Tuesday, October 03, 2017
Linda Sarsour Tells Social Justice Rally Attendees to Be Ready to ‘Put Their Lives on the Line’
Women's March co-organizer Linda Sarsour encouraged those at a social justice rally in New York City Sunday to be ready to "put their lives on the line" for "the movement," according to footage of her speech seen by the Washington Free Beacon.Exclusive interview: 'Son of Hamas,' the speaker who shocked the UNHRC
"I am willing to die for black people, for indigenous people. I am willing to die for Muslim people, I am willing to die for the most marginalized people in this country. I am not afraid. The question is, are you ready to do that?" chanted Sarsour at the March for Racial Justice.
Sarsour also made pointed remarks toward Zionist activists who participated in the march across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was organized to include those unable to attend a similar march in D.C. on Saturday, due to it being the Jewish high holiday fast of Yom Kippur.
With groups in attendance such as Zioness, which has a feminist-Zionist platform, Sarsour called for anti-Israel indoctrination by and for Jews.
"It is not my job as a Palestinian Muslim to educate Jewish people that Palestinians deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. That is the job of Jewish people," said Sarsour over loud cheers.
Sarsour also once again chanted her oft-repeated cry that "we will not be intimidated by right-wing Zionists, by white supremacists, by racists."
In remarks that Zionist attendees said they believed were directed toward them, Sarsour said she "didn't feel safe" by elements in the crowd.
“Hamas, which I know well, is an ideological political organization that views extreme violence as a means to achieve its political ends. In the 21st century an individual or group that tries to achieve its goals by violent means should not be legitimized by anybody. In my definition, Hamas is a terror organization.Melanie Phillips: Staging incitement at the Young Vic
“I have seen how radically different the behavior of democratic Israel is from that of Hamas and Fatah. Hamas is still living in the 7th century, something Europe cannot even understand. Over the years I have realized that due to their religious views, Hamas cannot make peace with Israel. Their interpretation of Islam requires that cease fires alone are possible with infidels, not peace. Such a cease fire can last no more than 15 years. No political solution will ever satisfy Hamas in the long term. It is not about borders but who believes in their God and who does not. Hamas’ target is not just Israel, but for Islam to gain control over all non-believers.”
Mosab Hassan Yousef was born in 1978 in Ramallah, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder of Hamas. After involvement in anti-Israeli activities he was arrested by the Israeli Shin Bet security service. When he was imprisoned he initially decided to become a double agent. After he saw the huge difference in behavior between Israel and Hamas he served as a key agent of the Israeli security services and continued to act in that capacity for ten years.
Yousef’s story is described in the 2010 bestseller, “Son of Hamas, A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” which has been translated into many languages. The movie “The Green Prince” which tells his story was released in 2014. Yousef converted to Christianity and now lives in the United States where he was granted asylum in 2010.
This interview was carried out on 27 September 2017, two days after Yousef spoke -- under the auspices of UN Watch -- at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The video of that speech received millions of hits. In our conversation he repeated several of the statements he made at the UNHRC.
London’s Young Vic theatre is staging a revival of the hate-inciting, Israel-phobic agit-prop called My Name is Rachel Corrie which was first put on in 2005. With exquisitely horrible timing, its previews started last Friday evening which was Kol Nidrei, or the beginning of Yom Kippur which is the most holy day in the Jewish religious calendar. A protest is being staged outside the theatre every night; with enormous decency and commitment, a group of Christians leafleted the theatre during the Yom Kippur performances.
Last July Jonathan Hoffman, who is involved in the protests, wrote an excellent piece on Harry’s Place about this malevolent travesty in which he revealed the truth about Rachel Corrie, her poisonous organisation and what happened to her.
People who never knew or who have forgotten this 12 year-old story need to understand quite how vicious is this staged event and what enduring shame it brings to the Young Vic theatre. I therefore reproduce Jonathan’s blog post with permission below.
