Friday, June 16, 2017
Border Police guard killed in Jerusalem attack named as Hadas Malka, 23
The Border Police officer killed in a coordinated stabbing and shooting attack in two areas in Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday was identified as Hadas Malka, 23.Another Stunning Loss for Anti-Israel Academics
She was a resident of Moshav Givat Ezer in central Israel, having joined the Border Police 15 months ago. She leaves behind parents and five siblings, three sisters and two brothers.
Malka was critically injured in a stabbing attack on Sultan Suleiman Street near Damascus Gate on Friday evening. She was transferred to Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus in Jerusalem where she underwent emergency surgery and later succumbed to her injuries.
She fought her attacker for several seconds while attempting to draw her weapon, according to a Border Police statement. Nearby troops shot and killed the assailant.
In a nearby location, at Zedekiah’s Cave, two attackers, one of them with a knife and another with a homemade Carl Gustav sub-machine gun, attacked a group of Border Police officers. The troops opened fire and killed them.
That this resolution passed the Delegate Assembly 101 to 93 was stunning. While a number of academic organizations have voted down BDS resolutions, I know of no professional academic organization that has voted up a resolution rejecting BDS.Eric Pickles: How did Corbyn’s comments on Hamas not put off voters?
Yet the resolution to reject BDS had another high hurdle to clear, a full membership vote. The MLA, in order to prevent tiny minorities from speaking for the whole organization has a rule that resolutions require an affirmative vote of at least 10 percent of the entire membership to pass. Since only a small percentage of members typically bother to vote, it is very hard to muster that 10 percent, particularly when facing determined opposition. Moreover, insofar as humanities scholars lean even further left than the rest of the academy, one might expect them to be susceptible to the argument boycott advocates were making. To vote to reject BDS would be positively . . . Trumpian! As one prominent pro-BDS academic subtly puts it, “in a climate of rabid right-wing suppression of minority rights, of Trumpian chants to ‘build walls’ and ban Muslims, of egregious bigotry and hatred, any gesture curtailing political expression is a political disaster and a gift to reactionary zealots.”
But it turns out that even in the present political atmosphere and among left-liberals, the ritual invocation of Trump cannot disguise how contrary an academic boycott is to the spirit of scholarship and teaching the MLA claims to stand for. It cannot disguise how distasteful the BDS movement, which has flirted with anti-Semitism even in the course of otherwise staid MLA discussions, is. And it cannot disguise how harmful an endorsement of the anti-Israel boycott would be to the MLA’s reputation. The resolution to “refrain from endorsing the boycott” passed overwhelmingly, 1954 to 885.
Naturally, the boycotters plan to continue the struggle. They are not deterred that their attempt to pass a pro-BDS resolution has resulted instead in an anti-BDS resolution. Evidently the only thing worse than suffering a humiliating defeat is the idea of going back to teaching language and literature.
Much has been made of the Conservative resurgence in Scotland, spearheaded by Ruth Davidson. Important though this is, commentators ought also to be looking at north London.
Were it not for the Jewish community’s strong support for Conservative candidates in north London, then Comrade Corbyn could well be in No 10 right now. The support prevented a near whitewash of the Conservatives in London. Steadfast friends of Israel and the Jewish community – Bob Blackman, Mike Freer, Matthew Offord and Theresa Villiers – held on narrowly thanks to support from Jewish constituents. Sadly, CFI officer David Burrowes lost in Enfield Southgate.
A Jewish Chronicle pre-election poll showed 77 percent of British Jews would vote Conservative. It’s only with hindsight that one can appreciate the significance of this. The UK’s Jewish community has a proud history of engaging in politics and this election offered a timely reminder of the importance of its voice.
Worryingly, it seems Jeremy Corbyn’s relationships with hardline and extremist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, simply didn’t concern British voters in a way one would have foreseen. It seldom came up on doorsteps. That this would fail to resonate at a time when Britain has suffered from three appalling Islamist terror attacks is acutely concerning.
