Friday, August 11, 2017
Dershowitz: Forward Article is “Most Despicable Ever in Jewish Media”
The National Board of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has released the following statement:Morton Klein on Forward article: 'Defamatory lies'
The ZOA is horrified, pained and shocked by the defamatory, obscene, hateful, ludicrous error-filled article published last week by Steve Davidson in the Forward Jewish Weekly in which ZOA President Morton Klein, a child of Holocaust survivors, born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, was listed number 6 (with Jew-killers/Jew-haters ) of “19 people Jews should actually be more worried about than Linda Sarsour.” It’s significant to note that Klein has received Hadassah’s Myrtle Wreath Award, Brith Shalom’s Humanitarian Award for “outstanding dedication to fighting indifference, intolerance and injustice”, the Holocaust Humanitarian Award, Defender of Israel Award, US State Departments Certificate of Appreciation Award for “outstanding contributions to national and international affairs and as distinguished lecturer,” the Jabotinsky Award, Akiba Hebrew Day School National Zionist Leadership Award, and AIPAC’s Certificate of Appreciation for “distinguished service for demonstrated leadership on behalf of a strong and secure US-Israel relationship.” The Jewish Exponent listed Klein as one of the top 12 “activist Jews of the Century.” Morton Klein painfully remarked, “My 95-year-old mother, a Holocaust survivor who lost most of her family due to the most anti-Semitic horror in history, called me crying when she was made aware of this devastating article listing me with the most monstrous Jew haters and Jew-killers of our era. She was hysterically crying in fear for my safety and reputation because of this insane article. She said it reminded her of the hideous Nazi propaganda against Jews during the Holocaust period.”
Eminent Harvard Law professor and prominent liberal Alan Dershowitz wrote “[the] Forward published the most despicable article ever in Jewish media. Lists Mort Klein, President of ZOA, along w/ David Duke and Farrakhan…”
Others on the list alongside Zionist leader Morton Klein include Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah; Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme leader; Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the terrorist group Hamas. All of them have called for destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and the murder of Jews. Also included are all “actual violent jihadists”.
The Forward newspaper/Davidson has destroyed its own credibility by promoting major falsehoods in this article and by including Zionist, pro-Jewish, child of Holocaust survivors, president of the oldest pro-Israel organization Morton Klein on a par with the most monstrous Jew haters and Jew-killers of our era! The Forward falsely stated that Morton Klein is more dangerous to Jews than anti-Semite, Israel-hater, pro-BDS extremist Linda Sarsour.
Klein, obviously furious, said:. "They call me a danger to Jews? When I fight with my heart and soul for the Jewish people every day for the past 24 years?" he asked. "They write these defamatory lies. They say I cozy up to anti-Semites."In France, a curious fact emerges: Only the insane murder Jews
"I cozy up to anti-Semites? I fight anti-Semites." declared Klein. " I have gotten rid of Israel-haters from key government posts. Charles Freeman, who was going to be National Intelligence Director, James Zogby, who was going to work in the State Department, Salam al-Marayati, I led those fights, and I was successful, and they say I cozy up to anti-Semites?"
"James Zogby who heads the Arab-American Institute, one of the most anti-Israel people in the country, wrote an article decrying 'The vocal and muscular ZOA that his risen like a phoenix.' Obviously, everything I've told you makes it quite clear that I am not one of the 19 most dangerous people in the world' said Klein.
"The Boston Globe defended me. The New York Post defended me. Even a top reporter at Haaretz, Amir Tibon told me to send anyone that wants a quote to him, and he would tell them that this is ridiculous. And Amir Tibon is a left-winger!"
A Muslim suspect rammed six police officers with his car in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. Two French officers sustained severe injuries. The French media and authorities had no doubt. “Terror returned to Paris”. “A voluntary act”. Nobody questioned the motive of the Algerian terrorist who tried to shed the policemen's blood. No one called him a lunatic.
“What do you think, should this insane person be put in a psych ward while we contemplate the reasons for his actions?” the Crif, the central organization of French Jewry, posted on Facebook about the attacker in Levallois-Perret. It was a provocative but brave reference to the French establishment for its dealing with the slaying of a Jewish woman, Sarah Halimi, by a Muslim man, Kobili Traore, who was sent to observation as per his insanity plea even though he has no record of mental illness. He shouted “Allah Akbar” while killing Halimi and throwing her from the window. The judiciary’s omission of the aggravated element of a hate crime caused by anti-Semitism, according with CRIF President Francis Kalifat, is a “cover up” of the anti-Semitic character of the crime.
