on the committee that represents parents at a North Tel Aviv nursery school, PreOccupied Territory has learned.What did the Economist erase from its picture of ‘occupation’?
Representatives of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions( BDS) movement against Israel seek to repeat some the success they have had in select American academic institutions, by means of gaining control of university-affiliated organizations and using those forums as platforms to call for divestment and boycotts of Israel. Having enjoyed only mixed success in US academic establishments, the movement has shifted its focus to educational institutions below the undergraduate level, including preschool in Israel itself.
A BDS representative outlined the strategy. “Nearly two decades of campus activism provide lessons for our way forward,” began Bray Nouash, who devised the preschool and elementary school initiatives. “The success we have enjoyed to date depends on a dedicated but small cadre of activists willing to do almost anything to demonize Israel. That carries advantages in terms of enthusiasm and consistency, but the limited numbers of such dedicated people has been a limiting factor – especially where supporters of Zionism” – he spat as he hissed the word – “mobilize to defeat our initiatives. Most of the people at the various institutions care little about Palestine, and we can’t count on that ‘silent majority’ to support us.”
While readers of the Economist’s article hear from Hamas’ Mahmoud al Zahar and Fatah’s Jibril Rajoub, they do not get any first hand insight into the Israeli perspective. Instead, the Economist takes it upon itself to tell its readers what it believes Israelis think.AP Improves Language on Bethlehem Area Security Barrier
“There is growing talk in Israel of relieving the economic siege of Gaza, including proposals to build a port on an offshore island (controlled by Israel). One reason is to avoid a return to war. Another is ideological: by treating Gaza as if it were a Palestinian state, Israeli right-wingers think they might more easily fend off pressure for territorial concessions in the West Bank.”
The unidentified writer of the article also knows what Israel should do:
“Those allowed to cross Kalandia by car can take more than an hour. The passage for those on foot looks like a cattle pen. Israel could do much more to make the crossing less awful—more lanes for cars, more staff to process travellers, more effort to clean up the place—without endangering its security.”
Remarkably though, the very relevant topic of Palestinian rejection of years of attempts to bring an end to ‘the occupation’ – from the second Intifada sabotage of the Oslo Accords, through rejection of the Clinton Parameters and the Olmert Plan and up to the 2014 Obama offer – goes completely unaddressed in this article.
Yesterday, in a story about President Trump's visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the Associated Press inaccurately reported that the security barrier surrounds Bethlehem ("Trump pushes for Mideast peace, but avoids thorny details.") The article, by Jonathan Lemire and Julie Pace, erred:CAMERA in The Baltimore Sun: Israeli Skepticism of Abbas is Justified
On Tuesday morning, Trump met with Abbas in Bethlehem, traveling across the barrier surrounding the biblical city, which serves as a visual reminder of the complexities of the conflict in the region.
As seen in a map provided by B'Tselem, which is very critical of the barrier, the barrier, which was constructed to prevent suicide bombers from crossing into Israel, rings the northern and western site of the city, it does not encircle the city on the east and south.
Palestinian leaders have rejected numerous U.S. and Israeli offers for a "two-state solution" in exchange for peace with and recognition of the Jewish state. More recently, the Palestinian Authority has refused such opportunities in 2000 at Camp David, 2001 at Taba and 2008 after the Annapolis Conference. In the latter instance, Israel offered unprecedented concessions, including nearly all of the West Bank and the opportunity for a Palestinian state with its capital in eastern Jerusalem. President Abbas, in his words, rejected it "out of hand" and failed to so much as make a counter offer.Poland school honors 87 Jewish girls expelled under Nazis
Instead, the Palestinian Authority has — contravening the terms of the Oslo accords under which it was established — continued to incite anti-Jewish violence, pay salaries to terrorists and refuse to resolve outstanding issues in bilateral negotiations.
When Mr. Abbas, in a Sept. 16, 2015 speech that preceded 18 months of Palestinian terror attacks, exhorted on official Palestinian media: "We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem," the Palestinian people were listening. So were many horrified Israelis whose skepticism is far more understandable when pertinent details aren't omitted.
Sean Durns, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
A school in Poland unveiled a plaque Tuesday that commemorates 87 Jewish girls who were expelled in 1939 during the Nazi occupation of the country.Report: UK Jewish Leaders Demand Infamous Holocaust Denier David Irving’s Books be Removed from University of Manchester
The event in Krakow is one in a growing number of efforts by teachers and children to commemorate the Jews who lived in Poland before the Holocaust, which was perpetrated by Nazi Germany largely in occupied Poland.
The event was held to mark the 125th anniversary of the founding of the No. 2 middle school in Krakow, which before World War II was an all-girls school.
Lital Beer, director of Yad Vashem’s Reference and Information Services, said her researchers worked for nearly two years at the school’s request to determine the fate of the 87 girls. She said 21 were killed in the Holocaust and 24 survived, but the fate of the others could not be determined.
A coalition of the UK’s foremost Jewish leaders has demanded that Holocaust denier David Irving’s books be removed from “open access” at the University of Manchester’s main library, Christian Today reported on Tuesday.Microsoft said to buy Israel’s Hexadite for $100 million
A letter signed by the Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Holocaust Education Trust, the Union of Jewish Students and the Community Security Trust will reportedly be presented to Manchester’s vice chancellor this week, marking a major step of intervention in a saga that has dragged on for some time now.