My Father, Elie Wiesel
This is what I want to tell you about my father: My father was a builder of bridges across generations. Through his love, reaching both forward and backward through time, I feel connected not only to him but to my grandparents as well. He was a builder of bridges across cultures and faiths. He taught and learned from Hindu and Muslim students, he broke bread with cardinals and atheists. He valued friendship as an ideal above all others. He had a way of seeing the best in people that brought their better natures to the surface. And he pursued his friendships from a position of inner strength and confidence derived from knowing where he came from. Throughout his entire life, he worked with a picture of his childhood home in Sighet over his desk.Colonel Kemp: How to Fight Islamic Terrorism Effectively — Learn From Israel
I want to tell you about the things that connect and separate fathers and sons, of the bridges to friendship and the spaces they must cross, and of seeing through to the best in people. I want to tell you about my father’s voice, which could thunder for justice in front of world leaders, but could also, in its quietness, cause even his most skeptical adversary to lean in and listen carefully. And I want to tell you about the wonderful and warm person he was—not when he was on the world’s stage but when he was engaged in everyday interactions with people: his students, his friends, the taxi driver, the attending physician, the person he just met next to him on the plane. Whether you came up to tell him you admired him or disagreed with him, he always asked for your name, and he would always take the time to hear your story.
I am indebted to the Washington Post’s Eli Saslow for his strong and authentic journalism in sharing the story of Derek Black and Matthew Stevenson. Derek Black is the son of Don Black, prominent white supremacist and operator of the Stormfront website. Derek had been groomed since childhood to inherit this legacy and was already attracting a following due to his strong innate qualities as a leader. But although he led a talk show devoted to white supremacy off-campus, Derek sought a lower profile on the New College of Florida campus and did not broadcast his activities. Away from home for the first time, he was determined to pursue rational thought wherever it led him.
Attending the same college was Matthew Stevenson, a Jewish student on campus who had the bravery to host Shabbat dinners in a place where there were none. Matthew is very much the product of his parents: His father believed in and taught Jewish teachings of self-transformation. His mother, who sadly passed away last year, believed fervently in service to others. And so Matthew came to college with a strong base of confidence and values. He reached out to other groups and faiths—and those without either—and made his table a focal point for fellowship and dialogue. And then a chance encounter involving country music—yes, I finally have a reason to be grateful for country music—brought him and Derek Black together.
On January 25th, 2015, a bus driver was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist who also injured several passengers before he was subdued by Israeli police; on March 6th, this time in Jerusalem, another terrorist drove his car into a group of people at a light railway stop, injuring 7 before being arrested by police officers.The Myth of the "Lone Wolf" Terrorist
A forthcoming report by the High Level Home Front Group shows that between September 13th 2015 and July 25th, 2016 there were 157 stabbing attacks and 46 vehicle ramming attacks, with dozen of deaths and hundreds of injured people in Israel. Despite this incessant carnage, the West didn’t pay too much attention.
Our perception was more attuned to car-bombings and suicide terrorist, so this kind of low-level violence was not really considered terrorism – a mistake, to our own peril, as we know now.
Newscasts and public attention in Europe tended to focus on large-scale terrorist attacks, as in Madrid in 2004, London, 2005, Paris, in January and November 2015, or Brussels in March 2016.
Yet the pattern of a new kind of Islamist terror was also brewing on our soil: In May of 2010 in London, a British MP was stabbed and seriously wounded by a female who had been inspired by Al Qaida; in May of 2013 two men who described themselves as ‘soldiers of Allah’ rammed their car into an off-duty soldier also in London and then cut him up with knives and a meat cleaver; in December of 2014, a man with a knife, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ attacked several police officers at a police station in Tours, France; in 2015 there were at least two stabbing attacks in France and in January 2016 the first ramming attack using a car against soldiers took place.
Radical material is consumed by a vast number of people and research has revealed that often it is the environment that makes the difference between individuals that only consume such material and those that eventually act on it. They often receive encouragement from their immediate surroundings, whether from family or friends, hate preachers or sermons in mosques, an online community of like-minded individuals or a network of terrorist recruiters.Jewish Human Rights Group Calls on European Parliament to Screen Antisemitism Documentary Rejected by French-German Broadcaster Arte
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University studied the behavior of 119 “lone wolf” terrorists and found that “In the time leading up to most lone-actor terrorist events, evidence suggests that other people generally knew about the offender’s grievance, extremist ideology, views and/or intent to engage in violence.”
