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Thursday, November 23, 2017

11/23 Links Pt2: Thankful for Liberation From Nazis, Holocaust Survivor Donates $1 Million to Help US Military Veterans; Hitler’s ‘Jolly Elf’ and The New York Times

From Ian:
'P' is not for 'Palestine,' Ms. Golbard-Bashi
The Philistines hadn’t existed since the days of King Hezekiah. But the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the Jews’ country for them, in a deliberate act of final humiliation to the Jews.

And this brings us to the question: What does the name “Philistine” mean?

– “Philistine” is the Anglicised form of the Hebrew name “P’lishti”, from the Hebrew “polesh”, “invader”. The P’lishtim (Philistines) were a sea-faring nation, invaders who came from the Aegean Islands (which is why they dwelt mainly along the Israeli coastline).

This is the true origin of the name “Palestine”. The name means nothing in Arabic, and indeed cannot possibly exist in Arabic. This alleged “Palestinian” nation is a nation which cannot even pronounce its own name.

Golbarg Bashi is quoted as saying, “I consider myself Palestinian at heart”. A truly interesting sentiment for a woman born in Iran, not even an Arab, who has no connection whatsoever with “Palestine”.

But then again, maybe not so strange. After all, the most famous “Palestinian” in history was Yasser Arafat, born in Egypt to an ancient Egyptian family, who served in the Egyptian Army in the 1948 war of attempted extermination against Israel (which turned into Israel’s War of Independence) – and who only later morphed into a “Palestinian”.

In a surreal world in which the entire identity of “Palestine” is a fictitious narrative which begins with Aegean invaders who were defeated by the indigenous Jews and whose identity was falsely resurrected a millennium later by the European Roman colonialist imperialists, an Iranian can be just as much a “Palestinian” as an Egyptian can.

But still, Ms Bashi, get your alphabet right. “P” is not for “Palestine”. “P” is not for any Arabic word. “F” can be for “Filastin”, which is about as close as the Arab colonialists can get to pronouncing the Roman colonialists’ version of the original Hebrew name of the Aegean invaders.

And “F” is also, of course, for “fraud” and “fake”.

IsraellyCool: N Is For You Know Nothing Nathan Lean
Someone called Nathan Lean, a self proclaimed expert in Islamophobia no less, and the author of an entire book on this made up construct “The Islamophobia Industry” came out with this “genius” reply:


Oh boy, where to start. Fortunately another contributor to Israellycool set him straight:


Here’s the chain:
Plisthtim – Hebrew – invaders from the sea, the Philistines from the bible.
Palæstina – Latin version of the Hebrew
Palestine – English version of the Latin
Filasteen – Arabic version of the English and, of course, lacking the P because non-indigenous language Arabic hasn’t got that sound in it!

Which is exactly correct. The Arabs only call this land “Filasteen” because they literally can’t pronounce the name they chose to give themselves as recently as the early 60’s.
IsraellyCool: Golbarg Bashi Did Not Think This Hashtag Through
The Israel haters have come up with all sorts of campaigns to promote their agenda, whether it be BDS, their own versions of the Ice Bucket Challenge, and the Salt Water Challenge.

But I think this one takes the (urinal) cake.

And yes, I do realize this is just a really unfortunate use of a hashtag, but it seems strangely appropriate.



Hitler’s ‘Jolly Elf’ and The New York Times
When he died from cancer in Beirut on July 4, 1974, The New York Times’ obituary noted that, despite dying “in obscurity,” the mufti stayed in “luxurious villas” and maintained a role as a delegate for the Arab Higher Committee. Leadership of the “Palestinian cause” — as the mufti himself defined it — had long-since passed to a distant cousin, Yasser Arafat, who continued his predecessor’s support for terrorism and rejecting peace.

The Times’ obit merely stated that al-Husseini was a “willing collaborator” who simply reviewed a “contingent of Moslem ‘storm troopers’ in Bosnia.” Facts — such as the mufti’s self-stated desire to commit genocide — were simply chalked up as “charges.”

The New York Times even wrote: “When he was a power in the turbulent affairs of the Middle East, he was described as a handsome and soft‐spoken Moslem gentleman. One journalist said his face was that of ‘a jolly elf.’ He had keen and often smiling blue eyes.”

It’s hard to imagine an obituary for a Nazi being written in a similar fashion.