The French media only covered Halimi’s death two months after it happened.
We have seen this mechanism before with another Halimi, Ilan, a beautiful Jewish boy kidnapped at the outskirts of Paris, held prisoner for 24 days, tortured to death just because he was a Jew. The brave French journalist Guy Millière wrote that “Ilan 's screams were heard by neighbors because they were especially atrocious: the killers disfigured the flesh of the young man, broke his fingers, burned him with acid and eventually with fire”.
As in the case of Sarah Halimi, anti-Semitism was denied by the political authorities, the police and the media in the death of Ilan. As Francis Szpiner, the lawyer for the family of this boy, said, "the silence killed Ilan Halimi and justice has helped to perpetuate this conspiracy of silence, because the public was not told why he was killed”.
It seems that in France, as in the rest of Europe, a lunatic is especially lunatic if he strikes the Jews. I see the same conspiracy of silence from the European élites when the Palestinian terrorists strike the Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. The double stigma of “settler” and “Jew” makes them unwhorthy of headlines and truth.
Have the European Jews become themselves “settlers”, unworthy of attention, compassion and justice?
Tom Holland: Don’t forget the Yazidis: To avoid the next genocide, remember the last
To the Yazidis, a religious minority whose population straddles both the Kurdish region of Iraq and, to the south, the plain of Nineveh and the peaks of Sinjar, it is quite simply the holiest place in the world. Certainly, there is nowhere else in the Middle East which so seamlessly or mysteriously fuses the many cultural traditions of the region. Like Zoroastrians, the Yazidis tend sacred fires; like Christians, they practise baptism; like Muslims, they practise yearly fasts and daily prayers. One shrine at Lalish commemorates a sheikh who was once, very possibly, the Babylonian god of the sun. The Yazidis are charged with the palpable trace elements of antiquity.Would Italy approve of a park in Jerusalem named for a mafia boss?
Yet what makes people different can also make them hated. This is a lesson we hardly need teaching — it was Europeans who incubated ancient prejudices to such a monstrous pitch that our continent came to witness, within living memory, the most genocidal crime in history; it was Europeans, in the wake of Kristallnacht and Auschwitz, who vowed most fervently: ‘Never again.’
The ambition to wipe out an entire people, though, did not die with the Nazis. On 3 August 2014, it came to Sinjar. Isis fighters who had just captured the vast Iraqi city of Mosul fanned out across the plain of Nineveh. The Yazidis were deliberately targeted for extermination. The men, and those women deemed too old to be auctioned off as concubines, were murdered. Girls were enslaved, sold, raped. Boys were abducted to be brainwashed and turned into killers for Isis.
Here is the closest comparison that the current carnage in the Middle East offers to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. If parallels with the second world war must be drawn, then it is the Yazidis, of all the miserable peoples of Iraq and Syria, who have suffered the most terrible holocaust.
A park named after Yasser Arafat and a square named for Elio Toaff. It was decided by the Virginia Raggi administration of Rome. The mayor wants to celebrate the Palestinian leader and the late chief rabbi, with a park at Centocelle for the first and a slider at Colle Oppio for the second.Does bill against Israel boycott pose threat to academic freedom
The decision to venerate the former spiritual leader of Italian Judaism is a blessing. But it is a pity to name a park in Rome after the Fatah's leader, the head of the Palestinian Autonomy, the man who wished “one million shahid” would conquer Jerusalem and then sat at the UN to deal with all world leaders.
In the early '80s, Rabbi Toaff attacked then President of the Republic, Sandro Pertini, for having received Arafat on his first visit to Italy, while the Senate's President Giovanni Spadolini refused to meet with the PLO leader. The secretaries of the three main political parties welcomed the Palestinian leader with the honors of a head of government. At the time, the Palestinian leader and his followers had shed the blood of many Jews in Europe as in the Middle East. His actions had horrified the world and Arafat came to Italy in search of advertising at a time when the PLO was openly pursuing the destruction of all Israel (now they do it a bit more covertly).