London’s Young Vic theatre is reviving ‘My Name is Rachel Corrie’. There will be 27 performances, starting with previews on Kol Nidre (29 September); press night is 4 October. The theatre holds 70, so 1890 people will have the chance to see this play which incites hatred against Israel and therefore against its supporters, at a theatre which is supported by the taxpayer.
The Facts
Rachel Corrie was a young American (age 23). The play is extracts from her emails and diaries, selected by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner. She was idealistic but very naïve. She volunteered for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that opposes Israel’s existence and whose members seek to prevent the Israeli army from acting against terrorists in Gaza and Judea/Samaria. The IDF’s ability to operate effectively in these areas against terrorists has been systematically and intentionally obstructed by groups of foreign volunteers for the ISM, used by the Palestinian Authority as “human shields”. By interfering with Israeli counter-terrorism operations, the ISM directly endangers the lives of Israeli civilians.
Refugees, Intersectionalists, and Jews
To begin with, there actually are no Palestinian people, as used in the current sense of the term. The Oslo Accords accurately refer to Arabs, which is what they are -- Arabs who left Israel in the war of 1947-8 in order not to be involved in a conflict in which other Arabs fought with Jews and Christians and who currently make up more than a million of the Arabs now living in Israel as citizens with equal rights. These Arabs who abandoned Israel while it was fighting for its life and who afterwards wanted to return. Israel refused on the grounds that these countrymen had not been loyal. It is those displaced persons, largely in Jordan and Lebanon, who then found themselves on the wrong end of a war that their brother Arabs had started and, to everyone's astonishment, had lost. It is these Arabs (and their descendants), who fled Israel during the War of 1947-8, and who are therefore considered by Israel a fifth-column, who are what we now call the Palestinians.Valerie Plame Was Just Echoing the Echo Chamber’s Antisemitism
Jews have remained in place in the area continuously for more than three thousand years -- with Arabs, Christians, Turks, Helenes, Philistines, and whoever else came along -- even when, at times, many were forced out.
One might have assumed that this history of abuse of the Jews would excite intersectionalists into reaching out to Jewish people everywhere and working with them to quell anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish terrorism. Instead, they have chosen to align with a people whose leaders have refused multiple times to accept a Palestinian state each time it was offered to them.
Instead, they apparently prefer to hate Jews and the Jewish state of Israel.
This is important. Jewish refugees from the Russian pogroms and Russia in World War I, long before the Holocaust, and from Arab and Muslim states were among the earliest to head for Palestine, then Israel, in order to build a new Jewish homeland, where Jews would be guaranteed a refuge from violence and hatred. Do not those refugees deserve the same intersectional support as those flowing into Europe today? Do not the many thousands of black Jews who went from Ethiopia and Sudan to Israel deserve backing from Black Lives Matter? Do not the thousands of Indian Jews now in Israel deserve friendship from people of color?
Instead, left-wing intersectionalists work towards an increasingly unachievable Palestinian "right of return". In June 2017, the radical publishing house Verso, hosted an event at which Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, spoke. In 2009, Barghouti accurately said:
"I do not buy into the two-state solution. It is not just pragmatically impossible, it was never a moral solution. The first issue would be the right of return, but if the refugees were to return you cannot have a two-state solution like one Palestinian commentator remarked, you will have a Palestinian state next to a Palestinian state rather than a Palestinian state next to Israel."
How antisemitism gets echoedOn Being Jew-ishy
Irresponsible elements in the media have promoted this line of thinking.
During the debate over the Iranian nuclear deal, The New York Times even briefly listed which members of Congress were Jewish—and how they were expected to vote on the so-called Iran nuclear deal; disgustingly questioning their allegiance. Similar to The Times, Politico ran a cartoon showing pro-Israel organizations controlling Congress. And deal advocates, such as the pro-regime National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which partnered with organizations like J-Street and the Ploughshares Fund (whose board members included, until her recent tweet, Plame), asked if members of Congress would be “Israel-firsters” by voting against the deal.
