Monday, September 25, 2017
Prager U: Does Israel Discriminate Against Arabs?
Is it today's version of apartheid South Africa? Olga Meshoe, herself a South African whose family experienced apartheid, settles the question once and for all.
Book Review: “United Nation: The Humanitarian Spirit of Israel”
At a time when smear campaigns against Israel often go unchallenged on college campuses and anti-Israel activists hijack protest movements across the U.S. to attack of the Jewish State, a newly published book tells the story of Israel’s 69-year silent journey to impact the world and serve those in most need. “United Nation: The Humanitarian Spirit of Israel” written by the Israeli entrepreneur David Kramer, is a collection of 40 stories, each illustrating the benevolent and altruistic side of Israel that the mainstream media and the 24-hour news cycle don’t care to show.'Anti-Semitism has been cleverly repackaged'
“Today, a great disconnect exists in the general perception of Israel throughout the world. Israel is the only country where a global boycott and sanctions movement against it continues unabated on most college and university campuses,” David writes. “However, the reality of life in Israel is totally different. In truth, Israelis embrace a deep appreciation and responsibility for life despite the many challenges they face on a daily basis and this is evident by the thousands of different charitable organizations currently working in Israel and all over the world.”
With 32,000 non-profit organizations based throughout the tiny country, Israel has the highest number of charities per-capita. IsraAID, country’s largest non-profit organization, with expertise in disaster relief and international development, has responded to crises in more than 39 countries, delivering 1000 tons of relief and medical suppliers and reaching over 1.5 million people in need. To date, Israel has sent over 140 official aid missions, to over 50 countries. When major earthquakes strike, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is the first to respond by setting up field hospitals — be it Gujarat (2001), Haiti ( 2010) or Nepal (2015).
“The stories presented in David Kramer’s United Nation embody Israel at its best,” commented Ambassador Danny Danon, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN. “From bringing clean water to the thirsty, to providing aid where it’s needed most, this is the real Israel — working every day to make the world a better place.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman says, "We have to put the emotional issues aside" if we are to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict • His main goal as ambassador is to "manage a very robust, complicated relationship, like two family members."
Among the 233 new immigrants from the U.S. that landed in Israel last month, one stood out in particular. A young woman named Talia Friedman, whose father happens to be the American ambassador to Israel.
Her arrival may have appeared to be coordinated with her father's appointment, but the truth is that Talia, 24, has been planning this momentous move for years, long before anyone in her Orthodox Jewish family even imagined that her father, David Friedman, would be named ambassador.
"Talia's been planning to come here for years," says her mother, Tammy, 54, with a smile. "In fact, when she went on dates, she always said she was planning to move to Israel. She told her friends, don't set me up with anyone who is not Israel-minded. Because that was her plan."
"I remember thinking to myself, when we talked about this a few years ago, how hard it was going to be to have her so far away and how much I'm going to miss her. I never dreamed, in my wildest dreams, that I would be living near her and that my [four other] children [and seven grandchildren] would be living away from me," she says.
Ben-Dror Yemini: Mohammad Bakri, enemy of the Palestinians
With an official apartheid policy, Lebanon is the worst country in the world for Palestinians, but the Israeli Arab filmmaker couldn’t care less about the facts. His incitement is directed at Israel, because propagandists nurture deception—especially self-deception.Valerie Plame Resigns And Apologizes After Tweeting Article About 'Jews Driving America's Wars'
The Israeli Arabs’ disaster is manifested in people like Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi, Sheikh Raed Salah and filmmaker Mohammad Bakri.
According to every single poll, most Israeli Arabs are loyal citizens—something that must be mentioned repeatedly. Most of them support the two-states-for-two-people solution, recognizing Israel—directly and unequivocally—as a Jewish and democratic state; volunteer rates for community and national service among young Israeli Arabs are growing, in spite of the political leadership’s defiance; furthermore, according to the Israel Democracy Institute, 55 percent of Israel’s Arabs are “proud to be Israelis.”
This situation bothers strife mongers like Bakri, who has made every effort to create the opposite impression. His film Jenin, Jenin has already been officially recognized as false propaganda. But a person like Bakri doesn’t stop. He has gone all the way to Lebanon to screen his films, which were made “under the occupation government.” It’s not that people there are in need of incitement against Israel, but Bakri went there to add more fuel to the fire of hatred.