Supporters of the bill say criticism of it on free speech grounds is misplaced. They say it is intended merely to amend existing law that already bars Americans from complying with the boycotts of Israel imposed by foreign countries, such as the boycott imposed by member states of the Arab League, by making it illegal to comply with boycotts organized by international governmental organizations, such as the U.N., as well. The text of the bill explicitly discusses a March 2016 United Nations Human Rights Council resolution that calls for the creation of a database of businesses -- in the bill's parlance, "a blacklist" -- that operate in Israeli settlements.Elizabeth Warren Opposes Israel Anti-Boycott Act
“This law is simply a minor tweak and updating of the existing anti-boycott legislation,” said Eugene Kontorovich, a professor of law at Northwestern University and an opponent of the BDS movement.
“We don’t really need to speculate about how this law will affect higher education, because we already know. Just like the existing anti-boycott legislation has never been used in any way that even vaguely has been thought to implicate free speech or higher education, the expansion of it is going to have equally zero effect,” Kontorovich said.
In a letter in response to the ACLU, the Senate bill’s two main sponsors, Benjamin L. Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, and Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, wrote that the bill poses no threat to free expression.
They wrote that “nothing in the bill restricts constitutionally protected free speech or limits criticism of Israel or its policies" and that the bill is “narrowly targeted at commercial activity and is based on current law that has been constitutionally upheld.”
“The bill does not prevent U.S. companies and individuals from expressing their points of view, speaking in favor of boycott, divestment or sanctions (BDS) activities, engaging in boycott activity of their own accord, or being critical of Israel," the senators wrote. "Individuals who 'actively avoid purchasing goods and services' because of their own political viewpoint would not be subject to the bill. Similarly, the bill does not regulate civil society organizations who are critical of Israeli policies or prevent them from speaking in favor of BDS. The legislation does not encourage or compel persons to do business with Israel, nor does it punish individuals or companies from refusing to do business with Israel based on their own political beliefs, for 'purely pragmatic reasons,' or for no reason stated at all."
This week, progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in opposing the bipartisan Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720), claiming the bill violates the First Amendment right to support boycotting Israel and the settlements by penalizing U.S. citizens.Jewish Voice for Peace doubles-down on antisemitic “Deadly Exchange” Campaign
The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is an anti-Israel effort that seeks to cripple the Middle Eastern democracy’s legitimacy by targeting it financially and subjecting it to left-wing propaganda.
“I do not support the boycott. I think the boycott is wrong, but I think outlawing protected free speech activity violates our basic Constitution,” Warren said during her “10th town hall of the year” in Revere, Massachusetts on Saturday.
BREAKING: @SenWarren supports our right to boycott and opposes the Israel Anti-Boycott Act to not "outlaw protected free speech" pic.twitter.com/WvunPwRIXd
— JewishVoiceForPeace (@jvplive) August 8, 2017
Warren’s statement came in response to a question asked by “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP) member William Ruhm, who asked, “Senator Warren will you stand with us in opposing the Israel Anti-Boycott Act?” At an event in April, JVP hosted a convicted former Palestinian terrorist who is scheduled for deportation from the United States this month for lying on her immigration papers.
Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Israel organization which is a leading player in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, has released an “updated” video for its “Deadly Exchange” campaign.New group for progressive Zionists to march in Chicago SlutWalk
We wrote about JVP’s “Deadly Exchange” initiative in a prior post, With “Deadly Exchange” Campaign, Jewish Voice for Peace moves from enabling to promoting antisemitism. As we highlighted, the campaign blames Israel and major Jewish American organizations for policing problems in minority communities, including police shootings. JVP thus sets up Jews as part of and the driving force behind a white police power structure oppressing non-whites.
As demonstrated in the prior post, those accusations are false, but pernicious. JVP holds Jews out as the cause of unrelated problems, and does so in terms meant to exploit and incite antisemitism and racial hatred and resentment.
The new video (embed below) doubles-down on these baseless accusations.
Widespread Criticism of JVP’s “Deadly Exchange” Campaign, Including from the Left
The “Deadly Exchange” program, which JVP began rolling out in early Spring and revamped with a video and online materials in June, is a vicious effort to stoke racial tensions against both Israeli and American Jews.
The Deadly Exchange Campaign trafficks in age-old antisemitic canards about Jews being hidden, malignant, and moneyed forces working to subvert and undermine societal health and well-being.