According to the report, the letter states:
We understand that you have already received multiple complaints regarding these books and are yet to take appropriate measures. David Irving was labelled by a High Court Judge as an antisemitic, racist Holocaust denier in 2000 when he lost his libel case against historian Deborah Lipstadt. Irving was subsequently sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison following speeches in which he referred to the “gas chambers fairy tale” and called the Holocaust a “myth”. More recently he spoke at a far-right event in London where, according to press reports, Auschwitz was compared to Disneyland and the death of Jo Cox was referred to as “cheery news”. The fact that his writings can be found on the same shelves as books by legitimate historians is not just an insult to the victims of the Holocaust and their descendants, but also risks these books being endorsed as accurate historical fact.
The push to get books proposing Holocaust denial theories out of open display in main university libraries has been a project of Irene Lancaster, a Jewish historian at Manchester.
US giant Microsoft has acquired Israeli cybersecurity startup Hexadite for $100 million, three years after the company was founded, the Calcalist financial website reported Wednesday.New technology can predict resistance to chemotherapy
The company created software that uses artificial intelligence to integrate with existing security detection tools, like the firewalls and cyber alert systems of Check Point Software Technologies and Kaspersky Lab, to investigate and follow up on every alert, a time-consuming process for information security professionals and analysts.
Modeled on the logic and processes used by “top cyber analysts” and driven by artificial intelligence, Hexadite’s software “investigates every alert in seconds,” the startup’s website says. Algorithms are used to inspect every threat and act on the ones that need action, Hexadite’s website says.
This is Microsoft’s second acquisition of an Israeli company in the past month, after the US software giant bought Cloudyn, a cloud-monitoring startup based in Rosh Ha’ayin, for $70 million, Calcalist said.
Hexadite was set up in 2014 by three founders: Eran Barak, the CEO, Barak Klinghofer and Idan Levin. All three of them served in elite intelligence units of the Israeli army and worked for the defense electronics firm Elbit Systems Ltd. Investors in the company include YL Ventures, Ten Eleven Ventures and Hewlett Packard Ventures, according to the Hexadite website.
NewStem, a startup based in Jerusalem, is developing a novel diagnostic kit for predicting resistance to chemotherapy treatments.Jerusalem among first cities to get cutting-edge wireless
The technology is based on the pioneering research of Prof. Nissim Benvenisty of the Azrieli Center for Stem Cells and Genetic Research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The problem to be addressed by the kit is that chemotherapy — still the mainstay in cancer treatment — often results in the tumor developing resistance to the drugs. This renders the therapy ineffective and unnecessarily subjects patients to powerful pharmaceuticals that cannot knock out the cancer.
Pluripotent stem cells, which are able to differentiate into any given cell type, are used for a variety of applications from basic research to therapeutics. Due to their differentiation ability, one potential use of stem cells is to assess the influence of mutated genes on a variety of cells, physiological processes and drug responses.
However, since pluripotent stem cells, like most human cells, are diploid – meaning they contain two copies of each gene — it is often difficult to generate cells in which both copies of the relevant genes are mutated.
Jerusalem will be Israel’s first city – and one of a handful of major cities in the world – to establish an independent municipal wireless network based on super-fast millimeter wave technology.Why did a Russian Orthodox family restore a Siberian Jewish cemetery?
The network will enable “smart city” services in such areas as security and safety, emergency response, parking and traffic solutions, fast Internet access for schools and free Wi-Fi throughout Jerusalem. Many of these initiatives will be coordinated with Cisco, a multinational company with a large R&D presence in Israel.
“We are placing Jerusalem in line with the world’s leading smart cities,” said Mayor Nir Barkat in a statement issued May 17, a week before Jerusalem Day today (May 24), marking the 50th anniversary of the reunification of the city.
On an evening in early May, Russian grandmother Taisya Chernykh and her family collapsed into chairs in the lobby of their Jerusalem hotel after long hours of touring. As they rested their sore feet, they reflected not only on their travels that day, but also on the improbable seven-year journey that brought them on a two-week trip to Israel from their home in the small Siberian town of Babushkin.
This journey began with a book. In 2010, Chernykh, a librarian, read a memoir titled “In Defiance of Fate: Joy From Sadness,” by Vladimir Rott, a Soviet Jew of Hungarian descent who defected to Canada in 1974. Rott wrote about his wife Iya’s ancestors, the Gutermans, who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Babushkin, then known as Mysovaya Station, a key point along Tsarist Russia’s Great Tea Road trading route.
The Russian Orthodox Chernykh had never heard of the Gutermans, nor did she know anything about the Jews who once — but no longer — lived in Mysovaya Station. However, Rott’s book intrigued her and she contacted him asking him for more information. With Rott’s encouragement Chernykh started digging for historical records on the Jewish community, which in 1907 numbered 1,600 out of a local population of 5,000.
In 2011, Rott and his wife traveled to Babushkin, where they met Chernykh and her family. In the ensuing years, restoring the memory of Mysovaya Station’s Jewish community became a project for the entire Chernykh family. Chernykh’s husband Petr, son Valentin, daughter-in-law Svetlana, and young grandsons Vladislav and Vadim joined her in the strenuous physical labor of restoring town’s abandoned, desecrated Jewish cemetery. There they constructed and erected a “Shalom” memorial to the Jewish community designed and funded by the Rotts.
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