Tuesday, April 10, 2018
PMW: To avenge the Crusaders’ defeat by Muslims, the West created Israel
Israel is a “colonialist satanic plant”Gaza is nothing like Selma
“This Zionist project is a temporary project”
The West created Israel:
- “to get rid of the problem of the Jewish ghetto”
- “to settle accounts with the Arabs... over the defeats [Arab Muslims] inflicted on the Crusaders”
- to serve “global capitalism’s goals and plans to take control of the resources of the Arab nation’s peoples”
Israel - “the colonialist satanic plant” - will not survive because the “Zionist project... is a project that rejects life”
The Palestinian Authority continues to deny Israel’s historical right to exist, claiming Israel is merely a colony of the West created illegally and it is destined “not to survive.” In an op-ed by a regular columnist in the official PA daily, Israel is described as “the colonialist satanic plant in the region on the ruins of the Palestinian people’s Nakba.” The Nakba or “the catastrophe,” is the Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel:
“The owner of the project of Israel is the West, the entire capitalist West, and the fact that there are differences of opinion and even criticism between the capitalist bodies... does not in any way mean that they have a disagreement about protecting and perpetuating the status of Israel - the colonialist satanic plant in the region on the ruins of the Palestinian people’s Nakba - and providing all of its monetary, financial, security, and logistic needs.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 5, 2018]
In his op-ed, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul lists reasons why the “capitalist West” wanted to use the Jews as “a tool to carry out the colonialist project in the warm Arab bosom,” among them the wish to get rid of the Jews. The PA and Fatah have repeated this claim numerous times as Palestinian Media Watch has reported.
“1. Getting rid of the problem of the Jewish ghetto;
2. Settling accounts with the Jews on the part of the Christians in the Anglo-Saxon West given religious and financial-monetary considerations;
3. Serving global capitalism’s goals and plans to take control of the resources of the Arab nation’s peoples...
4. Fragmenting the Arab parties of unity and power to settle accounts with the Arabs, the owners and pioneers of the Islamic Arab culture, for the defeats that they inflicted on the Crusaders, and also to prevent their development, unity, and so forth...”
Lastly, the PA daily’s writer insists that Israel is “temporary,” claiming “its Anglo-Saxon owners” will stop supporting it when it “becomes a burden.” He predicts the State of Israel will cease to exist because the “Zionist
project... is a project that rejects life”:
When Hamas organized a “March of Return” on March 30, like the producers of a theatrical production, leaders of the terrorist group and their foreign enablers waited to see the returns from their investment and how it would fare with the critics. Given the deaths of as many 17 Palestinians and the willingness of the foreign press to blast Israel for defending its border, they had to be satisfied with both.Sohrab Amari: Feminists for Sex Trafficking
Though the second iteration of the march this past Friday yielded smaller crowds and fewer casualties, Hamas appeared to be equally pleased with the sequel. The reason was in large measure due to the uncritical coverage their efforts generated from news organizations such as The New York Times, which downplayed or even refused to mention the point of the “return” or to accept the Palestinians’ claims that what they were doing was an example of a successful nonviolent protest in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts to fight segregation in the United States.
That was the conceit of a piece labeled “news analysis” that appeared in the Times Sunday edition, giving the march a rave review in which it lauded participants for their “enthusiasm.” Yet the willingness of the paper to embrace the King analogy calls into question more than the veracity of its reporting. King’s legacy was very much in the news this past week as the nation commemorated the 50th anniversary of the civil-rights leader’s murder. However, if his achievements are to be compared to a march devoted to fighting a cause he supported— Zionism—and to depict an effort that was inherently violent as nonviolent, then we are forced to ask how the Times and other outlets that echoed this theme define human rights or nonviolence.
The Palestinian narrative about the marches being nonviolent that the Times embraced was contradicted even by its own reporting. The Times’s accounts of both the March 30 and April 6 events largely ignored what “return” means in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. They also treated videos of the “demonstrators” shooting and hurling Molotov cocktails at Israeli troops as a matter of dispute, even though the evidence from both sides of the fence indicated that what was going on was hardly peaceful.