For a large majority of offenders (83%), others had knowledge about the motives that later resulted in an act of violence. In a similar number of cases (79%), other individuals were aware that the offender followed an extremist ideology. Family and friends often (64%) knew of the individual’s intent to engage in terrorist-related activity because he had verbally told them. In more than half of the cases (58%), others were in possession of information about the offender’s research, planning, and/or preparation for the attack.
The study also found that a third of offenders were members of a group or organization engaged in political extremism. Just less than half of “lone wolves” interacted face-to-face with members of a wider extremist network and just over a third did so virtually. In the majority of cases (68%) there is evidence suggesting that the offender consumed extremist material produced by a wider movement.
Even if we were to leave aside for a moment the practical nature of terrorist attacks, it would be wrong to characterize them on an abstract level as a series of isolated incidents. An individual might act completely isolated from any external network, and yet he would still be linked to the global Islamist insurgency — from Hamas in Gaza to Islamic State in Syria to hate preachers in the West — via the ideological hinterland they all have in common: the commitment to enforce radical Islam by sword.
The international affairs director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) has called on the European Parliament to host a special screening of the documentary film, “Chosen and Excluded — The Hate for Jews in Europe,” which was originally commissioned and then rejected by the French-German broadcaster Arte.Ex-police boss seeks review of French cops’ inaction during Jewish woman’s killing
In a letter to the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, Dr. Shimon Samuels of the SWC cited the “many commentators” who had deemed Arte‘s decision to reject the film “as ‘censorship’ based on fear of acknowledging that Islamist violence against Jews, BDS (boycotts) of the Jewish state and anti-Zionism are part and parcel of the scourge of antisemitism.”
Among the issues covered in the documentary are the prevalence of antisemitism in children’s programming in the Middle East, physical threats to Jews in French and German cities and the role of antisemitism in the media. But Arte bosses turned down the film, claiming that the final cut ignored other issues, such as antisemitic activity in Norway and Sweden, that the documentary’s producers had allegedly agreed to cover.
Samuels argued that as the European Parliament had recently adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “Working Definition of Antisemitism” — which encompasses expressions of extreme hatred towards Israel and the identification of Diaspora Jews with Israel — it was “now endowed with a measure to test the apparent tendentious argument of Arte.”
A former police commissioner in France called for a probe of three officers for failing to save a Jewish woman who was killed by a Muslim man in her home while they were waiting for backup outside her Paris apartment.Kay Wilson: As a survivor of terror, allowing the Al Quds Day March offends me
Sammy Ghozlan, a retired commissioner and head of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism watchdog group, told officials and members of the family of the victim of the April 4 attack, Sarah Halimi, that an internal review was necessary during a visit to Marseille Thursday.
Several leaders of French Jewry criticized authorities’ handling of the investigation into the killing of Sarah Halimi by her neighbor, whom neighbors said had called her “Satan” and shouted “Allah hu akbar” – Arabic for “Allah is the greatest” – before the killing. He is suspected of having broken into the home of Halimi, a 65-year-old physician, beating her and throwing her to her death from a window of her third-story apartment.
The suspect, 27-year-old Kobili Traore, was placed under psychiatric evaluation as per his temporary insanity claim though he has no history of mental illness. He spent the first two weeks of his arrest at a psychiatric detention facility but authorities have not divulged information on his whereabouts thereafter despite repeated queries, Ghozlan told JTA.
A draft indictment against him published by the Paris Prosecutor’s office did not contain a mention of a hate crime in the voluntary manslaughter charge, prompting the CRIF umbrella group of French Jews to criticize the judiciary and what CRIF said was indifference by the media.
I am offended by the allowing of the Al-Quds March Day (an Iranian-backed propaganda tool) that will take place in London on Sunday despite the Mayor expressing his concerns to the Metropolitan Police and a petition signed by thousands stating their outrage.Maajid Nawaz: Flying terrorist flags in the capital is an insult to victims of the London attacks
In the name of free-speech, people will march in support of organisations that the British government has designated as terror groups. It won’t be the first time that they will be allowed to chant hate, vilify “Zionists” and demonise Israel, the sole refuge for Jewish people in the Middle East, and also the lone democracy.