Indeed, NIAC—and other Iran deal proponents—participated in a 2015 conference on the “Israel lobby,” in which participants claimed that information about Iran's nuclear program was “fabricated by the Mossad international intelligence service of Israel” and that in the U.S., Israeli “agents exist by the hundreds and hundreds throughout the country (“White House Ally Addresses ‘Israel Lobby' Conspiracy Conference,” Washington Free Beacon, April 13, 2015).”
Those who were critical of the deal, or of Iran's repression and support for terror, had their patriotism questioned, such as Michael Weiss, now a national security analyst for CNN. Weiss was labeled a “court Jew” in Plame's periodical of choice, The Unz Review. NIAC head Trita Parsi, whose organization is a Ploughshares fund partner, called the attack piece on Weiss a “must read” and then-CNN commentator Reza Aslan (known himself for his anti-Israel outbursts) shared it with his nearly 200,000 followers.
The thinking that Israelis and American Jews, or “neocons” as Plame would have it, control U.S. foreign policy, has become common enough that NPR host Diane Rehm accused a sitting U.S. Senator, Bernie Sanders, of having “dual citizenship with Israel,” in a June 10, 2015 broadcast that took place during the height of debate over the Iran deal. As CAMERA highlighted, Rehm's accusation had its origins in a neo-Nazi website called Stormfront, which was subsequently put on the left-wing extremist site, Counterpunch, before winding up on publicly funded radio. (“NPR's Diane Rehm ‘Likes' Facebook Neo-Nazi Claim,” CAMERA, June 10, 2015).
In that manner, antisemitism is mainstreamed. A former CIA operative turned pundit can share her antisemitic reading material on social media and The Washington Post calls it “horrible,” while nevertheless echoing its themes.
Dr. Devorah Baum of Southampton University may be more connected to some form of traditional Judaism than she lets on in her New York Times op-ed published on the evening of Yom Kippur. So perhaps she herself isn't the problem in her piece at all, but rather the Times editors who welcomed her article and its timing, and the many readers who heartily agree with her theses. The thesis, in a nutshell: Jews are the uprooted, the outsiders, a minority whose identity is unclear but it's not that of the majority. Above all, they're a sensibility (her word).New Wave of Anti-Israel and Antisemitic Activity Emerges on Campuses
Well, no. Baum's prime examples are Franz Kafka (died 1924), and Lenny Bruce (died 1966). In the meantime it's 2017, and the State of Israel is gearing up to celebrate it's 70th anniversary. A country invented to end Jews' condition of minorities looking in, is now home to half the world's Jews, and the younger and growing half. So there's that.
I read Baum's op-ed yesterday, then went to shul for Yom Kippur. I love Yom Kippur, but this time I read the machzor with her strange words in the background. I inherited the book itself from my father, but the words themselves we both inherited from centuries of our forefathers. In it are sections of the Pentateuch, which even skeptical modern academia admits has been with us for 2,500 years (the text itself claims it's almost a thousand years older). The commandments founding Yom Kippur come with the whiff of the desert. Isaiah makes an important appearance. He lived in Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE, so there's an echo of the original city on the hill. There are long and detailed Talmudic descriptions of the Temple, harking back from the late Second Temple era, when Jerusalem was larger than it ever was again until the 19th century.
Jewish college students returning after their summer break are encountering a wave of swastika daubings and anti-Israel activity on campuses across the country; and there are signs that the hostility may intensify in the weeks ahead.Parent of California High School Student Targeted by Antisemitic Bullying Calls on District to Protect Jewish Students
The latest incidents coincide with a new campaign by pro-Palestinian activists to portray Israel as a “white supremacist country,” linking the Jewish state to accusations about white supremacist activity in the US.
At Tufts University, a “Disorientation Guide” prepared by militant students for incoming freshmen accused Israel of “white supremacy;” the guide also promoted “Israeli Apartheid Week,” which the Tufts branch of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) holds each spring.