Since we wrote our original post, JVP has come in for considerable criticism. The criticism has come from within left-wing circles, by groups and individuals who are often otherwise sympathetic to JVP’s positions and to even to BDS.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs who heads the far-left group Truah, for example, slammed the campaign for veering toward antisemitism.
Calling themselves progressive and Zionist, about a dozen activists plan on marching in a Chicago demonstration against sexual violence to promote the idea that Zionism and liberal values are compatible.Evangelical Leader Calls to Picket Roger Waters’ Nashville Concert
Members of the Zioness initiative, which launched Tuesday, will march together on Saturday at SlutWalk Chicago, a women’s rights demonstration against sexual violence. Zioness members will be marching with banners and T-shirts featuring a design of a woman wearing a Star of David necklace.
Organizers of the SlutWalk initially said that they would ban Stars of David from the event, but later altered their policy to allow religious symbols but not national flags.
The SlutWalk policy came in the wake of a controversy over the Chicago Dyke March in June when three Jewish participants at the LGBTQ demonstration were ejected for carrying LGBTQ Pride flags adorned with the Star of David. Dyke March organizers said the women were advocating for Israel at an anti-Zionist event.
The Dyke March incident served as “a watershed moment,” said Zioness organizer Amanda Berman.
Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of the Tennessee-based Proclaiming Justice to the Nations is calling on all Jews, Christians and people of conscience to protest Roger Waters’ concert this Sunday at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.Daphne Anson: "The Enemy Has Changed, The Enemy is More Sophisticated" (video)
Once known for his role in the British rock band Pink Floyd, Waters has become a global ambassador of the movement to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) the State of Israel. The British musician has paraded on stage in a mock Nazi uniform and hoisted an inflatable pig emblazoned with a Star of David above his stage in concert. This in addition to spreading lies about Israel and comparing the Jewish State to Nazi Germany.
“Roger Waters is a global symbol of Jew Hatred that should not be welcome in Nashville or anywhere else in the United States of America” said Cardoza-Moore, adding, “Roger Waters is the poster boy for BDS, it’s time to give him a taste of his own medicine and send a strong message that anti-Semites aren’t welcome in Tennessee.”
Cardoza-Moore pointed out that “the BDS movement has been hailed by Hamas, they both seek the total destruction of the Jewish State. Furthermore, BDS are responsible for an increase in anti-Semitism and violent attacks on Jewish students on campuses in America and around the world. Tennessee was the first state to pass legislation to publicly condemn the BDS movement. The BDS global brand ambassador should not be able to peddle his lies and conspiracies onstage within the city of Nashville.”
“In accordance with the US State Department’s guidelines, the BDS movement’s activities are clearly anti-Semitic. They seek to delegitimize, demonize, and apply a double standard toward Israel, while remaining silent on real atrocities taking place worldwide,” She said.
"I'm a servant of the Lord," explains British businessman Gerald Ronson, a Jew "in my soul and in my heart". His two oldest grandchildren live in Israel.
From 2:20 in this J-TV video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mffNvF8QR3g) he tells what compelled him to found the Community Security Trust (CST) and from 3:20 he declares his belief that were Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister antisemitism in Britain would increase:
That antisemitism has become more brazen in Britain than at any stage since the Second World War is seen in this article by the great Melanie Phillips regarding Corbynista Jackie Walker's shameful one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Show goes on for Israelis at Edinburgh festival
This time, they were ready.PreOccupiedTerritory: Turkish Activists Mulling Flotilla To North Korea (satire)
Three years after a large, raucous anti-Israel protest effectively ran them out of town, the Incubator Theater returned to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this week.
But it didn’t come alone.
The group appeared starting Tuesday as part of the International Shalom Festival, which provided a framework, and they even brought with them activists from the Reservists on Duty group to provide backup and support.
And when the three-day Shalom Festival kicked off, there were a couple of dozen protesters outside, but the artists knew they weren’t going to be intimidated.
“There have been some demonstrators outside,” said Hadar Galron, the artistic director of the Shalom Festival.
“But I think on the whole the police outside have been almost as much as the amount of demonstrators,” she said.
And in addition to the police, four activists from Reservists on Duty, an NGO that works to counter BDS efforts, were on hand.
“This is what we do,” said Jonathan Elkhoury, a Lebanese Christian who works with the group and flew to Scotland to offer support.