This appalling abuse of free speech coupled with the authorities selectively appropriating the Public Order Act Section 5, is what ensures that British Jewish schools, British Jewish institutions and British synagogues will continue to need security surveillance night and day.
These double standards and the gagging and harassing of individuals who speak question and challenge the system, is also what will guarantee the increasing familiar sight of police and ambulance crews, scraping parts of men women and children off the walls of a cultural arena and London’s streets.
This Sunday up to 1,000 sympathisers of a terror organisation will march through London with impunity. Protestors at this ‘Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day Rally’ will raise the flag of the anti-Semitic, sectarian shia-jihadist group Hezbollah, while the London Metropolitan Police protects them.London Mayor Khan Slammed by Jewish Groups Over Refusal to Ban Anti-Israel Al-Quds March
We know this will happen, because the rally’s organisers at the so-called Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) have brazenly issued guidelines encouraging protestors to do so.
Coming just under two weeks since it was revealed to public incredulity that London bridge terrorist Khurram Butt had flown the ISIS flag without consequence on a television documentary, our impotency in the face of terrorist propaganda will once again be mocked. Khurram Butt proclaimed ‘this is for Allah’ as he ruthlessly slit, stabbed and slashed his innocent victims to death with his dagger. The Hezbollah flag bears the words “Party of Allah” in Arabic, along with a dagger and a raised fist clenching an assault rifle.
Much to the dismay of antisemitism campaigners, the London Met have confirmed that the rally is indeed set to go ahead, bringing central London to a halt so that Hezbollah-supporters may march through the heart of our capital.
Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Let there be no doubt, Hezbollah is an anti-Semitic, sectarian shia-jihadist terror organisation that advocates the annihilation of Jews worldwide, and has militarily backed Assad’s atrocities in Syria for geo-sectarian reasons at the behest of their state sponsor Iran.
London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has been slammed by members of the capital’s Jewish community over his refusal to ban Sunday’s anti-Israel al-Quds Day march and its traditional display of flags supporting the Hezbollah terrorist organization.Al Quds Day – Let’s Help Some Confused Khomeinists
Raphi Bloom, chairman of North West Friends of Israel group, told Breitbart News that despite repeated lobbying of Mr. Khan and a petition supported by almost 20,000 signatures calling for the event to be cancelled, the city’s leader has remained steadfast in his refusal to intervene.
“Hezbollah is a proscribed terrorist organisation. It makes NO distinction between its armed and political wing, yet its supporters will be allowed to march through London’s streets unhindered,” Mr. Bloom said. “This is extremely disappointing and challenges the mayor’s commitment to rid the streets of London of extremism.
“For many years this march has been rife with anti-Semitism and the fulsome support of a terrorist organisation – Hezbollah. I am sure I do not need to remind anyone that Hezbollah is currently massacring Syrian civilians on behalf of President Assad and is funded by Iran – one of the major supporters of global terrorism in the world today.
“For all that, our correspondence on the matter with Mr. Khan receives only generic responses from his staff and nothing from Mr. Khan himself. He may not have the power to ban al-Quds outright but he can lobby and make direct representations to the Metropolitan Police on behalf of a concerned London Jewish community.”
The Khomeinists of the self-styled Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) appear to be confused. Ahead of their annual “Al Quds Day” Israel hatred march, scheduled for this Sunday in London, they have issued this statement:How BDS Fails Palestinians
Flags: participants are welcome to bring flags that show solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Flags of proscribed (illegal) organisations will not be allowed. For example, you can bring a Hizbullah flag to show support for the political wing of Hizbullah. This is because the political wing of Hizbullah is not a proscribed organisation.
Let’s help the poor dears with this silly “wings” fiction of European diplomacy. This line should bring them hurtling back to the truth here on earth:
Everyone is aware of the fact that Hezbollah is one body and one entity. Its military and political wings are unified.
That’s Hezbollah political affairs official Ammar Moussawi speaking.
Eid says he feels the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more on American campuses than he does in Jerusalem or Ramallah. He feels that the pro-BDS students are misinformed, and stresses that Israel’s economy is based on things that are almost impossible to boycott.
