Michael Oren: Israel’s 1967 Victory Is Something to Celebrate
Israelis are celebrating 50 years since the Six-Day War — and with good reason. That victory saved us from destruction and reunited our holiest city. Ultimately, it also brought us peace with Egypt and Jordan and a strategic alliance with the United States. The Palestinians, by contrast, are mourning a half-century of suffering. They claim that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza subjected them to colonization and denied them statehood.Our war of defense
While the war certainly shaped the modern Middle East, it alone cannot account for the contradictory ways Israelis and Palestinians commemorate it. The chasm can only be explained by events that preceded it. Far beyond 1967, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is in fact about 1917, 1937 and 1947. Those anniversaries can teach us much about the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and why peace has proved so elusive.
A century ago this November, Britain, anticipating Turkey’s defeat in the Middle East, issued the Balfour Declaration. Endorsed by the League of Nations, the declaration pledged to create a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Britain did not commit to creating a Jewish state in all of Palestine — the national home could have been tiny — and promised to uphold “the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.” Still, the Palestinians vehemently rejected the document. “We Arabs,” wrote Jerusalem notable Musa al-Husayni, would never accept “such a nation.”
This year, Israelis are also celebrating the centenary of the Balfour Declaration because it formalized the international community’s recognition of a Jewish nation and our 3,000-year attachment to our homeland. But the Palestinians are mourning it — their leaders have even called on Britain to apologize. Today, as in 1917, they view Jews not as a people with rights to a national homeland but as a religious group and, throughout much of Islamic history, an inferior one at that. Understanding this reality helps explain why, in the 1920s, Arab rioters murdered Palestinian Jews, desecrated synagogues and eradicated the ancient Jewish communities of Hebron and Safed.
Despite persistent Arab rejection of Jewish identity, the Zionist leadership recognized that the Palestinian Arabs were a people with sovereign rights. That acknowledgment was codified 80 years ago, in July 1937, with the Peel Commission in Britain, which divided Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Though the Jews were allotted only one-third of the land, the Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion supported the plan. The Arabs rejected it, proclaiming that the only acceptable solution would be “the complete cessation of the experiment of the Jewish National Home.” Buckling to Arab pressure, the British cut off almost all Jewish immigration to Palestine, shutting European Jewry’s last escape route from Hitler.
We all know the term "fake news," but there is also "fake history." A notable example of that is the twisted way the Six-Day War is addressed in certain quarters, especially among the Palestinians.What would have happened had Israel lost the 1967 Six Day War?
In the opinion of most of the Israeli public, the war is justifiably seen as one of the most significant milestones in the brief history of the modern state, whether because of ideology or reasons of security and diplomacy. The result of the war also strengthened Israel's international standing immeasurably, and in the eyes of the U.S. in particular it was transformed from what had mainly seemed to be a security burden to a strategic asset.
But in recent years, there are those who have been presenting a distorted image by speaking up about the "curse," the "disaster" and the "unnecessary war," referring both to the war itself and the situation of victory that Israel created with it. Here we must point out that no Israeli official intended to initiate a war or plan ahead of time to exploit the war's results for purposes unrelated to security considerations. In fact, at the end of the war, Israel offered to leave all the territory it had taken if Egypt and Syria would sign a peace deal with it, but the proposal was rejected by the "Three No's" of the Khartoum Resolution of September 1967.
For 50 years, the Arabs tried to erase the consequences of that incredible war. For 50 years, the world has tried to force Israel to turn its back on those terribile days.Anti-Israel, anti-semitic Arab cartoons on the eve of the Six Day War
On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser ordered the UN Interposition Force to get out of the Sinai peninsula, the force which for ten years had preserved calm between Egypt and Israel. The United Nations obeyed, and at that point Nasser imposed the naval blockade of the only Israeli southern coastline, the port of Eilat, a real act of war.