Following further criticism, Plame Wilson tweeted: “OK folks, look, I messed up. I skimmed this piece, zeroed in on the neocon criticism, and shared it without seeing and considering the rest. … I’m not perfect and make mistakes. This was a doozy. All I can do is admit them, try to be better, and read more thoroughly next time. Ugh.”NYPost Ed: Valerie Plame’s new, anti-Semitic game
On Sunday, Plame Wilson resigned from her position on the board of Ploughshares Fund, and apologized again for sharing the article.
However, as The Daily Wire previously reported, Plame Wilson shared another article from Unz Review in 2014. In the piece, titled “Why I Still Dislike Israel,” Philip Giraldi calls Israel “a racist apartheid style state,” and condemns the nation for “crying wolf” over the Iranian threat.
One has to wonder if Plame Wilson’s apology is genuine. If it is, she may just be functionally illiterate. If it's not, she's just an anti-Semitic piece of garbage.
When her tweet drew an immediate uproar, Plame doubled down, urging her critics to “put aside your biases” and read the entire “provocative, but thoughtful” article, adding: “Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish.”IsraellyCool: Foundation Behind Antisemitic Site Funds Major Anti-Israel Sites & Personalities
But as the controversy grew, she finally backed down — now ironically claiming that she hadn’t read the entire article and so had missed its “gross undercurrents.”
Undercurrents? As actor Seth Rogen tweeted, “That was the whole current.” The headline itself summed up the article’s abhorrent content.
She also insisted she wasn’t familiar with the Web site, even though she’s retweeted nine other articles from it — some by the very same author — since 2014, with such titles as “Why I Still Dislike Israel” and “Dancing Israelis on 9/11.”
In other words, her credibility is as bad as it was back when she and husband Robert Wilson were claiming that President George W. Bush had lied us into war.
And if she really missed Giraldi’s blatant anti-Semitism, what does that say about her skills as an intelligence analyst?
But the plot thickens. It seems the Unz Foundation, which is behind the Unz Review from where the antisemitic article came, has a history of funding some notable “anti-Israel” people and websites (many of which I have dealt with on here) including:IsraellyCool: Roger Waters Pissed Off After Kid’s Dance Academy Withdraws From Show
Mondoweiss
Norman Finkelstein
Counterpunch
As the ADL reported back in 2014:
The Unz Foundation has also given grants to Mondoweiss, an anti-Israel blog run by Philip Weiss, which regularly reports on and promotes the initiatives of some of the more prominent leaders and groups associated with the domestic anti-Israel movement, including Ali Abunimah, co-founder of “Electronic Intifada”; Alison Weir, the executive director of If Americans Knew; and Norman Finkelstein, an anti-Israel speaker whom Unz also funds. The blog, which is quite popular in anti-Israel circles, is comprised of articles that feature a wide variety of anti-Israel themes, including claims of Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as accusations that the pro-Israel lobby retains excessive influence over U.S. foreign policy. Many of the articles written by Weiss on the site include opposition to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and comparisons between the atrocities of the Holocaust and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
In addition, Unz has funded Philip Giraldi, the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, an anti-Israel group based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. CNI is one of ADL’s “Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in the U.S.” Giraldi, who has been the director of CNI since 2010, has authored numerous articles condemning pro-Israel lobbying efforts. In a June 2012 blog post published on a blog called “The Passionate Attachment,” Giraldi agreed with New York City Councilman Charles Barron’s assessment that Gaza is a “death camp” and also called Israel “the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism.” Giraldi is the national security editor of The Unz Review.
Roger Waters’ hateful views have led to a dance academy deciding not to perform alongside him at his Cleveland concert.IsraellyCool: BDS Fail: Toronto Palestine Film Festival Showing Israeli Films!
And despite pretending to play it cool, it is obvious the rock’n’roll BDS-hole is bothered.
Roger Waters‘ outspoken politics are well known to anyone who’s spent any length of time listening to his music. But not everyone is familiar with the former Pink Floyd member’s points of view — not even some of the adults who signed off on the kids in the Shaker Dance Academy appearing alongside Waters at his concert in Cleveland last night.
This became an issue after the NBC affiliate WKYC aired a report — titled “Local Kids Perform Amid Not-So-Pretty Politics” — that confronted Academy owner Tracey Webb, as well as parents of the dancers, with the politically fueled slant of Waters’ current Us + Them tour. The adults interviewed professed ignorance, and members of the Academy who’d been scheduled to perform — ages ranging from 4 to 15 — later withdrew from the show. “I don’t want my young dancers being a part of the negative images being presented,” Webb told the station. “I had no idea this was going to be anti-anything other than hate.”