“If we have any Israelis or any Jews or pro-Israelis who are having events and people who are trying to shut down their events, we’re going to be there to support them, and to make them feel like they have support,” he said.
ncreasing tensions and heightened rhetoric between isolated North Korea and the United States has as least one humanitarian group considering a relief flotilla to the Asian dictatorship to highlight the misery for which they hope to blame the US.CBC Reporter Draws Moral Equivalence Between Palestinian Terror Camps and Israeli Self Defence Camps
Members of IHH, the movement that sponsored and executed the ill-fated Mavi Marmara mission to Gaza in 2010, ostensibly to provide aid to Gaza, but which carried almost no such supplies, informed acquaintances today that they intend to orchestrate a similar operation to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As with the Gaza mission, which was intercepted by Israeli naval commandos in international waters before it could breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza, IHH will conduct the “relief” mission primarily to thumb its nose at the “imperialist” enemy, this time the US instead of Israel.
“The whole idea is to show solidarity with oppressive totalitarian regimes à la Hamas as if they are the noble good-guy underdogs, as opposed to the fascist thugs they really are,” explained one activist. “Really, the only way to shore up the Muslim world’s antidemocratic and illiberal ethos in any sustainable way is to brand actual liberal, democratic countries as the opposite of that, and then assume the mantle of progressivism. Any regime that opposes the West, especially the US, automatically gets inaugurated into the good-guy camp, and the more oppressive, the better.”
Details of any such operation remain vague, as in contrast to the situation around Gaza, no formal blockade of North Korea is in place. International sanctions apply to trade with the Communist dictatorship, but those obtain more in the realm of financial consequences and penalties than in an active effort to interdict physical goods. Thus, explained MK Haneen Zoabi, a participant in the Mavi Marmara flotilla, actually reaching Norht Korea would not have the same impact.
In an “analysis” report published on the CBC’s website today, Mideast correspondent Derek Stoffel implicitly drew a moral equivalence between Palestinian terror training camps that indoctrinate children to hate and murder Israelis, and Israeli boot camps which teach tourists and Israeli security guards how to defend themselves against terror attacks.C-SPAN’s Orgel Again Facilitates Disinformation and Defamation Concerning Israel
Stoffel visited a counterterrorism boot camp in Gush Etzion operated by an Israeli security company called Caliber 3, which teaches 22,000 individuals annually how to defend themselves from a terror attack.
In his report, Stoffel found it necessary to interview the mayor of the nearby Palestinian town of al-Khader named Yasser Sobih, who said that the “boot camp is an effort by Israelis to ‘change the picture of reality’ about the occupation, which has lasted five decades.” CBC also used this quote for its sub-headline. Stoffel cited the Mayor as saying (emphasis added): “Maybe they call it security… The intention of this training is not for protection. What it is intended for is the killing or humiliation of Palestinians.”
Stoffel then writes: “Sobih said he’s particularly worried about Palestinian farmers with land near the Caliber 3 facility. There have been several Palestinian attacks — some fatal — against Israelis in the Gush Etzion area in the last two years. Israeli rights groups have also documented cases where Jewish settlers are accused of attacking Palestinians.”
Therein, Stoffel equivocates alleged attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians, with Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis in Gush Etzion. Interestingly, though he links to a B’Tselem report entitled “Settler violence: Lack of accountability,” he fails to link to reports detailing terror attacks against Israelis.
C-SPAN’s Washington Journal daily three-hour morning call-in show uses a revolving roster of approximately 10 hosts often guilty of journalistic malpractice when Israel or Jews is mentioned. Host Paul Orgel is a prime example.BBC News conceals part of a story on Hamas tunnels
On Aug.7, 2017 at 9:34 a.m. (Eastern), Orgel, during a segment soliciting viewers' comments on news of the day, fielded a lunatic fringe call from “Mitch from Memphis, Tennessee”:
I have a comment on your recent [previous segment] guest. Since all wars are bankers' wars, all you have you to do is turn down the TV and watch the guy's eyes to tell that he's lying and he was squirming around on some of the calls. So, when ISIS – which also stands for ‘Israeli Secret Intelligence Service' [Sic. No such entity exists] is what it really should be spelled out as – attacks Tel Aviv, the Vatican, or Washington D.C., that's when you'll know it's real and not ‘green screen terrorism’ [fake terrorism]. And the only reason they are talking about North Korea is because that war never actually ended. And that is the only card they have left to play where they don't have to go to Congress and declare war. That is why they are pumping that up. That is all I have to say.