The guide further charged that when Jewish groups at Tufts sponsored a talk by the parents of Trayvon Martin — the African-American teenager shot in Florida in 2012 — that they were “exploiting black voices for their own pro-Israel agenda.”
SJP activists at Columbia University were among the authors of the Columbia edition of the “Disorientation Guide.” Their guide brands Israel “an apartheid state” and encourages incoming students to join their campaign, “Columbia University Apartheid Divest.”
Meanwhile, New York University (NYU) students recently published a “Disorientation Guide” of their own, in which they accused the university of “myriad racist, Zionist, and homophobic policies,” and called for ending NYU’s study abroad program at Tel Aviv University. The guide falsely claimed that “students of Palestinian descent, or Arab descent more broadly, are distinctly prohibited from studying at the Tel Aviv site.”
The parent of a student who faced antisemitic bullying at her high school in Alameda, California, is calling on district officials to improve their response to harassment targeting Jewish students, The Algemeiner has learned.Guardian frames university’s stance against racism as “censorship” by the Israel lobby
While a freshman at Alameda High School last year, Mel Waldorf’s daughter, Natasha, said she was repeatedly threatened because she is Jewish, “to the point that I felt unwelcome and actually afraid for my safety.”
In her address to the Alameda City Council on September 19, Natasha indicated that the bullying began last January, when she “received a text from an unknown number with a picture of Mr. Clean dressed in a Nazi uniform, labeled Mr. Ethnic Cleansing.”
Natasha, who was in class at the time, said she received another text containing an antisemitic picture from the same number, then called a “kike” and “told Hitler’s biggest mistake was not killing my family and that I should apologize to all Germans.”
The texts referred to Natasha by name, and she soon learned that they were instigated by a German exchange student from one of her classes.
The headline of a Sept. 29th Guardian article by Damien Gayle includes the following accusation of “censorship” despite the fact that the facts of the case do not support such a loaded accusation.Students Supporting Israel: Shifting Tides at Columbia University
The article begins thusly:
Manchester University censored the title of a Holocaust survivor’s criticism of Israel and insisted that her campus talk be recorded, after Israeli diplomats said its billing amounted to antisemitic hate speech. Marika Sherwood, a Jewish survivor of the Budapest ghetto, was due to give a talk in March about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, headlined: “You’re doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to me.” But after a visit by Mark Regev, the Israeli ambassador, and his civil affairs attaché, university officials banned organisers from using the “unduly provocative” title and set out a range of conditions before it could go ahead.
Students had booked Sherwood to speak as part of Israeli Apartheid Week, a series of events organised by the university’s student committee of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
Though the title was indeed changed, because the Israel-Nazi accusation was seen as contravening the Working Definition of Antisemitism (adopted by the British government), there was never any effort to cancel or alter the event itself – despite the extremely controversial nature of the proposed anti-Israel talk.
So, who was responsible for “censoring” title? The narrative centers on the requisite target – the Israeli lobby:
With all the rumors and media attention, the anti-Israel groups were smart in backing out of their original scheme, and instead passed out flyers to all the event’s attendees. Although the flyers were filled with lies that were quickly debunked by Professor Dershowitz during the event, SSI Columbia commended the anti-Israel students for legally expressing their right to free speech rather than targeting and bullying students with different opinions or with a different identity.IsraellyCool: Roger Waters’ Hypocrisy on Full Display
SSI Columbia and professor Alan Dershowitz hoped that the anti-Israel students would come and stay for the Q&A session, but immediately after disseminating their flyers they were nowhere to be found.
This event marks a new day at Columbia University. It marks the beginning of a shift of tides where pro-Israel students are no longer afraid of stepping into the great arena of ideas. A day where anti-Israel students are no longer confident enough to bully students, and a day where a large pro-Israel event can be held without disruption. This just marks the beginning, but there is much work ahead.
According to Roger Waters’ 2018 dates for his US+THEM tour, he is scheduled to perform in Russia. Twice.Epic BDS Fail! Jewish Groups Protest Roger Waters’ Toronto Concerts
Russia, a country of human rights abuses. And it is not like he is not aware of that – he admitted as much in this interview a few months ago. But note how he stated he was “not demonizing” them.