Specifically at issue was Waters’ decision to dedicate a portion of the Us + Them stage presentation to words and images expressing the artist’s deep disdain with the Trump administration’s policies, as well as the president’s personal conduct. Waters, who’s drawn press coverage throughout the tour for the anti-Trump element of the tour’s agenda, wasn’t pleased with the report, and let the audience know it.
This is delicious: The Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) has defied BDS, showing 5 films from Israel (hat tip: B’nai Brith Canada).Pedaling a BDS Narrative
You can see the TPFF’s schedule below. I have marked the Israeli films:
Personal Affairs
In Between
Jerusalem, We Are Here
Looted and Hidden
Rubber Coated Steel
While most of them could be characterized as anti-Israel, not all of them are.
Such as In Between, which I have posted about before.
International cycling’s second biggest event, the Giro d’Italia is coming to Israel where three stages will take place next year. It’s a proud achievement for Israel. For some people, however, Israel can do no right and anything that presents Israel in a positive light has sinister undertones.IsraellyCool: YouTube’s Latest Assault on Israellycool
The Observer (sister paper of The Guardian) covers the story:
According to the journalist Richard Abraham, this is less of a cycle race and more about covering up and distracting attention from Israel’s “occupation” and “international condemnation” of its policies:
Israel is a country of builders. Almost 70 years after its foundation skycrapers jostle for space along the Mediterranean strand, planted in the fertile soil of a Tel Aviv property boom. Up in the Judean Hills, other kinds of structures – architectures of military control in the occupied Palestinian territories – spring up, too.
Israelis are now turning their attention to a new kind of construction: image. Despite the occupation and condemnation from the international community, Israel is ready to project its pride at what it has built and paint over the canvas of conflict.
For a while now, YouTube has been seemingly going after my channel, as well as that of other pro-Israel advocates, by removing videos as “hate speech,” even where they are actually exposing hate or somehow opposing it. In my case, I have been forced to appeal the removals to have the videos reinstated.The ABC and SBS need to drop their love affair with Al Jazeera
I have noticed something else going on for a while – when uploading a video, after I opt for it to be monetized, YouTube flags it for demonetization, and I have to take the extra step to submit it for review.
Sounds logical, but does not explain the latest assault by YouTube on my channel: I woke up to find that now all of my 182 videos are demonetized, despite the fact that most of them were monetized until now.
The grey “$” sign means the videos are not monetized.
I simply do not have the time, energy or inclination to now go through all of my videos and submit them for monetization review again. You win YouTube. I guess I will need to find another platform.
Al Jazeera has often criticized co-operation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel – pushing the line of extremist group Hamas, which Qatar backs.Facebook apologizes for anti-Semitic ad targeting
On Israel, Al Jazeera has frequently made irresponsible claims:
Australia's taxpayer-funded television networks – with their statutory obligation of fairness and balance - simply have no business regurgitating Middle East coverage from this network. They appear to do so, in part, because they can re-use its stories cheaply or for free. But there is simply no excuse for outsourcing their obligations to Australian taxpayers to what is effectively the lavishly-funded communications arm of the authoritarian, extremist-supporting Qatar government.
- in 2015, accusing Israel of opening dams in the south of the country to flood parts of the Gaza Strip. In actual fact there were no such dams in southern Israel.
- In June, when three terrorists shot and killed two policemen near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount only to flee and eventually be shot and killed, Al Jazeera initially reported the incident as “at least three Palestinians killed in shooting in Jerusalem’s Old City.”
- It later helped stoke the subsequent two weeks of Palestinian-initiated violence over the Temple Mount by airing incendiary and false claims that Israeli security cameras would allow Israeli authorities to see the naked bodies of Muslim worshippers through their clothes.
- Al Jazeera recently referred to Haifa, a city in the pre-1967 borders of Israel ,as in “northern occupied Palestine".
- Most recently, Al Jazeera aired a “documentary” based largely on the claims of Elena Zakusilo, a Ukrainian Jewish woman who claimed on a local television game show that she served in a combat role in the IDF, including being forced by the IDF to murder innocent children. Elementary checking showed she had never had done anything more than voluntary administrative tasks in the IDF.
- An Al Jazeera reporter in Israel, Elias Karam, recently told a Muslim Brotherhood TV channel that he views his journalism as “resistance” to “occupation.”
- Most infamously, in 2008, the network hosted an on-air party for recently released Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, treating him as a hero. Kuntar had infiltrated Israel in 1978, and killed four people, including smashing the head of a four year old girl and shooting dead her father.