The Women’s March was founded in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, with the aim of “dismantling systems of oppression” and “building inclusive structures guided by self-determination, dignity, and respect.” Yet since then, the group has been mired in controversy over its unsavory associations, a Who’s Who of hard-left radicals and haters, including Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Lenin Peace Prize winner and friend of East Germany Angela Davis, and convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Yousef Odeh.
Monday brought more reasons to doubt the March’s commitment to one of the groups it claims to speak for: abused and exploited women and girls. How else to explain the March’s decision to denounce the recent U.S. government crackdown against the website Backpage?
On Friday, federal law enforcers seized the website and raided the Arizona home of one of its founders. That action followed months of pressure from lawmakers and activists, who alleged that Backpage facilitates prostitution and the trafficking of women and girls. Backpage earlier this year removed its adult section, but many of the same postings migrated to other parts of the site. According to the New York Times, some ads “included what child advocates said were code words for underage girls, including ‘Amber Alert.'”
Backpage and its founders will have their day in court; they deserve a presumption of innocence. Even so, it speaks to the Women’s March’s strange ideological priorities that the group rushed to defend Backpage on Twitter: “The shutting down of #Backpage is an absolute crisis for sex workers who rely on the site to safely get in touch with clients. Sex workers rights are women’s rights.”
Come again? The rights of the prostitution industry–for that is what we are discussing, a vast and seedy global enterprise–most certainly don’t override the rights of exploited and abused women and girls. Or at least, they shouldn’t, in a morally ordered worldview. As the feminist U.K. journalist Julie Bindel noted in a landmark Spectator report last year, euphemisms such as “sex work” and “happy hooker” mask a grimy reality: “Women and girls in prostitution are overwhelmingly from abusive backgrounds, living in poverty, and otherwise marginalised. They are not free or empowered: they are abused and trapped. . . . It is not ‘sex work’. Most of the time, it is modern slavery.”
Shlomo Toren: If you were an Israeli sniper near Gaza, you would shoot too
Soldiers on the border are in a constant state of both tedium and stress. They watch and they wait and sometimes, and actually only rarely, they are forced to act. A sniper some 300 or 400 yards away from the fence sees people, but they seem far away and far from being people with dreams and desires. In a sniper scope, the Gazan near the fence is an enemy, a potential threat, and a target. A skilled sniper, depending on the scope and the range, can be quite accurate. But we have no information on the essentials here. We know neither who (neither sniper nor target), when, nor even exactly where.The anti-Semitism problem Corbyn created
What we do have is a damning soundtrack. An officer pointing out the target — and at one point ordering the sniper to hold his fire because a child or minor is too close to the target, a laconic sniper, complaining that he does not have a clear shot, and the spectator. The unknown soldier that appears to regard shooting a person as no different than one looking on as a hunter shoots a boar. We can and should be embarrassed. Humans are not game animals. Yet we should also not be too outraged. Did we expect someone to cry? Or have we forgotten that it is sometimes the soldier’s lot to shoot and kill?
There is a famous Golda Meir quote that comes to mind:
When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.
Our soldiers did not choose to sit on the border with Gaza in order to prevent terrorists from infiltrating and harming our civilians. Israeli soldiers do not sneak into civilian homes to slit the throats of small children, as Arab terrorists have done all too often. Our society doesn’t lionize those who hurt the helpless. Unfortunately, our enemies both murder our children, celebrate the murders and then make heroes of the murderers. Our soldiers protect us and it is our responsibility to support them, not attack them.
Israelis pray that one day we will no longer have to shoot at those near the border fence with Gaza, but that choice is also one that the Gazans themselves must make. They can pursue peace, or, at a minimum, stay away from the fence. As Golda said, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Corbyn’s resilience indicates the extent to which anti-Semitism has become normalised on the British Left. Its majority of feckless “moderate” MPs notwithstanding, Labour has become what the 2016 parliamentary report warned it would: institutionally anti-Semitic. Indeed, given its size and sway as the second largest political party in one of the world’s leading democracies, it is no exaggeration to say that Labour today is the most influential anti-Semitic institution in the Western world. David Irving, who is certainly more virulent in his Jew-hatred, lives in disgraced obscurity; the BNP just lost its last councillor; Hizb ut-Tahrir is closely monitored by the security services.Israel’s Labor cuts ties with Jeremy Corbyn, citing anti-Semitism in Labour
That Labour has reached such a nadir is a remarkable thing to behold, given how, until the Corbynistas took control, it was considered a welcome, if not the natural, political home for Jewish Britons.