Yep, not only won’t he “demonize” them or boycott them, but he is even willing to play there twice.
PreOccupiedTerritory: BDSers Sadly Put ‘Tom Petty Boycott Israel’ Signs Away (satire)
Following the passing last night of American pop icon Tom Petty, activists attempting to target the Jewish State with a cultural embargo forever stowed their placards and banners calling for him not to perform there.IsraellyCool: YouTube Silences Yet Another Exposé of Arab Incitement
Petty, 66, died after hospitalization for cardiac arrest, depriving the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions activists of further reason to invest in protests mentioning him and his group. Leaders of the movement voiced sorrow at the end of an era and the loss of a personality they could hound with sound, fury, and futility in an orgy of virtue-signaling and righteous rage.
“I’m devastated,” whispered Keyleigh Sutter, 22, who dropped out of Berkeley to spend several weeks in solidarity with Palestinians. “I’ve been waiting years to protest an announcement that Tom Petty would be performing in Israel, and now…” she trailed off. Without a word, Ms. Sutter put her “Boycott Israel, Mr. Petty – Apartheid is Never Pretty” and “We Won’t Back Down” posters behind the building where she is staying, next to yellowed, fading, and similarly irrelevant campaign posters from the last Palestinian elections in 2006.
“I’m a huge Tom Petty fan,” declared Raheem Hisan, shaking his head. “I was really, really hoping my two great passions would intersect – loving Tom Petty, and Jew-hatred dressed up as Palestinian patriotism. I share both those passions with so many people, but such an intersection will never happen again. Can I say intersection again? I just like intersectionality.”
Talk about surreal.Anti-Israel NY Times Reporter to Speak at Center for Jewish History
Back in 2014, Aussie Dave wrote about a Palestinian thug rapper wannabe who sent me a threat of death and sexual assault over Facebook. It was a charming ditty, promising me I’d end up laying on the ground with a big whole in my “monkey butt” (bitch) for my Miley Cyrus parodies.
Suddenly, about three years later, YouTube removes the video, puts a strike on my account and tells me the video constitutes “hate speech”, specifically harassment and bullying. I tried to appeal, saying the video educates about “hate speech.” They upheld their decision. This was not long before Israellycool received strikes for its videos exposing Arab hate and incitement.
I asked my friend Avi Abelow, who runs the Israel Video Network, how this could be.
“I can send you all the material from YouTube and Facebook with their own terms basically being amorphous, but clear, that anything they disagree with will be shut down,” Abelow said. “Going public is the only thing to hurt their PR image, but I highly doubt it will make them change their direction. I call this the ‘post-Trump purge.’ Silicon Valley blame themselves for allowing information to be spread that allowed the masses to vote for Trump and they are doing all this to make sure their platforms (Google/YouTube/Facebook etc) are not used to make that happen again.”
The Center for Jewish History, whose CEO David N. Myers is a supporter of a boycott of Israel and a leader of numerous anti-Israel organizations, is perhaps unsurprisingly hosting a lecture by a notably anti-Israel New York Times columnist, Roger Cohen, on October 15th.Jews relieved after Swedish neo-Nazis bypass synagogue on Yom Kippur march
Among other gems, Cohen wrote he was willing to look past British politician Jeremy Corbyn’s “long flirtation” with the Hamas terrorist group because Corbyn would be reliably anti-Trump. As The Algemeiner recently reported, Omri Ceren, an official at the Israel Project — a pro-Israel advocacy group — wrote on Twitter: “NYT columnist: it’s true Corbyn is a Hamas-supporting, Israel-hating, NATO-bashing, Soviet-flirting loon… but he’s anti-Trump!”