Facebook has apologized after a recent report revealed that the social media giant enabled anti-Semitic terms to be used as advertising keywords.Revisiting a BBC News website story from 2014
"Hate has no place on Facebook — and as a Jew, as a mother, and as a human being, I know the damage that can come from hate,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote on her page. "The fact that hateful terms were even offered as options was totally inappropriate and a fail on our part. We removed them and when that was not totally effective, we disabled that targeting section in our ad systems.”
A report two weeks ago on ProPublica revealed that the social media titan permitted advertisers to target their audience using anti-Semitic terms, such as "Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” and “history of why Jews ruin the world".
According to ProPublica, "we paid $30 to target those groups with three “promoted posts” — in which a ProPublica article or post was displayed in their news feeds. Facebook approved all three ads within 15 minutes."
Facebook immediate banned the terms after the expose and blamed a faulty algorithm for the anti-Semitic keywords.
Back in May 2014 the BBC News website reported a story from Belgium involving a politician and a banned rally that the corporation had difficulty describing accurately to its audience.BBC Watch prompts amendment to inaccurate BBC map
As was noted here at the time:
“The BBC report ‘balances’ its reporting of statements made by Belgian officials and an anti-racist organization on the subject of the convention by quoting a Facebook post from its organiser.
“Writing on his Facebook page, Laurent Louis said it was laughable that his movement “Debout Les Belges!” (Stand up, Belgians!) was seen as anti-Semitic, simply because its members had adopted Dieudonne’s trademark “quenelle” gesture.”
However, the BBC refrains from informing audiences that Louis’ repeated use of the quenelle is just the tip of the iceberg of his history of antisemtism and extremism, which includes making that gesture in the Belgian parliament, Holocaust denial and analogies and accusing Zionists of having “set up and financed” the Holocaust. Last year Louis was photographed at a pro-Assad rally trampling an Israeli flag and holding a portrait of Bashar al Assad and a Hizballah flag, telling Syrian TV that “Europe is being used in the conflict [against Syria] as a tool in the hands of Israel, the rogue state”.”
For almost two years the BBC News website has been using maps credited to UNOCHA and/or the political NGO B’tselem which purport to inform audiences about the geo-political status of Jerusalem and Judea & Samaria.German Jewish leader brands AfD success a 'true nightmare
As has been noted here on numerous occasions in the past, those maps describe the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City along with many other locations of pre-1948 Jewish habitation as ‘Israeli settlements’ and – as regular readers are aware – the BBC consistently steers its audience towards the view that such neighbourhoods and communities “are considered illegal under international law”.
Among the inaccurate features on those maps is the portrayal of the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus as “Israeli settlements”.
The Hebrew University (established in 1925) and Hadassah Hospital (established in 1938) were both built on land purchased by Jews in 1914 and the Mount Scopus enclave remained Israeli territory throughout the 19 year Jordanian occupation of Jerusalem. Interestingly, B’tselem’s own map does not mark Mount Scopus as a ‘settlement’.
German Jewish leader Charlotte Knobloch described the far-right Alternative for Germany Party’s success in the nation’s parliamentary election as a "true nightmare," in a statement released late Sunday night after preliminary results emerged showing that the controversial party had received more than 13% of the vote - causing widespread concern across the Jewish world.4,000-year-old decapitated toads discovered in ancient Jerusalem tomb
This result will allow the party to enter the Bundestag for the first time, as Germany's third-biggest party, which Knobloch described as "a true nightmare and a historic turning point."
This is the first time the far-right will be represented in the German parliament in almost 60 years.
Knobloch, President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria — and former president of the German Jewish Council — said she was deeply concerned about Germany's democracy in light of the exit polls.
"This changes the political debate and culture and affects the image of Germany in the world," Knobloch warned
Referring to the party program and candidates she said, "They are back again... those who stir up hatred and disdain," warning of antisemitism, racism, revisionism and historical reformation.
Nine headless toads discovered by archeologists inside a well-preserved jar placed in a 4,000-year-old tomb in Jerusalem shed new light on burial customs during the Canaanite period of the Middle Bronze Age, the Antiquities Authority said on Monday.Joel Osteen opens Houston megachurch to Jews whose synagogue was flooded
The excavation, which took place in 2014 prior to the expansion of the Manaḥat neighborhood, near Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo, also yielded evidence of the cultivation of date palms and myrtle bushes, possibly as part of funerary rituals.