Super-conservative PragerU aims to arm pro-Israel students for their campus ‘wastelands’
Amidst the rancor of anti-Israel propaganda, Prager University is waging a digital war. If such battles are won by whopping numbers of online views alone, its strategy seems to be winning. But not everyone agrees.Israeli PM Netanyahu Lauds Swiss, Dutch Moves Against Funding of Extremist Palestinian NGOs
“Prager University is the most widely viewed pro-American, pro-Israeli, pro-Judeo-Christian values site in the world,” its founder, the radio talk show host and author Dennis Prager, told The Times of Israel. “We had 250 million views last year and are on schedule to have half a billion views this year. The largest segment of viewers is under 35 years of age.”
PragerU’s multi-million dollar budget underwrites scores of videos that netted more than 150 million views in 2016. The organization boasts a fan base of more than 2 million individuals and a “student force” culled from universities around the world.
Earlier this month, some 250 supporters of Israel gathered from across around North America at a live event called “The Summit.” Besides Prager, speakers included PragerU CEO Marissa Streit, syndicated columnist, author and political commentator Charles Krauthammer and Kimberley Strassel, author, journalist and member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Yet some observers question the organization’s positions. The media company’s pro-Israel arguments are aligned with broader conservative positions. Often, they trigger dissonance among strongly identified Jews, Israel supporters and scholars alike.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the leaders of Switzerland and the Netherlands on Wednesday following their decisions to halt funding for Palestinian NGOs involved in incitement.Government facing High Court challenge over councils BDS ban
“I welcome the Swiss parliament’s decision to require the Swiss government not to finance NGOs that foster hate, racism, anti-Semitism and incitement,” Netanyahu said before flying to Thessaloniki for an annual summit of Greek, Cypriot and Israeli leaders.
On Tuesday, the Swiss Council of States voted by a 111-78 majority to take measures that would prevent funding for NGOs “involved in racist, antisemitic or hate incitement actions.” Many of the Palestinian NGOs that have received millions of dollars of Swiss public funds are involved in promoting the BDS campaign against Israel, along with other delegitimization activities.
Netanyahu also commended “the Dutch government and my friend, Prime Minister Mark Rutte, for their decision to stop financing the Palestinian terrorist NGO that extols the memory of Dalal Mughrabi and to reconsider the financing that the Netherlands provides to other NGOs.”
Norway and the UN have also severed ties with a community center in the West Bank village of Burqa named for Dalal Mughrabi, a Fatah terrorist responsible for the bloodiest terror attack in Israel’s history in which 38 people died.
Gerald Steinberg — president of the Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor — said the Swiss and Dutch announcements reflected Netanyahu’s placing of “a high priority on pressuring European leaders to end irresponsible funding to NGOs involved in BDS and antisemitism, and with links to terror groups.”
UK - Palestinian supporters this week asked a High Court judge to consider the legality of the Government’s ban on local councils boycotting foreign countries like Israel.At UCLA, When ‘Nakba’ Fails, Switch to ‘Naksa’
The judicial review, being heard in the Administrative Court on Wednesday, was initiated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and challenges rules introduced in September last year by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid.
His guidance prevents local government pension funds from engaging in boycotts and the “ethical divestment” of companies accused of being complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
Last year the Jewish community welcomed news of the ban, after ministers said local councils should not be adopting their own foreign policy.
During the event, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill professor Nadia Yaqub briefly promoted her upcoming book, Bad Girls of the Arab World, before making several questionable and occasionally historically inaccurate claims about Israel.Linda Sarsour, Feminism is Not Your Movement.
Yaqub lamented the 1982 “Israeli invasion of Lebanon” (in fact, there was no invasion), referred cheerily to a “Palestinian martyr cemetery in Beirut,” and stated that a “Gaza hospital was destroyed in 1982” without acknowledging that Palestinian terrorism led directly to the destruction of the hospital and other buildings.
Attempting to take the moral high ground by condemning Israeli modernity, Yaqub then criticized the “hedonistic culture of Tel Aviv’s Spring Break beaches.” Laughably, she also claimed that the “PLO revolution” was not just dedicated to liberating “Palestine,” but to “institution building.” In reality, the reason for Palestinian suffering is their leaders’ unwillingness to build non-violent, civil institutions.