Ceren described the Times columnist’s view as “deranged.” Toby Harshaw, a former colleague of Cohen’s at the New York Times editorial page who has since escaped to the relatively more sensible precincts of Bloomberg View, tweeted out an image of the offending Cohen paragraph with the apparently exasperated comment, “Oh good lord Roger Cohen.”
In October 2016, Cohen inaccurately characterized Israel’s policies and called on America to undercut Israel at the United Nations.
No friend of Israel, Tablet Magazine once ran an article titled, “Top 5 Dumbest Roger Cohen lines on Israel and Iran,” in which they described his opinion column as an “an off-putting muddle of contempt for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” Among his “head-scratchers”: “The real challenge to Israel as a Jewish and democratic nation is the failure to achieve a two-state peace with the Palestinians and the prolongation of a West Bank occupation that leaves Israel overseeing millions of disenfranchised Palestinians,” and “Iran has long been an effective distraction from the core dilemma of the Jewish state: Palestine. But global impatience with this diversionary strategy is running high.”
Jews in the Swedish city of Gothenburg expressed relief on Monday after a neo-Nazi march on Yom Kippur bypassed the city’s main synagogue and the community received hundreds of messages of support from groups and individuals.Australian Jewish reporter recalls anti-Semitic harassment
On Saturday, some 600 members of the far-right nationalist Nordic Resistance Movement, or NRM, marched in Gothenburg and 50 were arrested when they did not follow their assigned route, clashed with counterprotesters and tried to walk toward the Scandinavia Book Fair, the largest literary festival in Scandinavia. Among those arrested was the group’s leader, Simon Lindberg.
Jews had worried about harassment and vandalism during the march, which was rerouted after appeals by the Jewish community that it not pass the synagogue on Judaism’s holiest day. Police presence around the synagogue was heavy, with cars patrolling the area as well as a helicopter and a boat in a nearby canal. The synagogue also provided additional security.
Despite this, Yom Kippur services went on as usual and had a large turnout, community chairman Allan Stutzinsky told JTA.
A Jewish television reporter for British news station Sky News said that harassment by a former colleague escalated into “brazen anti-Semitism.Jewish art collector’s heirs praise deal to recover painting seized in WWII
Caroline Marcus wrote in a column published Tuesday by the Australian edition of Daily Telegraph that the colleague plastered his work station, situated next to hers, with “vile cartoons depicting Jews as Hitler,” and reportedly wrote on Facebook his opinion that Israel was a “f***ing international disgrace.”
Among the other anti-Semitic harassment that Marcus endured was McCormack saying, referring to the Holocaust, “Your 70 years of special treatment are over.”
Marcus wrote in the Daily Mail that McCormack knew she was Jewish and that her family had survived the Nazis in Eastern Europe. She also wrote that she had confided in him during a mediation session that her grandmother, who had sought refuge with Marcus’ father in Israel after World War II, was dying.
“I can tell you it was easily one of the most difficult and lonely periods of my life,” she also wrote.
Last week, McCormack pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and faces a maximum jail sentence of 15 years.
The Geneva lawyer for the heirs of a Jewish woman whose art collection was seized by France’s pro-Nazi regime in World War II said they are “absolutely delighted” about a hard-won deal to recover from a Swiss town a 19th-century painting by English master John Constable.Many Works of Art Stolen by the Nazis from Dutch Jews Have Yet to Be Returned to the Owners’ Heirs
Marc-Andre Renold said Monday that heirs of Anna Jaffe hope to recover “Dedham from Langham” later this month, after officials in La Chaux-de-Fonds last week approved the handover from the town’s fine arts museum.
The arrangement follows a commitment of 80,000 euros (about $94,000) from France’s reparations fund for victims of anti-Semitic laws under the pro-Nazi Vichy government.
The painting, said to be worth around 1 million Swiss francs (about $1 million), was confiscated from Jaffe’s home after she died aged 90 in 1942.