Orgel replied, “Thanks for calling, Mitch. Sherry, calling from Florida ...”
The previous segment referred to by caller “Mitch from Memphis” was “The cost of combating ISIS [Islamic State terrorist entity].” The guest (insulted by Mitch) is Charles Johnson, managing director of international affairs and trade issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Thus, Orgel, thanking the lunatic fringe caller, characteristically failed to even comment on a defamatory anti-Israel charge and an anti-Jewish canard ("all wars are bankers' wars").
The IDF also published a backgrounder on the subject, including aerial photographs.BBC audiences still not getting news of Palestinian politics
As readers may recall, during the 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas, some senior BBC journalists claimed that there was “no evidence” of Hamas using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields and the BBC Trust subsequently defended that inaccurate reporting following complaints from members of the public.
Given that the BBC’s Middle East editor repeated that claim less than two months ago, the editorial decision not to inform BBC audiences of this clear example of Hamas’ placement of military assets in civilian residential areas is particularly noteworthy.
The last few weeks have seen some interesting developments in the world of Palestinian politics, although those getting their news from the BBC will of course be unaware of that because – as often noted on these pages – the corporation largely avoids that subject.BBC WS history show ‘explains’ Camp David summit failure
BBC’s Knell omits back stories in portrayal of PA succession
BBC News continues to under-report internal Palestinian politics
Abbas’ Fatah reelection ignored by the BBC – in English
BBC News ignores the story of the new Fatah vice-chair
Internal Palestinian politics again off the BBC’s agenda
In the second half of July listeners to BBC Radio 4 heard Yolande Knell make the following unexplained statement:
“On this trip I meet some Gazans clinging to rumours of political solutions involving the return of exiled figures or improved relations with Egypt.”
The day after that programme was broadcast, one of those mysterious “exiled figures” – Mohammad Dahlan – gave an interview to AP in which he claimed that his talks with Hamas and Egypt will, among other things, bring about the opening of the Rafah crossing. On the same day, BBC Arabic produced a report concerning that topic, but without any mention of Dahlan.
Gamal Helal recounts how, in a one-on-one conversation with Arafat he tried to persuade him to seize the historic opportunity and that:Jews ask Poland's leader to denounce rising anti-Semitism
“…at the end he looked at me and he said ‘I can’t’. And I said ‘why can’t you?’ He said if I accept this they will kill me’.”
Listeners never find out who ‘they’ are and Haider asks “could you sense his frustration?” without clarifying whether she is referring to Arafat or Clinton. Helal answers:
“Yes and I think there was also a lot of frustration as a result of Prime Minister Barak’s behaviour and attitude during Camp David. For example he promised that there would be negotiations around the clock and the two sides would be meeting discussing all permanent status issues and none of that happened. He basically locked himself up in his cabin. He met only with President Clinton. There was no bilateral meetings with Chairman Arafat except a very short encounter but no actual negotiations between the two leaders. He was not engaged at all. The Palestinians, when they saw that they decided to withdraw and simply say no to everything.”
Haider sums up the story:
“After 15 days of talks, nothing was agreed. Though President Clinton came and went, leaving the parties to continue their discussions, the basic problem was that the maximum Israel offered was less than the minimum the Palestinians could accept. On July 15 2000 the parties left Camp David, blaming the other for the failure.”
The Camp David summit did not end on July 15th 2000 but actually took place between the 11th and 25th of July. Although this programme clearly steers listeners toward the view that the negotiations failed because of “Barak’s behaviour and attitude”, a report published in the New York Times the day after the summit concluded gives a different account.
The leaders of Poland's Jewish community have written to the country's most powerful politician urging him to denounce what they say is rising anti-Semitism that has left them fearing for their future in the country.Jewish group alarmed by Nazi memorabilia sold at Ontario antiques market
The letter, a rare voicing of concern, comes nearly two years after the election of the deeply conservative, nationalistic and anti-migrant Law and Justice party, which is backed by some groups with anti-Semitic views. Observers, including the country's human rights commissioner, have noted a rise in anti-Semitism and other hate speech and as well as attacks on dark-skinned people since the party came to power. The letter was sent to party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
"We are appalled by recent events and fearful for our security as the situation in our country is becoming more dangerous," Leslaw Piszewski, head of the Jewish community in Poland, and Anna Chipczynska, head of the Warsaw community, wrote in the letter.