Indeed, the mufti was well-regarded in many quarters while he was still alive. In his posthumously published 1965 book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the author recounted meeting al-Husseini in 1964, describing him as a “cordial man of great dignity,” who was well “well up on world affairs.” The mufti referred to New York as “Jew York” — an occurrence that didn’t seem to trouble Malcolm X. The mufti, Malcolm wrote, “seems well loved.”

Indeed, in a January 4, 2013 speech, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the mufti a “pioneer.”

The mufti not only escaped justice, he seems to have escaped judgment, as well. Except, perhaps, from those who see his methods as a model.
New School benefactor threatens to cut off funding over anti-Semitism panel
A major Jewish benefactor of The New School has threatened to pull future funding if the university does not withdraw its sponsorship of a panel on anti-Semitism featuring members of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour.

Kenneth Bialkin, an attorney who serves as president of the American Jewish Historical Society and chairman of the America-Israel Friendship League, wrote a letter to the university president calling it “intellectually dishonest, irresponsible and immoral” for the Manhattan-based university to host a panel on anti-Semitism featuring “some of America’s leading purveyors of anti-Jewish prejudice.”

“I urge you to reconsider your position, so that I do not have to reconsider mine,” wrote Bialkin, a former member of The New School’s board of directors. The letter was obtained and first reported Wednesday by Tablet.
Kenneth Bialkin (Courtesy)

The November 28 event, titled “Anti-Semitism and the Struggle for Justice,” is described by organizers as an examination of “the growing power of antisemitic, racist white nationalists” as well as the “systematic efforts within the American Jewish establishment to silence or defame those who are critical of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights as antisemitic.”

Critics of the event say it is meant to justify anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism on the left. Major Jewish groups have criticized Sarsour for her harsh criticism of Israel and Zionism, and Jewish Voice for Peace for its support of the movement to boycott Israel.
IsraellyCool: Another of Linda Sarsour’s Old Tweets Comes Back to Haunt Her
Back in 2014, Linda Sarsour expressed her indignation over those behind the film Honor Diaries (which highlights the plight of women in Muslim societies, who are subject to honor killings and violence) by tweeting the following


Leaving aside the fact that Sarsour considers herself White, the hypocrisy here is astounding. I mean, this is coming from a woman who thinks she has the right to define what Jew hatred is, already speaking in a video about it and about to speak on a panel discussing it.

Not that we didn’t already know she is a huge hypocrite.

Linda, us Jews do not need saving, and certainly not from a vile hater like you.
Cardozo School of Law Advertises Event on Anti-Semitism Featuring Speakers Condemned as Anti-Semites
A director at the country's only law school affiliated with a Jewish university emailed students last week to advertise an upcoming event on anti-Semitism that has been criticized for featuring a panel of speakers who have been condemned as anti-Semites.

Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, the faculty director of the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan, sent students in the clinic's listserv a message publicizing a program hosted by the New School featuring Women's March co-founder and passionate anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour.

The email, dated Nov. 15 and obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon, reads:

"Hi everyone, In case it's of interest to anyone, on Tuesday, Nov. 28, there is an book launch [sic] event at the New School called ‘Antisemitism and the Struggle for Justice.' A brief description and link to the event are below…"

The email continued with text pulled from the official advertisement for the panel, touting the cheap $5 admission fee.

The program is organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a far-left group that has been holding similar events around the country to promote its recently published book of essays advancing definitions of modern anti-Semitism offered by Sarsour and others.
Politicizing a Family Death in the New York Times
Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International USA asks the question in the New York Times:

While Jarrar may not have written the headline, a further read of his opinion piece shows that Jarrar’s father died in Jordan. Not Israel. Not the Palestinian territories.

So no, Israel certainly did not prevent Jarrar from mourning his father.

Jarrar was, however, prevented from visiting his extended family in Jenin, falling foul of an Israeli law targeting anyone who openly advocates boycotting Israelis or Israeli goods, including those produced over the Green Line.
NGO Monitor: Pressure Works: Heinrich Boell Foundation Withdraws from Conference Featuring Member of Hamas
On November 17, 2017, the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon exposed that the Ramallah office of the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (HBS) – a German government funded political foundation affiliated with the German Green Party – was co-sponsoring a conference, “The 1987 Intifada: History and Memory,” in commemoration of “the thirtieth Anniversary of the First Palestinian Uprising against the Israeli Occupation.” The conference, scheduled to be held in Gaza on November 24-26 and in Beirut on November 28-30, will feature speakers that are former or current members of the Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organizations.