She later cited the “non-violent resistance to occupation” of the 1970s, despite the lack of an Israeli occupation — and the abundance of Palestinian violence in that decade. By the time she used the invented word “contrapunctily,” even her copanelists had no idea what she was talking about.
Hosam Aboul-Ela, a post-colonial literature professor at the University of Houston, Texas, added to the sense of confusion by immediately wandering off-topic. Hearkening back to Edward Said accusing President George H.W. Bush of silencing radio discussion in 1991 during the first Gulf War, Aboul-Ela referred to that war as “post-Cold War American militarism” and a “violent police action.” In fact, the first Gulf War was a successful military action to stop Muslims in Iraq from trying to take over Muslims in Kuwait; Bush, Sr. is regarded as a hero in Kuwait.
Jewish power trope rears its head at Fresno State University
Sometimes, anti-Israel sentiment on campus crosses the line from the offensive to the delusional. Case in point: the recent matter at California State University, Fresno, where a failed search for a Middle East studies professor mutated into scurrilous charges of undue Jewish influence.Daphne Anson: An ex-Vicar & a Rabbi Make an Iftar Meal of It
As detailed in this story, two Fresno State professors known for their ardent anti-Israel views claimed that the search for a new Middle East professorship, named for the late Palestinian American professor Edward Said, was called off because local Jewish and pro-Israel groups pressured the university to do so.
Only one problem: It never happened, at least according to multiple Fresno-based Jewish leaders, who said they first learned of the canceled search by reading about it in the newspaper.
The university also denied outside influence led to the decision to cancel the search. The reason, according to a university spokesperson, had to do with the composition of the search committee. Moreover, the search was merely postponed, not altogether canceled.
Since we now live in a post-fact world, it is a shame that these professors would spread a hateful lie — one that is tied to anti-Semitic tropes about underhanded Jewish power — and pass it off as a matter of course.
No matter that its leader, Marwan Bargouthi, was caught on candid camera munching away while supposedly leading a hunger strike of fellow jailbirds and is in jail because he's a cold-blooded murderer, our old friend the ex-vicar of Virginia Water has used the recent "hunger strike" of Palestinian prisoners as a stick with which to beat Israel. Now based in Southampton, and reinvented by himself as CEO of Peacemaker Mediators, he did so at a Ramadan event in London ostensibly intended as a warm and cosy interfaith event promoting understanding between Judaism, Christianity and Islam (though I'm sure the organisers wouldn't list the three so-called Abrahamic faiths in the order I have).Testing YouTube's 'Promotes Terrorism' Flagging Feature Part IV: Platform Features Videos Celebrating Martyrs And Martyrdom By Al-Qaeda, ISIS, And Other Jihadi Organizations And Supporters Worldwide - GRAPHIC
Like lots of other Israel-bashers, including the "Intifada" T-shirt sellers who feature in my previous post, the ex-vicar has a soft spot these Neturei Karta nuts, because the Neturei Karta nuts, of course, disavow Israel and as we know only too well Jews who show hostility towards Israel are the only "good Jews" in Muslim and far leftist eyes:
Predictably, then, we find, participating in the Ramadan event (which presumably was never intended to be other than an anti-Israel fest) not a mainstream rabbi but a certain Rabbi Jacob Weisz of the whacko Neturei Karta movement, a man who like Sizer himself is no stranger to appearing on the Iranian propaganda satellite channel to whack the Zionist entity:
Orthodox Jew Rabbi Jacob Weisz says Israel isn't Jewish – Press TV UK May 27, 2016 - Press TV UK – Rabbi Jacob Weisz slams Israel during an appearance on Press TV's The Sun Will Rise show.
The pair deserve each other.