According to the excavation’s directors on behalf of the Authority, Shua Kisilevitz and Zohar Turgeman-Yaffe, the section of the Nahal Rephaim basin, where the tomb was unearthed, was once fertile ground for settlements, particularly during the Canaanite period.
“In recent years, excavations in the area have uncovered two settlement sites, two temples and a number of cemeteries, which provide new insight into the life of the local population at that time,” the researchers said in a joint statement.
Kisilevitz and Turgeman-Yaffe added that after removing a large rock blocking the tomb’s opening, they discovered several bowls and jars still intact.
“In one of the jars, to our surprise, we found a heap of small bones,” they said.
“For an archaeologist, finding tombs that were intentionally sealed in antiquity is a priceless treasure because they are a time capsule that allows us to encounter objects almost just as they were originally left. At that time, it was customary to bury the dead with offerings that constituted a kind of ‘burial kit,’ which, it was believed, would serve the deceased in the afterworld.”
A subsequent study of the bones, by Dr. Lior Weisbrod of the University of Haifa, revealed the nine headless toads’ corpses.
Televangelist Joel Osteen opened his Lakewood Church in Houston to a Jewish congregation in need of a place to hold High Holidays services.U.S.-based pension fund buys into Israel’s largest bank
Congregation Beth Yeshurun was completely flooded during Hurricane Harvey and the building was in no condition to host services, according to reports.
Osteen, and his wife, Victoria, came under fire during Harvey for not immediately opening their large and dry megachurch building to shelter those displaced by the hurricane and its floods. It later opened its doors to refugees from the storms.
A post on the church’s website ahead of Rosh Hashanah read: During Hurricane Harvey, Houston’s largest synagogue, Congregation Beth Yeshurun experienced devastating flooding. This came at an especially bad time for Beth Yeshurun as the Jewish High Holy Days, (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), are this week. Beth Yeshurn’s leadership reached out to us and Pastors Joel & Victoria offered to help. We are honored to announce that we will be opening our doors to the Beth Yeshurun congregation so that they may celebrate their High Holy Days at our church.”
A group of American investors has agreed to buy a stake in Israel's largest bank, Bank Hapoalim. The group will buy 49% of the shares held by controlling shareholder Arison Investments Ltd., the business arm of the Arison Group, for approximately $570 million (2 billion NIS), according to a Sunday announcement by Arison Investments.IBM Acquires Israel’s Cloudigo Data Center Company
The identities of the buyers were not disclosed, but one of the investors is the pension fund of a California-based university, according to persons familiar with the matter who spoke on conditions of anonymity.
Israeli businesswoman Shari Arison is the owner of Arison Investments, which holds the controlling (20.7%) stake at Bank Hapoalim. Arison Investments' Bank Hapoalim shares are valued at over $1.8 billion (6.5 billion NIS).
Ms. Arison is selling 49% of her shares in the bank 17 years after she became its major shareholder. The Arison family gained control of the bank in 1997 and Ms. Arison inherited the holdings in 1999, following the death of her father, businessman Ted Arison.
The American software giant IBM has announced its acquisition of the Israeli data center company Cloudigo for an undisclosed sum.Intel unveils ‘best ever’ gaming processor, sired in Haifa
“I am glad to share that IBM acquired Cloudigo. Thank you very much to the amazing Cloudigo Team. Looking forward for our journey in IBM,” Cloudigo co-founder and CEO Eran Gampel wrote on LinkedIn last week.
Cloudigo specializes in building data center infrastructure and is a leading provider of networking services.
Sources referred to the acquisition cost as “small,” the Israeli financial news outlet Globes reported.
“IBM acquired a high-performance team focused on advanced networking technology that moves the networking function from the server to the edge, increasing data center efficiency,” John Considine, general manager of cloud infrastructure services at IBM, wrote in a blog post.
Considine noted the Cloudigo team will work in IBM’s “Cloud Innovation Lab.”
Intel Corp. has unveiled a new family of desktop computer processors that are faster and stronger than its previous creations, the semiconductor giant said. The design of the new chips was led by its development team in Haifa, Israel.Israeli Restaurant Named London’s Best
The new family of 8th Gen Intel Core desktop processors is built for gamers and content creators and those who need high performing standards, Intel said. The new chips open “the door for a new level of faster, easier and more immersive experiences,” the US firm said in a statement released on Sunday. The chips include include the new Intel Core i7-8700K — which the firm touts as its “best gaming processor ever.”