Chipczynska said on Thursday that the community sent the letter last week, but so far there had been no reply.
The letter said there had been a "rise of anti-Semitic attitudes in recent months, accompanied by aggressive hate speech and violent behavior that are directed towards our community," and asked Kaczynski to decisively condemn the anti-Semitism.
A Toronto-based Jewish organization is raising concerns about the sale of Nazi memorabilia at an Ontario antiques market.Netflix Developing Two More Shows with ‘Fauda’ Creators
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies says one of its members was at the Roadshow Antiques South market in Pickering, Ont., over the weekend and noticed a vendor selling items that included a deck of cards printed with swastikas, stamps featuring Hitler, a Nazi flag and Hitler Youth pins.
The centre said it sent a staff member to the market on Wednesday and confirmed the items were still being sold.
The staff member asked customers at the market what they thought of the items, the centre said, and one woman remarked that "her (late) husband admired the Nazis."
FSWC president and CEO Avi Benlolo said he is concerned about that kind of thinking.
"This kind of thing is horrific," he said. "People are venerating the Nazis and celebrating the regime."
Given the success of Fauda—the show you should be binging on right now—Netflix announced today that it will partner with the show’s creators, Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, on two more projects.Israeli President Hosts NBA Delegation Amid League’s Global Summer Camp
The first, which Netflix has already ordered straight-to-series, sounds like it would please Fauda fans: According to Variety, the untitled show will be “inspired by actual events and follows a high-stakes global operation by the CIA and Mossad to track down and kill one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.”
The second, tentatively titled Hit and Run, will be a political thriller revolving around a man whose life is thrown into chaos when his wife is killed in a sudden and mysterious accident.
And then there’s the mothership itself—the second season of Fauda will premiere worldwide in 2018.
“Lior and Avi are excellent storytellers and we’re proud to expand our relationship with them,” said Cindy Holland, vice president of original content for Netflix. “We’re drawn to the global vision they have for their projects, each infused with drama, urgency, and relevance to our modern era.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin hosted on Thursday a delegation from the National Basketball Association (NBA) that is visiting the Jewish state for a program that seeks to promote cultural understanding.Israeli star Casspi to teach at NBA’s Israel hoops camp
The NBA’s Basketball Without Borders initiative is currently running a summer camp in Israel for the first time. Leading teenage athletes from more than 30 countries — including Spain, Germany, France and Israel — are being coached and tutored by former NBA All-Stars, including center David Robinson of the San Antonio Spurs. The teens are also performing community outreach in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“You all know very well that whatever sport we are talking about, a team is a symbol of community, of values,” Rivlin told NBA Hall of Fame members Robinson Wayne Embry, as well as NBA Deputy Commissioner and COO Mark Tatum, upon meeting them in Jerusalem. “It represents hopes and dreams. The NBA and the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) represent the hopes and dreams of so many young boys and girls around the world.”
Rivlin noted Israel’s own efforts to foster cultural understanding through athletics, including bringing “Jews and Arabs, children, to come and play [soccer] side by side. Because a society that plays together, stays together.”
Golden State Warriors forward Omri Casspi, the first Israeli player in the NBA, and retired San Antonio Spurs legend David Robinson are among instructors at the Basketball Without Borders camp starting Sunday in Israel.American Software Giant Oracle Launches Start-Up Accelerator in Tel Aviv
The youngsters appearing at the 16th European edition of the global camps organized by the NBA and governing body FIBA were announced Thursday.
Top boys and girls from 22 nations will attend the sessions in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Netanya, the first to be staged in Israel.
Casspi, 29, signed a free agent deal with the reigning NBA champion Warriors last month after spending parts of last season with Sacramento, New Orleans and Minnesota. He has also played for Cleveland and Houston since starting his NBA career in 2009.
Robinson, a 10-time NBA All-Star center, was a two-time NBA champion, two-time Olympic champion and the 1995 NBA Most Valuable Player during a career that spanned from 1989-2003.