One speaker, Hasan Yusuf, is a “Leader in the Hamas movement in the West Bank” (emphasis added) and was “arrested for several years by the Israeli occupation authorities.” Other speakers include Younis Aljaro, “a former leader in the Palestinian (sic) Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP]… and Chairman of Board of Directors of [Al-Dameer] Human Rights Association in Gaza”.

The PFLP, from which Aljaro reportedly resigned in 2013 “for reasons that were unclear,” is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.

NGO Monitor provided Makor Rishon with details on HBS’ funding and activities. As stated by Olga Deutsch, NGO Monitor’s Europe Desk Director, “NGO Monitor’s years-long research documents the repeated support and cooperation of HBS’s Ramallah office with radical organizations, including those with alleged ties to terrorist organizations.” These include Palestinian NGO Addameer (not to be confused with Al-Dameer), identified by Fatah as a PFLP “affiliate,” and Al-Haq, whose general director, Shawan Jabarin, was identified by the Israeli High Court of Justice in 2007 as a “senior activist in the PFLP terror group” (NGO Monitor translations).
Duke University Press Criticized for Publication of Jasbir Puar’s “Right to Maim”
Jasbir Puar is the Rutgers University professor who first coined the term “pinkwashing” to denigrate Israel’s progressive record on LGBTQ rights, and who made the baseless claim at a 2016 lecture at Vassar College that Israel harvests organs from the bodies of dead Palestinians, a modern day blood libel.

Despite being called a “raving crackpot” by the editorial board of the liberal-leaning New York Daily News, Puar has a new book out this month from Duke University Press. The book has generated a firestorm of controversy for the publisher as well as for Duke and Rutgers.

In an Op-Ed published in the Durham, North Carolina paper the Herald-Sun, Peter Reitzes writes,

In “The Right to Maim,” Puar continues what appear to be thinly veiled comparisons of Israelis to Nazis. Puar wonders if Gaza is “not a death camp but a debilitation camp,” asks, “Is Gaza an experimental lab for the production, maintenance, and profitability of biopolitical debilitation?” and states, “The understanding of maiming as a specific aim of biopolitics tests the framing of settler colonialism as a project of elimination of the indigenous through either genocide or assimilation.”

Poor scholarship – what one historian called “academic garbage” – plagues “The Right to Maim.” For example, Puar quotes a professor of psychiatry from Al Jazeera America (not from a peer reviewed study) saying, “Palestinian children in Gaza are exposed to more violence in their lifetime than any other people, any other children, anywhere in the world.” Puar attempts to support this allegation by citing the study, “Effect of Trauma on the Mental Health of Palestinian Children and Mothers in the Gaza Strip” published in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal. I took the time to obtain and read this study and was surprised to see that it appears to conclude the opposite: “Compared to other types of conflict in war zones, events [in Gaza] were not as acute,” it reports, and “The most common type of traumatic event was seeing victims’ pictures on television.”

Why would DUP publish a book like Puar’s with such poor scholarship and obvious anti-Semitic overtones? Why, in fact, has DUP brought Puar aboard as an editor?
IsraellyCool: WATCH: Louis Farrakhan to Jews: I Am Like Your Jewish Mother
I guess the line between vile antisemite and great deadpan comedian is a lot finer than I thought.


Here are some things not likely to be said by our Jewish mothers
  • “You are of the Synagogue of Satan and therefore will be dealt with by God.”
  • “..the Satanic Jews that control everything and mostly everybody, if they are your enemy, then you must be somebody.”
  • “[The Jews] have mastered the civilization now, but they’ve mastered it in evil… Who’s the owner of Hollywood that creates images and makes the people think that what is created on the screen is the way we should live? That’s Satan…Satan has devoured much of humanity.”
  • “The real anti-Semites are those who came out of Europe and settled in Palestine, and now they call themselves the true Jews, when in fact, they converted to Judaism.”
  • “Do you know that the enemies of Jesus were the Jews of his day and the Roman authorities? That wasn’t 2000 years ago alone. That’s today!”
Small Florida Community Leads Nation In Defining And Combating Anti-Semitism
A crowd of over 100 Bal Harbour, Florida residents broke into applause last night after the Village Council unanimously passed a measure that cleared the way for local law enforcement to consider anti-Semitism as a “motivation for criminal offenses in order to ensure the safety and wellbeing of its Jewish community.”

Unofficially referred to as the “Anti-Semitism Definition Act,” the 5-0 vote adopts the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism — directing the police department to consider this description when investigating crimes, consistent with the federal and state hate crime statutes.

A small Florida town that is popular with snowbirds, Bal Harbour is not new to combating anti-Semitism.