But as long as Labour is led by a man who validates the conviction that he and his supporters are victims of a Jewish conspiracy, its members will feel no compunction doing things like telling a local Jewish politician he is “trying to take down JC like the Jews took down Jesus.” Such comments are vile in and of themselves, but after the events of the past two weeks, they will gain political valence. For the narrative is already taking shape that if Labour loses future elections, you-know-who will be to blame.
Writing in the Daily Mirror, no less a party grandee than former deputy prime minister John Prescott pitted “malnourished children with grey skin filling their pockets with food from the school canteen” and “a woman dying of a heart attack after waiting 35 hours in a hospital corridor” against “Labour rebels” who “hold back the change the country needs”. The subtext was clear: pushy Jews and their questionable agendas are the one thing standing between this “Dickensian” nightmare and socialist utopia.
Jeremy Corbyn’s continued leadership of the Labour party is endangering the future of Jewish life in Britain. The only thing more appalling is that so few Britons care.
Israel’s opposition Labor party said Tuesday it was suspending relations with British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of showing hostility to the Jewish community and allowing anti-Semitic statements and actions from his party officials.Nick Griffin Throws Support Behind Corbyn
Labor leader Avi Gabbay sent a letter to Corbyn informing him of the decision. The suspension of ties applies only to Corbyn’s office and not the party as a whole.
“It is my responsibility to acknowledge the hostility that you have shown to the Jewish community and the anti-Semitic statements and actions you have allowed as leader of the Labour Party UK,” Gabbay wrote.
“This is in addition to your very public hatred of the policies of the Government of the State of Israel, many of which regard the security of our citizens and actions of our soldiers — policies where the opposition and coalition in Israel are aligned.”
Acknowledging the long history of friendship between the two parties and their previous leaders, Gabbay said that on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day he had no choice but to halt all formal relations with the British opposition leader.
Far Left and Far Right meet one another over Assad’s chemical weapon use.
Well then again Piers Corbyn did get caught chilling with Holocaust deniers.
IF he sticks to his guns then for 1st time in my life I will vote #Labour - right now NOTHING is more important than resisting the psychotic rush to #WW3 of Boris & the #neocons Corbyn refuses to blame Assad for chemical attack in #Syria https://t.co/ifxqeFlqvd via @MailOnline
— Nick Griffin (@NickGriffinBU) April 9, 2018
Senior European rabbi: Jews could flee UK if Corbyn elected PM
A senior European rabbi has warned that, should UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn be elected prime minister, many Jews could flee the country.Debunking antisemitic conspiracy theories
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, told The Times: “If the Jewish community feel they can only be assured of their future and feel safe if one party is in government, and the other party will make them feel less safe and secure, this is a problem and puts the Jewish community in a new situation where, before every election, everything is to be questioned.”
He said that if the leader of France’s far-right National Front were to become the leader of France, “thousands of Jews” would likely decide to leave the country. “I don’t want to make a parallel between British Labour and the French National Front, but if Jews feel there’s a certain party which they feel very concerned about, which does not respect its presence within Great Britain and does not seek its security and its future, then you might have something very similar.”
Corbyn has been accused of not doing enough to deal with what is seen as a serious problem of anti-Semitism in his party. He has himself faced questions about his own links to known anti-Semites, past comments on Israel, and associations with vehemently anti-Israel figures.