During those three endless weeks, US President Lyndon Johnson tried to gather a convoy of ships from different countries that would challenge the blockade. But the attempt failed miserably. Egypt, already a military ally of Syria, struck an emergency military pact with Jordan, Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco, who began sending military contingents to participate in the upcoming fight.
As troops and armored men lurked on all Israeli borders, radio and television broadcasts from every Arab capital announced the upcoming final war to exterminate the Israeli Jews. “We will destroy Israel and its inhabitants”, proclaimed Egyptian general Ahmad Shuqayri - and for the survivors, if there are any, ships are ready to deport them”.
Europe betrayed Israel. And in the face of the pro-Arab choice of Charles de Gaulle, a man like Daniel Mayer did not hesitate to declare: “I am ashamed of being French”.
For Israel, the waiting was terrible. Aharon Appelfeld recalls that among Israelis survivors of the Shoah “the talking about deportations, punitive actions, trains”, while Cairo's radio broadcasted hymns, slogans and songs in which they dreamed of throwing “Jews into the sea” was unbearable.
BBC WS tells a context-free tale of Egypt’s Six Day War ‘naksa’
The June 3rd edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘The Fifth Floor’ included an item (from 27:13 here) billed as follows in the synopsis:
“Egypt’s Naksa Day Next Monday is the 50th anniversary of Naksa day, or Day of the Setback. The “setback” for Egypt was their crushing defeat by Israel in the Six Day War. BBC Arabic reporter in Cairo, Sally Nabil, tells us how the day is viewed there now.”
At the start of the programme presenter David Amanor described the upcoming item as follows:
“…and a six-day war with consequences much greater. We’re finding out what young Egyptians today know about the events of June 1967.”
He introduced the segment itself thus:
Amanor: “Now most countries don’t relish their defeats and I guess Egypt is no different. Next week sees the 50th anniversary of what’s generally called the Six Day War in June 1967 but its impact remains much bigger than its short time span might suggest. It was a humiliating defeat for Egypt and its Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Israel took forces…took possession of the entire Sinai peninsula, leaving Egyptian forces to make a chaotic retreat. In Egypt the war is called the ‘naksa’. Sally Nabil of BBC Arabic tells me the story behind that name.”
Alan Dershowitz: Will 1/3 of Brits Vote for a Hard Left Antisemite?
On June 8, British voters will head to the polls. Recent numbers show the gap closing between British Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. When Prime Minister May called for a snap election last month – three years early – most assumed she would win easily and increase her parliamentary majority. But Corbyn – who was given odds of 200-1 when he ran for his party’s leadership in 2015 – is doing surprisingly well again. He also happens to lead a party that has been soft on antisemitism, and Corbyn himself has been accused of anti-Jewish bigotry. When facing such criticism, the Labour leader has offered the defense that he is anti-Israel, not anti-Jewish. But Corbyn’s words and deeds demonstrate that he often uses his virulent anti-Zionism as a cover for his soft antisemitism.The UK and Jihad
Consider a speech Corbyn gave last year where he said that Jews are “no more responsible” for the actions of Israel than Muslims are for the actions of the Islamic State terrorist group. Moreover, Corbyn’s “affinity” for terrorist groups (avowed to the destruction of the nation state of the Jewish people) is also well documented. In 2009 Corbyn said: “it will be my pleasure and my honor to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking. I also invited friends from Hamas to come and speak as well.” In light of these events, a key former adviser to Corbyn, Harry Fletcher, wrote: “I’d suggest to him [Jeremy] about how he might build bridges with the Jewish community and none of it ever happened.”