While Germany and many other countries have made progress in restoring goods seized during World War II to their rightful owners, the Netherlands still holds a mass of paintings that once belonged to Jews, as Avraham Roet writes. (Free registration required.)Swiss lawmaker resigns after comparing pigs to Auschwitz victims
Much of the art confiscated from Jews during the German occupation can still be found in warehouses belonging to the Dutch state, or in museums around the country. Because Dutch authorities have been remiss in preserving archives and documentation, however, it’s not possible to make an accurate appraisal of the value of the plundered art. . . .
Though the war ended more than seven decades ago, the scale of the thefts from Jews by both the Germans and Dutch people themselves—not only during World War II but afterward as well—is still coming to light. Following the German conquest of the Netherlands, on May 10, 1940, Adolf Hitler and his deputy Hermann Goering began taking an intense personal interest in the acquisition of art, in particular paintings by Old Masters. Hitler intended to establish—in Linz, Austria, near the village where he was born—the world’s largest museum of classical art and objects. To that end, he ordered the confiscation of art in every country occupied by the Third Reich. At the same time, Goering began stealing obsessively for his own private collection, often competing with Hitler for the same items. . . .
A Swiss lawmaker has resigned after comparing the transportation of pigs for farming to the transportation of prisoners to Auschwitz.FIFA fines Germany for Nazi chants at World Cup qualifier
“The (Nazi) deportees had only a slight chance to survive. As for the pigs, they are condemned to certain death,” Swiss Green Party lawmaker Jonas Fricker said Thursday during a debate in the National Council, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland.
During the debate Fricker, 40, apologized to the parliament and the Jewish community for his “naive” comparison.
The Swiss media was blanketed with coverage of Fricker’s comparison, The Jerusalem Post reported.
On Saturday night, Fricker submitted a letter of resignation to his party.
“This comparison was hurtful and unfortunate. Resigning my mandate to parliament is the strongest signal that I can send,” Fricker wrote, the news website Swissinfo reported.
FIFA fined the German soccer federation 32,000 Swiss francs ($33,000) on Monday because fans chanted Nazi slogans at a World Cup qualifying game in the Czech Republic.Retired FBI agent opens new investigation into Anne Frank's betrayal
The range of “improper conduct” charges against Germany included fans encroaching on the field and setting off fireworks at the game in Prague, FIFA said.
German officials said the offensive fans did not buy tickets through official channels. Germany’s next away World Cup qualifier is on Thursday in Northern Ireland.
About 200 German supporters chanted slogans during their team’s 2-1 win and verbally abused one of the scorers, Timo Werner.
FIFA also fined the Czech federation 5,000 Swiss francs ($5,150) for crowd disorder.
It has been 73 years since Anne Frank and her family were betrayed, but one retired FBI agent won't give up on the case just yet.Dead Sea Scrolls scam: Dozens of recently sold fragments are fakes, experts warn
Vince Pankoke launched a new cold case investigation, along with over a dozen other forensic experts and historians, to solve the unanswered question of who betrayed Anne Frank's hiding place, The Guardian reported.
Pankoke conceded that the investigation was more of a fact-finding mission and would not lead to arrests or criminal charges.
“We are not trying to point fingers or prosecute...," he told the British daily. "There is no statute of limitation on the truth.”
The investigation is being assisted by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which has given Pankoke's team access to its archives.
Researchers will use modern investigative techniques and software to analyze data and develop new leads. The team has already reconstructed the scene on the day of the Franks' arrest.
A Bedouin shepherd hears pottery break as he throws stones into a cave while searching for lost sheep among arid cliffs abutting the Dead Sea. He enters the cave and uncovers the find of the 20th century — 2,000-year-old Hebrew and Aramaic scrolls, then the earliest written record of the Bible.Ben Gurion University Signs Agreement to Promote Innovation with Schools in Arizona, Mexico
Seven decades have passed since that Hollywood-esque discovery of some 900 manuscripts and up to 50,000 fragments in the 11 caves of Qumran. Now, accusations of dozens of million-dollar forgeries make for a worthy sequel.