Compared with 7th Gen Intel Core, gamers gain up to 25 percent more frames per second on popular and demanding games, Intel said, and its new processors are more accurate, faster, powerful and compatible than earlier versions, allowing for high quality of graphics creation and consumption. The chips also allow the editing of 4K 360-degree video “with ease” — and are up to 32 percent faster compared with previous generations. They can also edit content up to 65 percent faster compared with a 3-year old PC, the statement said.
An Israeli culinary group’s eatery, The Barbary, was named the best restaurant in London by TimeOut London for 2017.Ben-Gurion University signs research deals with Arizona, Mexico counterparts
The Barbary was opened by the Jerusalem-based Machneyuda restaurant franchise in 2016, following up on the success of its first London eatery, The Palomar.
Machneyuda is headed by Israeli chefs Assaf Granit, Uri Navon and Yossi Elad. Machneyuda is the name of their popular (non-kosher) restaurant in the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.
“The Barbary menu reflects the countries from the Atlantic Coast through to the Mediterranean Sea leading to Israel,” according to the restaurant’s website.
TimeOut recommends getting there by 5pm “on a rainy Tuesday” to get a seat for dinner.
“It’s not possible to have a bad time at The Barbary,” TimeOut wrote in its review of the restaurant last year. “Sure, you’ll probably have to queue, but even that’s tolerable, because then you get to feast on moreish deep-fried snacks (like the Moroccan cigars) that don’t appear on the main menu. … The food is labelled as ‘modern Israeli’, though in truth, it’s anything but. What they’ve done is taken the ancient recipes from across North Africa (from the one-time Barbary Coast) and the Middle East that have gone on to influence food in today’s Israeli kitchen, then reimagined them for 2016.”
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), the University of Arizona (UA), and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) have formed a trilateral agreement to cooperate on research, innovation and entrepreneurship.Spanish Firm Delivers Shell for Israel’s Spacecraft in Google-Sponsored Race to the Moon
The agreement was signed during a visit earlier this month by delegations from the two universities to BGU. The accord includes knowledge-sharing and collaboration between BGU’s Advanced Technologies Park (ATP), UA Tech Parks Arizona in Tucson and UNAM’s high-tech initiatives, the Israeli university said in a statement on Sunday.
The framework is meant to encourage innovation in five main areas: developing joint projects, cooperation between the three technology transfer companies of the universities, joint development of applied research, ties to industry, and developing ties between the universities’ high-tech parks and high-tech initiatives.
The three institutions have similar research interests and climates that demand meeting similar challenges, the statement said. The UA Arizona Tech Park is similar to the Advanced Technologies Park in Beersheba, which BGU helped found in partnership with the city.
The Spanish space and satellite engineering firm IberEspacio announced this week that it delivered the skeleton of the spacecraft the Israeli SpaceIL team is producing in its race to win Google’s Lunar $20 million XPRIZE for the first group to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon without governmental funding.IsraellyCool: WATCH: Conan in Israel – All Videos Including Q&A
Israel’s SpaceIL was founded by three young engineers, Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub. The chairman of the organization is entrepreneur and philanthropist, Morris Kahn, who is also a major donor.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is building the actual spacecraft. Proceeds from the award – if SpaceIL wins it – will be used to advance science and technology education in Israel.
The other XPRIZE finalists are Moon Express (United States), TeamIndus (India), Hakuto (Japan) and Synergy Moon (an international consortium).
IberEspacio worked for a year to produce the upper and lower panels, which will contain the propulsion system and all the electronic equipment, as well as the docking ring with the rocket launcher. The carbon fiber struts to be used in the spacecraft are being supplied by a Danish company.
On This Day, 1950: Final 'Operation Magic Carpet' airlift arrives in Israel
Exactly 67 years ago, Israel concluded its secret airlift operation to bring Yemenite Jews, faced with violence, to the Jewish state. Named "Operation Magic Carpet," 45,000 of the 46,000 Jews in Yemen were flown to Israel on 380 flights.Stand With Us: Capt. Elgen Long and Alaska Airlines: a story of heroism
Despite dangers, the thousands of Jews made their way to the capital of Yemen, Aden, in order to reach the recently-founded State of Israel.
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This is The Jerusalem Post's report from the day that Operation Magic Carpet concluded:
Last Flight Of Magic Carpet - September 25, 1950
The little known story of Alaska Airlines and Captain Elgen M. Long's heroism in rescuing thousands of Yemenite Jews and bringing them home to Israel!
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