Corbyn himself has said that he is not an antisemite but rather opposed to Zionism. Generally speaking, it is easy to say you hate Israel but you don’t hate Jews. Even if this were true – and I am not sure that it is – the company that Corbyn keeps suggests that at best he gives a free pass to bigotry, racism and antisemitism within the ranks of his own party, and at worst, he espouses those same views. Indeed, Corbyn has been known to share speaking platforms and lead rallies with some of the most infamous Jew-haters. He has attended meetings hosted by Paul Eisen –a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier who wrote a blog titled “My Life as a Holocaust Denier.” Corbyn has also been associated with Sheikh Raed Salah – who was convicted for incitement to violence and racism and has been known to perpetuate traditional blood libels about Jews and said that Jews were warned not to go to the Twin Towers on 9/11 – calling him a “very honored citizen” whose “voice must be heard.” Corbyn was also a paid contributor for Press TV, which is part of Iran’s tightly controlled media apparatus whose production is directly overseen by Iran’s antisemitic Supreme Leader.
One of the biggest criticisms of what has been referred to as the “Corbynization” of British politics has been the mainstreaming of traditional antisemitism. The country’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has also chimed into the conversation, calling the Labour party’s antisemitic problem “severe.” Consider, the bigotry of Gerald Kaufman (now deceased), for example – a Labour veteran and close political associate of Corbyn – who touted conspiracies about Jews and Jewish money throughout his political career. When speaking at a pro-Palestinian event Kaufman said: “Jewish money, Jewish donations to the Conservative Party – as in the general election in May – support from the Jewish Chronicle, all of those things, bias the Conservatives.” While Corbyn condemned these remarks, he refused to yield to widespread demands for disciplinary action against Kaufman.
As with the car and stabbing attacks on the Westminster Bridge on March 22, 2017, media reports on Saturday night highlighted the terrorists’ “new tactic” of using cars to mow down a large number of pedestrians, and knives to stab as many as they can. There is nothing new about this tactic. As with other forms of terrorism, the Palestinians used them first on Israeli civilians. Despite decades of advancing Palestinian terrorist tactics in Israel (suicide belts and vests, and car bombs with nails and screws, car mowing pedestrians, and stabbing, to name but a few), the political leadership of most Western nations seemed oblivious to the emerging patterns of Islamic terrorism. They failed to recognize their jihad against Israel for the deadly contagious disease they spread. This has been going on for decades.Israel Thrives: After London.
Instead of pressuring the Palestinians to stop, Arab and Western nations have been rewarding the Palestinians who employ terrorists and fund their activities with billions of dollars while pressuring Israel for concessions. Incredibly, since the rise of global Islamic radicalism, the Palestinians have successfully managed to falsely argue that the creation of the state of Palestine, an Islamic terrorist state, would somehow influence other radical Islamic groups to give up their jihad. The Saudis and the Gulf States that have been funding the Palestinian jihadists know better, but are finding it difficult to change their longtime habits, they apparently encouraged President Trump to renege on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the legitimate capital of Israel by relocating the American embassy to the city, while legitimizing the Palestinian leaderships that fund terrorism. (The Saudi agreement to purchase some $400 billion worth of U.S. weapons and technology has probably helped their appeal).
The Saturday night Islamic terrorist car and knives attack in East London should signal the end of multiculturalism in England. But don’t hold your breath.
For many decades, radical Islamist ideology was allowed to flourish in England, mostly under the guise of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli activities. Those, however, allowed the expansion of Islamic networks with Saudi and Gulf funding of mosques, madrassas, and Islamic centers and with Muslim Brotherhood political guiding laid down a global network. After the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks on America and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan supported by the United Kingdom and Canada, Islamic organizations in Britain, including the Palestinians, have increased their activities, raising money for future widows and orphans and expanded their base through the dawa.
I recently posted "After Manchester," to discuss what happens after that horrible attack. Who knew what followed would be this most recent London attack? Rhetorical question, I know. We don't know much about the actual attackers; police will release names etc when it is "operationally possible." But there are some disturbing details leaking out.Australia: Somali gunman, 29, shot dead by Melbourne cops after murdering a man in the name of ISIS who was once cleared of a terrorist plot to attack a Sydney army barracks
This may be why PM May now says the internet must be regulated; something I suggested last post. She also says "there is ‘far too much tolerance of extremism’ in UK and suggests increased jail terms for terrorism offenses." No mention yet of my suggestion about closing Mosques and jailing hate preachers but she did say progress "will require some difficult, and often embarrassing, conversations." No, REALLY?