It’s a whodunit involving a complex network of high-stakes deals with dubious provenance, and perhaps even academic obfuscation. The process by which the forgeries are being manufactured has yet to be fully exposed. The motive is entirely clear: The tiniest of ancient snippets sells for well over $100,000 per fragment in these private off-the-books sales.
Since 2002, the world’s private antiquities markets have been saturated with certified millennia-old leather inscribed with biblical verses by what, on expert inspection, appears to be a modern hand. This has led some scholars to believe one or more of their own has gone rogue and created a proliferation of fakes that are being peddled to a growing number of Evangelical Christian collectors.
The Museum of the Bible, set to open this November in Washington, DC, is foremost among those collectors who have been “duped,” to the tune of millions of dollars, scholars say. A series of recent articles in respected academic journals calls into question the authenticity of at least half a dozen in its trove of tiny scroll fragments.
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.Lost First-Temple Jewish City Discovered Under IDF Training Base
The agreement, which includes knowledge sharing and collaboration between BGU’s Advanced Technologies Park (ATP) in Beersheva, UA Tech Parks Arizona in Tucson and UNAM’s high-tech initiatives, was signed this month during a visit to BGU by delegations from the two universities.
It is designed 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 initiatives.
“This trilateral agreement leverages regional assets and international outposts providing a complementary package of resources to innovators worldwide,” said Bruce Wright, Associate Vice President, Tech Parks Arizona.
“This developing cooperation between the hi-tech parks and the hi-tech initiatives is innovative and unique worldwide,” said BGU’s Vice President and Director-General David Bareket, who will lead the collaborations between the high-tech parks and the high-tech initiatives
A few weeks ago, the staff of the Archeology Department of the IDF Civil Administration arrived at the area of a now abandoned training base, next door to the town of Beit El in Samaria, and, digging under the old parade grounds, they were astonished to discover a hidden Jewish city, Yedioth Aharonot reported Thursday.School project to remember Holocaust victims surpasses goal of 11 million stamps
The dig revealed a Jewish settlement of several dozen residents, dating back to the First Temple period. It was later inhabited during the Persian period and expanded in the Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods, remaining in Jewish hands until the Roman era.
According to the finds, the site remained abandoned for years and resettled in the Byzantine period, by a Christian population, most likely monks who also built a monastery there. The excavations revealed a church, a dining room that was used by the monks, and a bathhouse that has been very well-preserved.
“The findings are amazing,” said Yevgeny Aharonovitch, an archaeologist of the Civil Administration. “We found keys for doors that were intended for housing units, we found tools that were used by Jews, and seal types belonging to the [Jewish] period.”
A 9-year-old school project to commemorate Holocaust victims surpassed its unlikely goal to collect 11 million stamps – representing the lives of 6 million Jews and 5 million other victims who perished.IsraellyCool: WATCH: Aussie Vloggers Having a Ball in Israel
On Friday, the eve of Yom Kippur, a community volunteer for the Holocaust Stamp Project at the Foxborough Regional Charter School delivered some 7,000 canceled stamps to the K-12 charter school, bringing the total of stamps collected to 11,011,979, according to Jamie Droste, the school’s student life adviser who oversees community service learning for the high school.
By chance, the delivery was made on a day that a reporting team from the NBC Boston affiliate was at the school, located in a suburb south of Boston, to report about the project.
The project began nine years ago in the fifth-grade classroom of Charlotte Sheer as an outgrowth of her students reading “Number the Stars,” the award-winning work of historical fiction by Lois Lowry set during the Holocaust. By collecting 11 million stamps, one stamp at a time, Sheer envisioned the project as a way to make tangible the incomprehensible magnitude of the genocide.
Stephen & Jess are Australian Vloggers documenting their lives since leaving home and travelling around the globe. They run this travel blog, and seem to have quite a large following: 47,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel and 36,000 Facebook page likes.
I discovered these videos of theirs from a recent visit to Israel. Let’s just say they seem to have had an amazing time here.
As someone who loves living in Israel, I really got a buzz out of these videos.