In 2015, the Village Council passed an ordinance “prohibiting the Village from entering into agreements with businesses that boycott a person or entity based in or doing business with an Open Trade Jurisdiction such as Israel, and requiring businesses to pledge not to engage in such a boycott during agreements with the Village.” Two years later, approximately 35 cities have followed Bal Harbour’s lead and have passed anti-boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) legislation that forbids the municipality to do business with or invest in entities that boycott the Jewish state.

Currently, nearly half the states in the union have passed anti-BDS measures, a number that is expected to greatly increase in the coming year. But while debate exists on the inherently anti-Semitic nature of BDS, defining anti-Semitism has also become a subject of controversy.
Ill-Defined: Google and Oxford Dictionary’s ‘Jew’ Issues
When HonestReporting readers alerted us to an alarming issue discovered in Google Translate, it not only led to a significant result but also uncovered a wider problem with Google’s original source, the Oxford Dictionary.

This is what happened when the term European was typed into Google Translate.

The Definitions section gives examples of the adjective and noun of European:

“We Europeans may take Palestinian land to give it to former European inhabitants, the Jews.”

“He compares the Palestinians at the time to Native Americans when Europeans first showed up in North America.”

UPDATE
In an email correspondence with HonestReporting, an Oxford University Press spokesperson has told us that editorial teams will now review the chosen sentences and make updates as necessary, as well as offering the following:
IsraellyCool: Google’s ‘Jew’ Problem
Except, Google Translate was bringing the definition from Google’s dictionary, which appears when you search ‘Jew’ – and still appears

Granted, Google designates the verb offensive, but I am not entirely sure why Google has chosen to show it at all- especially given that their search results do not always show a definition.

For instance, if you Google ‘Christian’ or ‘Muslim’, no definition appears. Why then does the word ‘Jew’ merit a definition – including an antisemitic one?
CAMERA Featured Letter-Writer
A recent review of Reem's Bakery in the New York Times' travel section referred to convicted terrorist Rasmeah Odeh, featured in a mural on the bakery's wall, as an "activist," and failed to provide any information about Odeh's crimes.

The Times subsequently appended an Editors' Note acknowledging that the story had "lacked context," and added to the review, "In 1970, Ms. Odeh was convicted by Israeli courts for her role in the murder of two students. In 2014, she was convicted of immigration fraud in U.S. federal court and deported to Jordan in 2017." However, the paper continued to refer to her as an "activist," and refused to run a correction in the print edition.

Letter-writer Sara Miller wrote to the paper:
Editor: Thank you for adding the information that Rasmeah Odeh is a convicted terrorist. However, it doesn't ever make sense to call someone who targeted and killed civilians an "activist." Would you call anyone who targeted civilians in another country "a controversial activist"? Shouldn't you reserve the term "activist" for people like me, who contact you repeatedly with (surely annoying) letters but would never hurt anyone?

You should also run an editor's note in this Sunday's paper to make your addition/correction clear. The note should clearly state that Odeh was convicted of murdering two students and trying to kill other civilians, that she was a member of PFLP, and that she was deported from the U.S. for lying about her record. A lot of people may not realize that you added the information to the article about her terrorism, so it should be clearly stated that you did.

Thank you Sara Miller
Gaza terror smuggling again not newsworthy for the BBC
Another story which would help BBC audiences understand the real reasons for counter-terrorism measures, including restrictions on the entry of weapons and dual purpose goods into the Gaza Strip, recently came to light.

“An Israeli laboratory at the Kerem Shalom Gaza crossing recently thwarted an attempted smuggling of several tons of explosive substances that were headed for terror groups in the strip.

The lab, which was recently established at the crossing at the behest of the Land Crossings Authority in the Ministry of Defense, was called into action after a truck arrived at the area that was carrying what was said to be a large load of car oils.

Guards conducting the security checks grew suspicious of the truck’s content, and transferred specific oil types to the lab for further investigation, where it transpired that the oils were not intended for car engines, but were rather dangerous substances intended for the production of large quantities of explosive devices.”

The BBC – which is of course committed to helping its funding public understand “the world around them” – has so far ignored this story, thereby passing up yet another opportunity to help its audiences understand why Israel’s counter-terrorism measures are necessary – even as it continues to focus their attentions on the “appalling human rights situation inside Gaza”.
BBC Radio 4, ‘religious freedom’ and a half-told story
Remarkably, the residents affected by the Greek Orthodox Church’s land sales in Jerusalem did not even get a mention in this BBC item. Obviously that serious omission is highly relevant because the bill currently awaiting reading in the Knesset which was widely discussed in the item is intended to protect those residents rather than – as claimed in this item – to “confiscate” land or “pressure” the church.