- One attacker had twice been referred to terror police
- They had done nothing about it.
- He was radicalized by an American Hate preacher Ahmad Musa Jibril from Dearborn Michigan over YouTube
- He had tried to convert local children
Of course, there is still the same old silliness that comes from politicians being unable or unwilling to name the real enemy. “It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth,” she said. “Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time. But it cannot be defeated through military intervention alone.”
So, I suspect these posts of mine may become a regular feature...After (insert name of British city most recently attacked.)
Yacqub Khayre carried out an 'ISIS-inspired' attack in Melbourne's south-eastIt's not cuts, it's limp political will! Colonel Kemp blasts politically correct failure
Khayre had previously been acquitted of planning a suicide attack on army base
He killed one man and injured three police officers after the siege in Brighton
Khayre, 29, called a TV newsroom to claim he was acting for 'IS and al-Qaeda'
He was shot dead by police in a hail of gunfire shortly before 6pm on Monday
Residents on Bay St, in the suburb of Brighton, were forced to run for their lives
At 4.30pm a loud explosion rang out from inside block of serviced apartments
Police arrived at the apartments and found a dead body lying on the foyer floor
A woman aged in 20s/30s was held hostage by the Khayre inside an apartment
She escaped the scene uninjured with police now investigating terror links
Khayre has previously spent three years in jail and committed multiple crimes
In light of the weekend's London Bridge attack, the former soldier told the GMB hosts that there is currently issues on how to tackle a terrorist threat.CORBYN DEFENDED FIGHTERS RETURNING FROM SYRIA
He explained: "The ideal thing to do is prosecute them and put them behind bars before they get to the stage of an attack.
"But clearly, as we've seen in virtually every attack that's taken place in Europe, we've known who these people are, but we haven't done anything about it.
"That's partly because the evidence we have against them is not evidence we would be able to use in court.
"Therefore we have to do something else, and that would be getting them out of the country; if they are non-British citizens they have to be deported back to where they came from.
"They can't be able to stay here and plot against us and those people who are British suspects have to be detained without trial if the intelligence is strong enough," the former head of COBRA added.
However, host Morgan asked: "Are we not straying into Guantanamo Bay territory here?"
Kemp continued: "I quite agree with that and I'm not suggesting we lock people up and throw away the key.
"What I'm saying is we use the intelligence we have, put it in front of clear judges who can asses whether or not these people represent a threat.
Jeremy Corbyn spoke in defence of fighters returning from Syria and argued people who express support for ISIS should not be prosecuted. In a 2014 parliamentary debate, Corbyn told the Commons the UK should not make “value judgments” about fighters returning from Syria and questioned the “legal obstacles” facing ISIS fighters arriving back in Britain:Stevie Wonder Urges Love in Manchester: Anyone Who Claims Terror Due to Allah is a ‘Liar’
“I feel that we should think about this rather more carefully and avoid the knee-jerk reaction of saying, “These are bad fighters and those are good fighters, so we will ban these and allow those in… I have encountered young people who have been attracted to what ISIS is doing. They say that what the West did in Iraq and Afghanistan was appalling, and was questionably legal in the case of Afghanistan and definitely illegal in the case of Iraq. We are living with the consequences of the war on terror of 2001, and if we continue to try to create legal obstacles and make value judgments about people without considering the overall policy we are following, we will return to legislation such as this again and again, year after year.”
Asked if ISIS fighters returning to Britain should face action, Corbyn said ISIS supporters should not be prosecuted for “expressing a political point of view”:
Musician Stevie Wonder branded those who attempt to associate the recent terror attacks in London with Islam “liars” during Sunday’s #OneLoveManchester charity concert.Honest Reporting: It Only Sounds Absurd When It’s Not About Israel
“Ariana, this is Stevie. I just wanted you to know that I’m with all of you in Manchester,” declared Wonder in a pre-taped segment that appeared on screens during the #OneLoveManchester concert on Sunday. “We all know that love is truly the key.”