Throughout the Islamic world, conspiracy theories against the Jewish people are quite common. From an Israeli eagle in Lebanon to an Israeli shark off the coast of Egypt, conspiracy theories claiming that animals are in fact spies are common occurrences. In the wake of this atmosphere in which conspiracy theories against Jews have become the norm in the Islamic world, I myself fell victim to an antisemitic conspiracy theory.Dublin council calls to expel Israeli ambassador, endorse BDS
Not too long ago, I wrote an article for The Jerusalem Post titled “Now is the time to act against Iran.”
Islamist groups in Turkey that are associated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were outraged by the article. Akit News published an article titled “An arrogant declaration from an Israeli journalist,” in which it claimed that both Israel and the US were planning on helping the mainly Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG. It asserted, “During the days that the terrorists are wiped out from the Turkish borders [Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist organization], journalist Rachel Avraham betrayed American and Israeli secret plans. Avraham says to give air support to the YPG will help close the corridor from Iran to the sea and the status of the region may change in the favor of Israel and the US.”
First of all, most of my article spoke about Iran, not Turkey. The main purpose of the article was to take a stance against Iranian aggression in the Middle East and to promote the idea of both America and Israel assisting their Kurdish allies. All that was said related to Turkey was that the Kurds are weaker after Turkey and its Islamist allies attacked Afrin and the surrounding areas, but that this damage can be undone with Israeli and American air support. It never said that Israel and America should support the YPG.
Personally, I support the Kurds as a nation and any Kurdish group that is struggling for a democratic and more humane society. Based on this definition, I do support the YPG in its struggle against ISIS in Syria, but I do not support PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) suicide bombing attacks against Turkish civilians. Nevertheless, the Turkish article claimed that I support terrorists against the Turkish state, which is simply not true.
Furthermore, my ideas and opinions do not represent the position of the Israeli government. Israeli officials often speak about the importance of preserving the June 2016 reconciliation agreement with Turkey. While Israel did support Kurdistan’s independence referendum last September, the Israeli government never made a declaration that it would defend the Kurds in Syria or that its support for an independent Kurdistan implies Turkish areas would be included in such a state.
Dublin’s city council this week passed two resolutions endorsing the anti-Israel boycott movement and calling on the national government to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland.Irish Students, Teachers Endorse Boycott Campaign Against Israelis
As a result of those votes, Interior Minister Arye Deri said Tuesday that he would bar the city’s first Lord Mayor, Mícheál Mac Donncha, from entering Israel. Mac Donncha, a member of the leftists Sinn Féin party, was planning to attend a conference on the status of Jerusalem in Ramallah, at the invitation of the Palestinian Authority.
One of the two resolutions passed by the Dublin City Councillors read: “Since its violent establishment in 1948 through the ethnic cleansing of more than half of the indigenous people of Palestine, the state of Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights and has refused to comply with international law.”
The resolution, proposed by leftist Councillor John Lyons, goes on to level various accusations against Israel before stating that “this City Council fully supports and endorses the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement for freedom, equality, and justice.”
The text further states that Dublin will cut all business ties with Hewlett-Packard, arguing that the technology giant ”provides and operates much of the technology infrastructure that Israel uses to maintain its system of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people.”
The Union of Students in Ireland voted last Thursday to join the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, shortly after the country’s largest teachers’ union expressed support for the movement.Democracy dead at NUS as BDS passes without vote
The student body — which represents 374,000 members in universities in Ireland and Northern Ireland — passed the motion at its annual congress in Galway, with some 250 students voting.
The measure called on USI to support an academic boycott of Israeli higher education institutions, mark Palestine Solidarity Day, and teach its members about “the background to the situation in Israel/Palestine.”
It also urged the termination of university contracts with, and divestment of funds from, companies accused of complicity in “the occupation of the Palestinian territories and violation of Palestinian human rights more widely.”
“The students of Ireland have today made the historic decision to support the people of Palestine,” USI President Michael Kerrigan said.
A day earlier, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) unanimously passed a resolution at its own annual congress, which noted “with concern the reported human rights abuses perpetrated on a daily basis against Palestinian school children.”