In January 2015, MEMRI researched and flagged YouTube videos of support for jihadi fighters and "martyrs" and "martyrdom," to test the platform's "Promotes Terrorism" flagging feature. The test was a follow-up to MEMRI research and testing of jihad and terrorism on YouTube beginning in 2009, and to a MEMRI series of reports on "YouTube – The Internet's Primary and Rapidly Expanding Jihadi Base."BBC News endorses its Six Day War narrative by celebrity proxy
The Ongoing Controversy Over Google's Allowing Paid Advertising To Appear Next To Terrorist And Extremist Videos On YouTube Following the UK Terrorist Attacks
It should be noted that in mid-March 2017, major companies began halting or reducing advertising deals with YouTube owner Google because Google had allowed their brands to become intertwined with terrorist and extremist content on YouTube. These companies have, so far, included AT&T, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, the car rental company Enterprise Holdings, and drug manufacturer GSK. According to media reports, ordinary ads have been appearing alongside user-uploaded YouTube videos promoting hatred and extremism.
Following the June 3, 2017 London attacks, Google came under even more pressure. On June 6, UK media reported that Google was refusing to remove from YouTube extremist, hate-filled videos that inspired the attackers. The next day it was reported that Britain's three main political parties had pulled their campaign ads on YouTube because they were promoted next to extremist videos.
The following report sets out the results of MEMRI's new round of testing of how effectively YouTube removes videos connected to jihad and terrorism.
Viewers are not told that those latter remarks relate to calls by some Palestinian parties to boycott Barenboim’s ‘Divan Orchestra‘ because it includes Israelis.Jews want Germany to step up fight against anti-Semitism
So what do BBC audiences get in this dumbed-down piece? They get celebrity activist endorsement of the politically motivated narrative that the BBC has already repeatedly promoted on its various platforms according to which the modern-day Palestinian-Israeli conflict is all down to the outcome of the Six Day War – and specifically ‘the occupation’.
However, not only do audiences not get an explanation of the events that led to the outbreak of that war, they are steered towards the view that whether “Israel’s security” was a stake at the time is a matter of ‘belief’.
Neither are they informed that Israel withdrew from Gaza twelve years ago, that the areas of Judea & Samaria most populated by Palestinians have been under Palestinian Authority control for some two decades or that the fate of the remaining land – Area C – is, according to agreements willingly signed by the Palestinians, to be determined in final status negotiations. The inconvenient fact that the land both the BBC and Barenboim refer to as “the Palestinian Territories” was under Jordanian and Egyptian occupation for nineteen years before 1967 is of course erased from audience view.
This item joins the growing list of simplistic and context-free BBC promotion of a narrative that deliberately conceals the more relevant underlying issue of Arab refusal to accept the presence of the Jewish state in the Middle East.
In light of increasing displays of anti-Semitism in Germany, coupled with politicians' and the media's denial of it, a number of Jewish organizations have published a call for the Bundestag, the German parliament, to adopt a series of urgent steps in the fight against anti-Semitism.Netanyahu honors Greek Jews at Thessaloniki dedication of Holocaust museum site
A recent report on the issue prepared by independent experts at the request of the Bundestag states that anti-Semitic opinions are on the rise across all sectors of the German population, often in the guise of stances against Israel and its policies.
The Jewish organizations want the Bundestag to appoint a special representative to oversee collection of data on anti-Semitic incidents and coordinate the activities of various authorities in combating anti-Semitism. The organizations, which include an umbrella organization for Jewish groups and communities in Germany and the American Jewish Committee, are demanding that the Bundestag ensure that criminal anti-Semitic attacks be consistently addressed, that permanent assistance be provided to bodies combating anti-Semitism, and that it boost the coordination between the federal government and the German states on the issue.
However, government and political party officials in Berlin argue that if such a representative was to be appointed by the German authorities it would set a precedent, prompting demands for representatives to protect other minorities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu honored the Greek Jewish community lost during the Holocaust at the dedication of a site to build a Holocaust museum in Thessaloniki, also known as Salonika.Muslim police officer heads Israeli delegation to Poland
Netanyahu, who is in Greece for a tripartite summit with that country and Cyprus, attended the dedication on Thursday with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, as well as the son and daughter of Moshe Ha-Elion, 93, a Greek Holocaust survivor who this year lit a torch at the national ceremony for Holocaust memorial day.