“I don’t care what ethnicity you are, what religion you are. Love really is the way,” he continued, before adding “So anyone who tries to make anyone think that things of destruction has anything to do with God or Allah, they’re a liar. Yes, I stand with you Manchester.”
Can you imagine if these were the headlines after the Manchester terror attacks?
These parody headlines would be funny if they didn’t hit so close to home: they are taken directly from real headlines about terror attacks in Israel.
As the world mourns with Manchester, we remember that the world rarely mourns with Israel: instead, headlines mourn the death of Israel’s attackers and calls their violence, “alleged,” while diligently avoiding the word, “terrorism.”
Why the double standard?
#FakeNews: CNN Caught Arranging Muslims As Backdrop
CNN International (CNNi) staged a backdrop of persons — presumably Muslims, including women in hijabs — during a Sunday news segment in London regarding the previous evening’s mass murder Islamic terrorist attack in the U.K. capital.CNN staging the narrative before making report, they are truly Fake News!
CNNi likely sought to hype a narrative of widespread Muslim opposition to the Islamic State (ISIS) and Islamic terrorism, more broadly.
Video captured by Twitter user @markantro shows CNNi's Becky Anderson directing the ostensibly anti-jihad Muslims to appear as backdrops for a live segment. Watch the event below.
Becky Anderson hyped the incident during her live broadcast, describing it as "wonderful" and "poignant." She did not ask any of the Muslims about the ubiquity of opposition toward Western values among their co-religionists.
IsraellyCool: The Telegraph Rams Israel Off Its List Of Countries Affected By Terror Attacks
The Telegraph has a comprehensive report on the latest terror attacks in London, including a timeline of ramming attacks involving vehicles around the world.UNRWA apologizes for using Syria photo in Gaza campaign
No prizes for guessing what’s missing.
These ramming attacks actually originated in Israel, with a few back in 2008, two years before Al Qaeda co-opted the idea from their palestinian brothers. This was followed by another in Tel Aviv in 2011, a whole bunch in 2014, and one earlier this year. Heck, the Telegraph itself even reported these attacks (see here for example).
So what gives? Why is Israel – the country where these attacks not only originated but have been perpetrated the most times in the world – not deserving of having these attacks acknowledged by the Telegraph now?
I think we all know the answer to this question.
UNRWA has apologized for twice using a photo of a Palestinian child living in Syria, this time in its fund-raising campaign for Gaza.What’s Happened to the Anti-Defamation League?
The double use of the photograph was brought to light by the Geneva- based group UN Watch, whose executive director Hillel Neuer posted both pictures on Twitter with the caption: “Left: UNRWA photo, Jan.27, 2015, of girl in Syria. Right: Same UNRWA photo, May 29, 2017, but now she’s ‘Aya from Gaza’ oppressed by Israel.”
Next to the photo that it posted on social media last month, UNRWA wrote: “Imagine being cut off from the world – for your whole life. That’s reality for children like Aya. The blockade of Gaza began when she was a girl, the occupation in the West Bank before her parents were born. Now she is 11 and the blockade goes on.
“Aya’s childhood memories are of conflict and hardship, walls she cannot escape, and the fear that the only home she knows, however tiny, could be gone when she returns from school.
Where is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)?IsraellyCool: JVP Attacks Gal Gadot – For Expressing Love And Concern For Her Fellow Israelis
As a “new antisemitism” casts the Jewish state as the cruelest of nations, and her Jewish supporters as “racists,” the ADL has been largely silent. The lies are spread in newspapers, churches and college classrooms. On campuses, Jewish students are harassed and intimidated. Even the curricula in many public high schools and middle schools is biased against Israel. Yet the ADL, once the Jewish people’s defense agency, seems unable or unwilling to effectively fight back.