As we see, this report presented an entirely one-sided and distorted account of a story that was repeatedly portrayed as being solely about “the church’s rights in the region” and with absolutely no mention of the other side of the story and the rights of the people affected by the church’s actions. One might also question the timing of this story seeing as it actually broke several months ago but BBC audiences heard nothing about it until various church bodies began a PR campaign.

As for Edward Stourton’s claim that “religious freedom” includes real estate deals – that one will surely go down as one of the more ridiculous notions promoted by the BBC.
More Anti-Semitism at Bay Area Schools
I noted the growing issues with anti-Semitism at public schools in the infamously left-wing California Bay Area a few months back and recent examples continue to bubble to the surface. According to Algemeiner, the Alameda School District has routinely ignored anti-Semitic language directed at Jewish students.

In Alameda, California, middle and elementary schools have been defaced with swastikas and a Jewish elementary school student reportedly received a death threat. Under pressure from the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and the parents of Natasha Waldorf — who received multiple antisemitic threats at Alameda High School — Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) officials are finally admitting that antisemitism is a problem and that they’ve made mistakes in how they’ve responded to it. But they are still not doing what’s needed.

The AUSD must implement a prevention, protection and proscription plan. Prevention means educating students and families about antisemitism and making it clear that harassing Jewish students won’t be tolerated. Protection means adequately training staff to recognize, stop and report antisemitism. Proscription means effectively responding to antisemitism, including by publicly condemning it, appropriately disciplining wrongdoers, and ensuring that targeted students are protected.
Polish hostel: Entry forbidden to Jews and thieves
A polish hostel hung a banner denying entry to "Jews, Commies, and all thieves and traitors of Poland."

The banner was hung outside a hostel in Cesarzowice, Polish media reported Thursday. According to reports by neighbors, the sign has been hanging outside the property for several months.

Meanwhile, the town's mayor claimed she did not intervene because the hostel is "private property." From her response, it seems anti-Semitism is not illegal in Poland.

Cesarzowice is a small town just outside Wroclaw, a major city.
Czech Republic buys pig farm at former Nazi camp to shutter it
The Czech government on Thursday said it had bought a controversial pig farm located on the site of a former Nazi camp for Roma people, paying millions of euros for the right to shut it down.

“After 20 or so years, we finally managed to get rid of this harmful legacy from the past,” Culture Minister Daniel Herman told reporters.

The farm was constructed in the 1970s during Communist rule at Lety, a village south of Prague which was the site of a Nazi-era concentration camp where hundreds of people in the Roma and Sinti minorities died in 1942 and 1943.

Human rights activists at home and abroad denounced its existence and the center-left government of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka promised to find a solution before the end of his term this month.

The state bought the farm from the Agpi agricultural firm for 450 million koruna (18 million euros, $21 million) and will pay an additional 120 million koruna to clean the site.
Sponges teach scientists how to form glass without heat
The technology for forming and shaping glass requires the application of heat at extremely high temperatures. So how do some marine organisms form their own glass “skeletons” in cold water?

That mystery has now been partially solved by a team of Israeli and German scientists. And while the researchers admit that what the marine organisms are doing “is far beyond the abilities of current human technology,” further study may bring us closer to the ability to mimic the mechanism at room temperature in a lab.

The goal is to develop crystalline materials at the nano level for next-generation electronics.

The team, headed by Prof. Emil Zolotoyabko of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and colleagues in Germany, headed by Dr. Igor Zlotnikov from TU Dresden, used nano-tomography and focused X-ray diffraction at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France.

Understanding fully how the marine organisms work their glass magic would require multiple PhDs, but the basic principle is this: Two classes of sponges called Demospongiae and Hexactinellida build skeletons – called glass “spicules” – to provide them structural support and mechanical strength and to protect them from their environment. The tiny symmetrical spicules are just microns to millimeters long.
Falklands Islands to be protected by £78m missile shield after Argentina signs contract to buy new fighter jets
British defence chiefs have bought a missile shield to protect the Falklands as Argentina bolsters its air force.

The Sky Sabre system, which uses the technology behind Israel’s pioneering Iron Dome mobile air defence system, is capable of intercepting short-range rockets and artillery shells and will strengthen air defences around the South Atlantic territory.

The cutting-edge kit uses radar to track missiles, then software to predict the rocket’s path before deploying an interceptor missile to blow up the enemy weapon mid-air.