Speaking at a pro-Palestine rally opposite Downing Street, NUS representative Ilyas Nagdee said:'Despacito' video hacked, captioned with 'Free Palestine'
“My name is Ilyas Nagdee and I am here today representing a union that has seven million members, seven million members who have decided to stand on the side of justice. Two weeks ago at our National Conference our students voted to continue adopting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions on the state of Israel for the continuous occupation of Palestine. We voted to stand on the side of justice“
NUS’s BDS policy was set to lapse at this year’s National Conference. There were no motions put forward to reaffirm this policy and therefore the policy lapsed. So why is Nagdee claiming that there was a vote to continue endorsing BDS?
Prior to the rally Nagdee tweeted:
So it would appear that NUS passed BDS via the back door. This doesn’t sound very democratic to us.
Nagdee claimed he was representing “seven million members who have decided to stand on the side of justice”. How many of that membership voted? How many of that membership know what BDS is? And how many care? Certainly not the seven million Nagdee claimed.
Ubiquitous Latin pop song by Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee "Despacito," Youtube's most popular video of all time, was deleted from the website by hackers on Tuesday, according to a report by the Independent.IsraellyCool: Anti-Israel Celebrity Numbskull of the Day: Lauren Jauregui
The hack appears to have been executed by a group that has claimed to hack countless Twitter accounts, including those run by news organizations as recently as last week. "Despacito" and many other popular videos have had their title replaced with the words "Hacked by Prosox & Kuroi'sh."
The words "Free Palestine" also appeared under the videos.
Then "Despacito" disappeared entirely, though it is unclear if that was the work of the hackers or Youtube action.
The video has since been restored, including all its comments and views.
Lauren Jauregui is an American singer, best known as a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony.PreOccupiedTerritory: Man Can’t Decide Whether Congress Controlled By NRA, Oil, Or AIPAC (satire)
She also fancies herself as a social justice warrior.
This is what Lauren Jauregui tweeted yesterday.
Sending prayers and light to the innocent tortured souls in Gaza. The world should be ashamed that we turn our backs on genocide and would rather point fingers at each other to evade responsibility. The children are being bombed & we’re all silent. I’d say we’re all responsible.
— Lauren Jauregui (@LaurenJauregui) April 9, 2018
I am not sure if she is referring to the recent March of Return riots or in general – there certainly was no bombing at the riots – but I assume the March of Return “inspired” her to speak out like this. Assad’s chemical weapons attack in Syria on innocent children (which happened after the March of Return)? Not even a peep from her.
A radio personality known for his support of progressive politics voiced confusion today over different axiomatic assertions of his world view that now appear in conflict with one aother.For 3rd time in 5 months, UKMW prompts Daily Mail correction to “Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital” claim.
Stan Davage, a talk radio program host who favors a ban on guns and sides with Palestinians against Israel, expressed his consternation this afternoon that while one set of progressive ideals leads him to the conclusion that the National Rifle Association all but owns most Republicans – and several Democrats – in the Senate and House of Representatives, another, equally important set of progressive values has him reasoning that the entire legislative branch of government is controlled by the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“They can’t both be true,” he stated aloud during a commercial break. “Either the NRA controls Congress, or AIPAC does. It can’t be both. They’re not the same people.” He then noticed that he often accuses Congress of being in the pocket of other, unrelated industries or groups, many of which have no substantial connection to Israel.
In fact, he observed, Israel’s gun laws are stricter than in most US jurisdictions. “It doesn’t compute,” Davage continued. “I’m not one to go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and claim one is behind the rest, especially since a visible, vocal chunk of the constituencies of each group are sworn enemies of the others. I mean, that would be a great way to throw off suspicion, but let’s be real.”
It’s actually extraordinary that, following literally dozens of UKMW prompted corrections to this error over the years, UK media outlets are still erroneously characterising Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital. The latest example appeared in the headline accompanying an article in the Australian edition of the Daily Mail:Two months on, BBC still qualifying Iranian drone story
We contacted editors, who promptly upheld our complaint – under the terms of Australian Press Council’s Statements of General Principles – and revised the headline accordingly:
In November 2017 and February 2018 and we prompted corrections to Daily Mail articles which included variations of the same error regarding Israel’s capital.