Case in point: Linda Sarsour, a virulently anti-Israel Islamist who is a supporter of terrorists, and a defender of Sharia law, was a featured speaker at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health’s graduation on June 1.
Yet it was only after weeks of silence, and only when upbraided for that despicable silence, that the ADL finally issued a statement criticizing Sarsour. (Ms. Sarsour is an antisemite who fights to bar Jewish women from the “feminist” movement unless they renounce Israel, and has tweeted that, “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.”
And even the ADL’s belated criticism of Sarsour, penned by its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, was weak. The ADL statement rejected Sarsour’s support of BDS, but it supported CUNY’s decision to invite her, citing her “right to free speech.” But, as former CUNY trustee Jeffrey Weisenfeld has pointed out, allowing someone to speak and giving them one of the most honored platforms that a university can provide are two different things. Even Abe Foxman himself, the legendary ADL leader who reportedly selected Greenblatt as his heir, unblinkingly told reporters that CUNY should not have invited Sarsour.
Jewish Voice For Peace has attacked Israel’s own Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot.Massachusetts Democrats reject anti-settlements plank
Her crime? Posting a photo of her and her daughter lighting Shabbat candles, while sending love and prayers to Israeli civilians being bombarded by Hamas rocket fire – as well as the soldiers protecting us.
Note how JVP also uses the number 2,100 for the palestinian fatalities – this includes all the terrorists killed, not just civilians used as human shields.
As a reminder, JVP idolizes palestinian terrorists, so none of this is surprising.
Jewish Voice for Peace: there is nothing Jewish about you and nothing “peace” about you.
An effort to amend the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s platform with language that calls Israel’s settlements in the West Bank “obstacles to peace” was ruled out of order at the state’s convention, ending a months-long effort to push through the controversial resolution.Google prize goes to Argentine news analysis of Nisman probe, death
The move by proponents to amend the party’s platform at the full state convention on Saturday followed a failed attempt last April to have the party adopt a resolution on “peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians” that singled out Israeli settlements in the West Bank without mention of Palestinian violence.
State party leaders and Jewish communal organizational leaders vehemently opposed the resolution, calling it unbalanced and one-sided. Its supporters, including leaders from Cambridge-based Palestine Advocacy Project, said their resolution was not a radical departure from the positions of past U.S. administrations.
The proposed resolution, submitted by a long-time party activist, stated that “Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live in peace and security,” and cited a July, 2016 State Department declaration that opposed settlement activity. It called on the state’s U.S. Congressional delegation to oppose Israeli settlements in pursuing a negotiated peace.
An Argentine news outlet’s investigation into the death of Jewish special prosecutor Alberto Nisman won a national prize from Google Argentina and the National Forum of Professional Journalists.The Post Prints Fareed Zakaria’s Fake News on Iran
The national “Innovative and Digital Award” was announced during the 6th National Congress of Digital Journalism, organized by the National Forum of Professional Journalists, or FOPEA.
La Nacion Data Argentina analyzed 40,000 audio recordings from the tapped phone of an Iranian agent over two years, publishing the findings and developing a news app to search by topic or person.
Google Argentina recognized “the exploration and testing of different technologies to achieve the journalistic objective, one of which was the voice recognition to achieve an accurate transcription of the audios,”of the wiretaps that Nisman presented as evidence of his accusation of a government cover-up.
A May 25, 2017 Washington Post Op-Ed by CNN host Fareed Zakaria misled readers about the extent of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s connection to terrorist groups.These Are Your Journalists, Haaretz
Zakaria’s commentary (“How Saudi Arabia Played Donald Trump”) focused on Saudi Arabia’s connection to Islamist terror groups. The host of CNN’s self-described “flagship foreign affairs show,” entitled GPS, correctly pointed out that “for five decades, Saudi Arabia has spread its narrow, puritanical and intolerant version of Islam—originally practiced almost nowhere else—across the Muslim world.” That ideology, Wahhabism, has influenced Islamist terror groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda.