The command-and-control network will update outdated systems already stationed on the long-disputed Falkland Islands.

Details of the deal came after Argentina signed a contract to buy five Super Etendard fighter jets from France.

Armed with Exocet missiles, the jet was flown by Argentinian pilots during the Falklands War.

Britain defends the islands with a force including Typhoon jets, an offshore patrol vessel, a ground-based air-defence system and some 1,000 troops.

In 2015 the then Defence Secretary Michael Fallon announced the UK would spend £280m over the next 10 years on renewing and beefing up its defences.
Israeli ticket tech has sports fans cheering worldwide
Three-quarters of a million fans will have found their way to the Union of European Football (UEFA) Champions League matches by plane, rail and bus by the end of 2017, generating an estimated €237 million in tourism and travel revenue.

Sports tourism is large and growing fast, from a $1.41 trillion market in 2016 to a projected $5.72 trillion market in 2021, according to a recent study by Technavio.

Add to that the phenomenon of music fans flying around the world to see their favorite artists in concert, and you have a huge opportunity — not only in tourism and hospitality but also in ticketing. After all, everyone attending a match or show has to buy a ticket and it’s not always easy to do from abroad.

Here we look at three Israeli companies with unique high-tech solutions for different challenges in the ticketing space.
New group promotes Jewish-Kurdish alliance, Kurdish statehood
Several prominent Jews in Europe and North America joined an organization fostering Jewish-Kurdish friendship and supporting independence for Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Jewish-American lawyer Alan Dershowitz joined the honorary board of the Brussels-based Jewish Coalition for Kurdistan last month, along with Irwin Cotler, a former justice minister of Canada, and Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, two well-known hunters of Nazis from Germany, the group’s founder and president, Joel Rubinfeld, told JTA Wednesday.

Also on the honorary board of the coalition are Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Charles Tannock, a British lawmaker at the European Parliament and foreign affairs and human rights spokesman for the UK Conservative delegation.

The unveiling Wednesday of Rubinfeld’s group is among several high-profile actions in support of Kurdish national aspirations by Jews following the September independence referendum in Kurdistan, the autonomous region in northern Iraq.

On Friday, Bernard-Henri Lévy, a French-Jewish philosopher and longtime supporter of Kurdish independence, will attend a screening at the United Nations headquarters in New York of his documentary film on the subject titled “Peshmerga,” which is the Kurdish-language name of the Kurdish combatants. Levy is not a member of the Jewish Coalition for Kurdistan.
Hogwarts Science: Israeli Scientists Make Invisibility Cloak Breakthrough for Real
Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak just got one small step closer to reality thanks to Israeli scientists, who have made an invisibility cloak breakthrough for real. It’s still only on the nano level, but such a cloaking chip could be used on stealth aircraft, local optical camouflage or electromagnetic wave scattering.

The technological breakthrough, which was published in the Scientific Reports section of the journal Nature, only refers to manipulating light around a tiny chip, the sort you’d find inside an optical device at the nano level.

It’s also only a concept so far. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where the technology is being developed, commented that now the team needs to “overcome the significant challenge of developing a prototype.”

If they’re successful, the implications are wide ranging and exciting, even if it may never render a British wizard invisible long enough to escape He Who Shall Not Be Named.

The tech works like this: An “operational cloaking chip” deflects and scatters light away from the chip’s surface, so it is not detected. “The light does not interact with the object, thus resulting in the object’s invisibility,” explained Dr. Alina Karabchevsky, head of BGU’s Light-on-a-Chip group, a member of the BGU Electro-Optical Engineering Department and the Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology.
Thankful for Liberation From Nazis, French-Jewish Holocaust Survivor Donates $1 Million to Help US Military Veterans
A French-Jewish Holocaust survivor is donating $1 million to help US military veterans, the Sun-Sentinel reported on Wednesday.

A ten-year-old Bernard Darty was hiding from the Nazis in the commune of Sauvigny-sur-Orge when American troops liberated the Paris suburb on August 24, 1944.

Darty, now 83, recalled, “They were our saviors, doling out packets of sweets to half -starved, war-worn children who had almost given up hope of freedom.”

Darty and his wife Paulette — also a Holocaust survivor — have wintered in Miami Beach for the past two-and-a-half decades. Now, in appreciation of what the US military did for them, they are giving $500,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project and $500,000 to the American Red Cross.

“I want to thank Americans with all my heart for rescuing us during the war,” Darty said. “The gratitude I feel to these men is beyond words.”

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
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