The American software giant Oracle has chosen five Israeli high-tech companies to participate in its first-ever Start-up Cloud Accelerator Program in Tel Aviv.‘Big Bang Theory’ Star Mayim Bialik Talks About Being a ‘Proud’ Zionist and Not Worrying About Backlash
The first Israeli start-ups to participate in the biannual program include the predictive maintenance company 3DSignals, global networking company Nsof Networks, artificial intelligence platform Bonobo.ai, smart audio-visual guidance platform Toonimo and software service company Zoomin.
The companies will develop their technologies in a cooperative workspace and be granted direct access to Oracle’s customers, business partners and investors. The accelerator also provides the Israeli teams with mentoring from leading technology and business experts.
By launching the accelerator, Oracle hopes to discover new Israeli entrepreneurial talent that can assist the company in becoming the world’s leading cloud-service provider.
The Tel Aviv accelerator is the second such program started by the American software company, with the inaugural program being launched last year in Bangalore, India.
Oracle has been active in Israel for the past two decades, and is one of numerous international technology companies to seek out local talent in the Jewish state, acquire Israeli start-ups and develop accelerators in the country.
Jewish actress Mayim Bialik, who stars in the hit CBS series “The Big Bang Theory,” proclaimed pride in being a Zionist in an interview published on Thursday by the UK’s Jewish Chronicle.Volunteer EMT Saves A Life Mid-Haircut
The award-winning actress was talking about showing solidarity with the Jewish state when she told the publication: “I have proudly declared that I am a Zionist who supports the right of my homeland to defend herself. I travel to Israel frequently to see my family and I teach my children that Zionists go to Israel. My family and many friends have served in the IDF and I support their right to exist as soldiers in a complicated situation.”
The 41-year-old mother-of-two added that she was also a “lover of peace” and never felt conflicted about being a liberal Zionist, including the times she disagreed with the actions of the Israeli government. She told the Jewish Chronicle, “Not for one second have I worried about backlash. As a scientist, I dissect everything and weigh things seriously before committing to them, especially in regard to my relationship with Israel and its citizens.”
Thursday’s interview was not the first time Bialik has discussed her Zionist beliefs in public. In 2015, she urged people not to be apologetic in voicing their support for the Jewish state and made headlines for a Facebook post in which she blasted critics who boycott her on social media for being a Zionist.
On Tuesday, in the middle of receiving a haircut in her hometown of Ra’anana, United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Shiran Finder received a notification from the national dispatch center alerting her that a person nearby had collapsed and was unconscious. Shiran who already had dye packs and tin foil in her hair, rushed out of the Nir Adir Hair Lounge to help treat the person whose location had been identified as being on the opposite side of the street from the hair salon.World’s oldest man, an Israeli Holocaust survivor, dies at 113
Upon arrival just a few seconds later, Finder found the patient semi-conscious and in need of medical assistance. She began treatment. As other first responders arrived at the scene they did a double take noticing Finder’s attire of a salon gown and dye packs in her hair.
“I felt the need for a change and I wanted to get my hair done so I went to the salon today,” Finder commented after the incident. “While the hairdresser was wrapping my hair in silver foil dye packs I got the call about an unconscious patient just a few meters away from my location. How could I not go out and help when the location of the incident read 0.0 kilometers away?”
Finder added “I didn’t hesitate for even a moment. Even though I must have looked ridiculous I ran out and was prepared to begin CPR compressions. Luckily when I arrived I found the person conscious, and I certainly heard chuckling from all directions, but hey I went out to save a life while layering highlights.”
The world’s oldest living man, Yisrael Kristal, died on Friday one month before his 114th birthday.
In 2016 Kristal, born September 15, 1903, had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest man.
Kristal, who lived in Haifa, had lived through both World Wars and survived the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Last year he finally celebrated his bar mitzvah — a hundred years later than usual. He had missed the original date because of World War I.
Kristal was born to an Orthodox Jewish family near the town of Zarnow in Poland. He was orphaned shortly after World War I and moved to Lodz to work in the family confectionary business in 1920. During the Nazi occupation of Poland he was confined to the ghetto there and later sent to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. His first wife and two children were killed in the Holocaust.
Kristal survived World War II weighing only 37 kilograms (about 81 pounds) — the only survivor of his large family. He married another Holocaust survivor and moved with her to Israel in 1950 where he built a new family and a successful confectionary business.
A devout Jew, he had wrapped phylacteries daily for the past century.
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