Zakaria provided Post readers with details about how the Kingdom has exported Wahhabism via Saudi-funded mosques, clerics and programs. But when discussing Iran’s support of terrorism the CNN host stumbled, claiming that it “would be wildly inaccurate to describe” Tehran as the “source of jihadist terror.”
Doubling down, Zakaria asserted:
“More than 94 percent of deaths caused by Islamic terrorism since 2001 were perpetrated by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other Sunni jihadists. Iran is fighting those groups, not fueling them. Almost every terrorist attack in the West has had some connection to Saudi Arabia. Virtually none has been linked to Iran.”
However, this both minimizes and misleads on Iran’s role in supporting terrorism. As CNN itself has noted, in 2016 the U.S. State Department declared Iran to be the “top state sponsor of terror (“State Department report finds Iran is top state sponsor of terror,” June 2, 2016).” Tehran received this dubious distinction in numerous previous years as well.
"These are your soldiers," Haaretz's Gideon Levy fulminates in a vitriolic attack against Israeli soldiers at large, but the abuse in question involves just a single person, and it is not known whether that individual is even a soldier.BBC’s new US embassy relocation report recycles old themes
At least seven soldiers appear in the film. Twice soldiers are heard calling for medical help; a soldier calls for a military ambulance at the very beginning of the film, and again 40 seconds into the clip ("Call the military ambulance!" followed immediately by, "The military ambulance is on the way). There is a single, solitary speaker who crudely curses the wounded attacker, and its impossible to ascertain from the clip whether that speaker is a soldier as he is off camera. At most, one might conclude that the photographer who shouts "you're awesome," is also cursing.
From the repetitive epitaphs of a single person, Levy concludes, in plural, "these are your soldiers, Israel," barbarians who celebrate around a groaning Palestinian girl.
Not only does he pin the curses of one onto many ("there were many"), he also invents: "No one even thought of offering her medical aid."
Clearly that would prompt readers to mistakenly assume that the proposed site for an American embassy in Jerusalem is located on land the BBC describes as “occupied” – without providing any information whatsoever concerning its actual occupation by Jordan during the 19 years prior to 1967.Priyanka Chopra spurs selfie scandal at Berlin Holocaust memorial
In addition, this article included a partisan map produced by the political NGO B’Tselem which has been repeatedly seen in previous BBC News website content.
That map of Jerusalem portrays places such as the Jewish quarter in the Old City, Neve Ya’akov and even the Hebrew University on Mt Scopus (which never came under Jordanian occupation) as ‘Israeli settlements’, despite the fact that Jews purchased land and lived in those and other areas long before they were ethnically cleansed by the invading Jordanian army in 1948.
The BBC’s repeated use of that inaccurate and politically partisan map indicates that the corporation is not committed to accurately and impartially informing its audiences about the geo-political situation in Jerusalem.
Rising Hollywood star Priyanka Chopra faced online backlash after posting selfies at Berlin's Holocaust memorial to social media earlier this week.Jewish nurse breastfeeds injured Palestinian baby
Uproar ensued after the Quantico star posted two self-taken photographs to her Instagram story at the grounds of the German capital's solemn Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.The iconic monument dedicated to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust features 2,711 concrete slabs that are thought to resemble gravestones.
In one of the selfies uploaded by Chopra, 34, she was seen in the foreground of the gray stone slabs alongside the caption "Holocaust Memorial #Berlin." The other image showed Chopra and her brother with the rows of block structures in the background with an caption reading: "@siddarthchopra89 and I being tourists. There is such an eerie silence here."
The Bollywood darling turned Hollywood actress immediately came under fire by social media users, who criticized her with accusations of insensitivity.