“The Nazi fire destroyed about 95 percent of this extraordinary and proud Jewish community,” Netanyahu said at the ceremony. “There were two reasons why they didn’t destroy everyone. The first was heroism of Greeks, and this was exemplified in one case that is not sufficiently well-known, the case of the Island of Zakynthos where the German commander said: ‘Give me a list of the Jews’ and the bishop and the mayor brought a list of the Jews with their two names. They said: ‘This is our Jews. Take us’. We honor these two great heroes among the Righteous Among the Nations in Yad Vashem, an institution that will work with this museum.
“There’s a second reason why they survived and that is in addition to fate. It is a special capacity, the grip of life that is exemplified among the survivors,” the prime minister added, specifically mentioning Ha-Elion, who was unable to attend the ceremony after being hospitalized the day before he was scheduled to leave for Thessaloniki.
Amid tensions between the Israel Police and Israel's Arab population, a beacon of coexistence emerged from Poland, of all places, on Wednesday, as Deputy Commissioner Jamal Hakroosh, the highest-ranking Muslim to serve in the police force, headed an Israel Police delegation to Poland.Former German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, dies aged 87
Hakroosh, 59, was promoted in April, and currently oversees a new department established to improve policing in the Arab sector.
"I advise everyone, including local leaders in the Arab sector, to come to Poland," Hakroosh told Israel Hayom. "When you see with your own eyes what happened in the past, you come back home more humane and able to see the other better."
Hakroosh's historic promotion to the rank of deputy commissioner, one rank below the national police chief, was partially the result of recommendations presented by the Or Commission, tasked with reviewing the relationship between the police and an Arab sector, still largely perceived as hostile to the state.
Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, a colossus of contemporary European history who was celebrated as the father of German reunification and an architect of European integration, died Friday at the age of 87.PHOTOS: Jerusalem Before 1967
Germany’s longest serving post-war leader died in his house in Ludwigshafen, in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, reported Bild newspaper, whose management had close ties with the conservative politician.
Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union Party posted on Twitter: “We are in sorrow. #RIP #HelmutKohl.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement Friday evening expressing “great sorrow” at the late leader’s passing, calling him “one of the greatest friends of Israel who was completely committed to its security.”
“His admiration for Israel and Zionism found expression in my many meetings with him and in his resolute stand in favor of Israel, which he constantly presented in Europe and in international forums,” Netanyahu said.
“I send my condolences to his family and to the German people,” he added.
Fifty years since the reunification of Jerusalem, Israel’s ancient capital enjoys every promise of a prosperous tomorrow. The once sleepy city has emerged as a top cosmopolitan and technological hub, its streets home to luxury malls and lively markets, cutting-edge start-ups and colorful spice shops.5 pro-Israel videos you’ve got to share
But Jerusalem hasn’t always thrived. While under Israeli rule, all religious groups are able to freely access their holy sites, the city’s older residents remember an era when basic freedoms were never guaranteed.
Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan for 19 years following the Jewish state’s War of Independence. When the Jordanians first captured the Old City in May 1948, they expelled all of its Jewish inhabitants, then embarked on a campaign to erase the city’s ancient history. Over 50 synagogues in the Old City were destroyed, while ancient Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives were ransacked and Jews were barred from visiting their desecrated holy sites. Jordan also imposed restrictions on the city’s Christian population, including by controlling the materials taught in Christian schools and forbidding Christian charities and religious institutions from purchasing property.
Below are snapshots of the city from the mid-19th century until June 7, 1967 — the 28th day of the Jewish month of Iyar — when Israeli forces secured the Old City after two days of fighting with Jordan.
In an era where false news clogs social media feeds and everybody seems to have an agenda, it sometimes feels like there’s a virtual drought of fact-based information available.
So what do you do when organizations cynically mislead students who just want what’s best for the world? You start a campaign of your own, of course.
This month, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan announced the launch of 4IL, an online initiative aimed at stemming the flow of misinformation coming from anti-Israel groups.
Movements like Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) masquerade as seeking relief for Palestinians, when in fact they advocate for the destruction of Israel.
By targeting students on college campuses and feeding them faulty and incomplete information, BDS galvanizes people who may not have been previously familiar with the facts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Young people are more prepared to take a stand for causes not directly affecting them than ever before – but are they prepared to study history first? The new 4IL platform gives Israel supporters videos, graphics, articles and content with which to spread the truth to a cohort that may not otherwise invest time learning the ins and outs of a nuanced topic.
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