A Palestinian baby injured in a car accident was breastfed by a Jewish nurse when he refused to take a bottle.NYC turns blue and white for 53rd annual Celebrate Israel Parade
Ula Ostrowski-Zak nursed the nine-month-old boy throughout her shift at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital on Friday night, the Ynet news website reported.
The baby’s family had been involved in a head-on collision with a bus on Route 60 in the West Bank, which left the baby’s father dead and his mother with a serious head injury. The baby, who was slightly injured, cried for seven hours in the emergency room and refused a bottle, according to the report.
The baby’s aunts asked Ostrowski-Zak to help them find someone to nurse the boy and the nurse reportedly volunteered to do it herself. She nursed the baby five times during the next day.
She then posted a request for help with nursing the baby on an Israeli Facebook page for nursing mothers and received many responses from women willing to come to the hospital, from as far away as Haifa, to help feed the baby until he is discharged.
The baby’s mother remains in serious condition.
Thousands of people of all ages waved blue and white flags and danced and sang in Hebrew as they gathered along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue on Sunday to watch the 53rd annual Celebrate Israel Parade.Hadar and Oron at the Celebrate Israel Parade
The New York City parade traditionally takes place on the first Sunday of June, a day that NY Governor Andrew Cuomo recently also proclaimed “Shimon Peres Day,” in honor of the late Israeli president.
“It’s incredible. It shows the love New York City has for the Jewish people, the State of Israel and Jews all over the world,” Sheerlee Itzhaki, one of the 40,000 people who marched in the parade told The Jerusalem Post. Itzhaki participated on behalf of the Modern Orthodox Moriah School in New Jersey in which her six children are enrolled.
This year, she helped organize the school’s participation in the parade. Like many other groups that came, the school chose to focus on the theme of Jerusalem, as Sunday also marked the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War and the city’s reunification.
The pictures of fallen IDF soldiers Lieutenant Hadar Goldin and Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul Hayad, whose bodies are being held by the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip, were carried down the streets of Manhattan on Sunday as part of the annual Celebrate Israel Parade.The Gamla Excavations Final Report, The Rest of the Story
The march was attended by ministers and members of the Israeli Knesset alongside Americans who love Israel, including diplomats, rabbis and senior members of the American Jewish community.
During the march, hundreds of participants waved posters of Goldin and Shaul on which were written the Hebrbrew phrase: Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Lazeh, "All Israel are responsible one another."
The Goldin family said, "It is encouraging to see that in the United States they have not forgotten Oron and Hadar, when it seems sometimes that they do not remember their existence here in Israel."
The importance of Gamla lies in that it is one of very few sites described in detail by the contemporaneous historian Flavius Josephus in connection with the First Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the fact that it was never resettled after 67 CE. Extensive excavations have yielded vast amounts of information related to the war against the Romans that enable the resurrection of life in a Jewish town of the period. The appearance of the third volume of the final report on Shmarya Gutmann’s excavations at Gamla is an opportune moment to reflect on the unusual conception and birth of this project.Aerial view of the synagogue and city wall
Shmarya Gutmann, participated in Yigael Yadin’s pioneering excavations at Masada, uncovering there the dramatic remains of Jewish zealots. Gutmann was drawn to Gamla because he considered it the ‘missing link’ in the archaeology of the First Jewish Revolt. Born in Scotland, Gutmann came to Ottoman Palestine in 1912 with his parents at the age of three. As an adult he was deeply involved in high level intelligence and diplomatic work in the years before and after the creation of Israel. Though he had climbed Masada in 1932, field archaeology was a pursuit that he came to later in life.
Gamla is a located on a camel hump shaped hill – hence its name, from the Semitic word for camel – in the lower Golan Heights. It was inhabited during the Early Bronze Age. Protected on three sides by steep ravines, the site was defended on the east by an immense wall. The site was not settled again until the Hellenistic period. The Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus annexed Gamla to his state in 81 BCE, and in 66 CE Flavius Josephus — commander of Jewish forces in the Galilee — fortified the site against the Romans.