As readers may recall, one notable feature of the BBC’s coverage of the infiltration of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace on February 10th 2018 was the corporation’s unnecessary qualification of the event.Career Diplomat Felix Klein Appointed as Germany’s First Federal Commissioner to Combat Antisemitism
“The Israeli military says a “combat helicopter successfully intercepted an Iranian UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] that was launched from Syria and infiltrated Israel”.
It tweeted footage which it says shows the drone flying into Israeli territory before being hit.” [emphasis added] BBC News website
“Israel’s military, the IDF, released this footage from one of their helicopters. They say it shows an Iranian drone flying over Israeli territory.” [emphasis added] BBC News website
“…the Israelis have a very different narrative of the events of the past 24-36 hours and for them the original provocation was the flying of this drone over their territory.” [emphasis added] BBC World Service radio
At the same time, BBC reports also amplified Iranian disinformation.
“Meanwhile Iran and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon – which are allied with the Syrian government – dismissed reports that an Iranian drone had entered Israeli airspace as a “lie”.” BBC News website
“Iran denied it had sent a drone into Israel and defended the Syrians’ right to self-defence.” BBC News website
The German federal government has appointed career diplomat Felix Klein as its inaugural commissioner in a newly-created, high-profile post dedicated to combating antisemitism in the country.
Klein’s appointment on Sunday was welcomed by international Jewish organizations, who are familiar with him from his previous post as the head of the German delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and its special envoy for relations with Jewish organizations.
“Over the last four years, Dr Klein played a pivotal role in Germany’s efforts to combat antisemitism, drawing wide attention to the very real threats experienced by Jewish communities across Europe, to the dangers of far-right extremism, and to the importance of preserving the memory of the Holocaust,” World Jewish Congress Executive Vice President Robert Singer said in statement on Monday.
The statement pointed out that Klein had played a pivotal role in Germany’s adoption in November 2017 of the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism — which explicitly addresses the demonization of Israel and Zionism — setting an example for other European countries.
The creation of the commissioner post was initially called for by the German Parliament in January, following a spate of antisemitic incidents in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. At one demonstration organized by Muslim groups in Berlin, chants of “Death to the Jews” were reported, along with the spectacle of burning Israeli flags. New legislation targeting antisemitism both within the Muslim community and on Germany’s growing far right included the provision for an antisemitism commissioner.
Egyptian Journalist Dr. Hoda Zakariya: The Scope of the Holocaust Is Just a Rumor pic.twitter.com/gv2RWmlDH0
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 10, 2018
Singapore’s Public Transit System to Incorporate Israel-Based Ride Sharing App
The Tel Aviv- and New York City-based ridesharing pioneer Via has been selected by Singapore’s Land Transit Authority (LTA) to incorporate on-demand technology into Singapore’s public transit system.Israel’s ReWalk turns focus to stroke victims with cheaper walking device
Via’s app-based technology connects multiple passengers who are headed the same way, allowing riders to request a ride in real time and seamlessly share a dynamically-routed vehicle. As part of the awarded contract, Via will demonstrate how its on-demand transit technology will enable buses to be deployed and dynamically routed according to real-time commuter demand.
“Singapore is at the forefront of mobility innovation in the region, and we are thrilled to see Via’s technology in Southeast Asia for the first time.” says Daniel Ramot, Via’s cofounder and CEO.
Launched in 2013 in New York. Via has been tapped by cities and transit authorities in the United States and around the world to help re-engineer public transit from a regulated system of rigid routes and schedules to a fully dynamic, on-demand network.
Most recently, Via has launched on-demand transit services in Arlington, Texas; Queenstown, New Zealand; and Newcastle, Australia, with operations in Berlin, Los Angeles and West Sacramento coming later this year.
ReWalk Robotics Ltd., the Israeli developer of a robotic exoskeleton system that helps the paralyzed to walk, has started a clinical study of a new product that will aid the rehabilitation of people who have suffered a stroke.Palo Alto Networks buys Israeli cybersecurity firm Secdo
The company said that a first study participant began using a new “soft exo-suit system,” the ReStore, which is meant to rehabilitate individuals with lower limb disability due to stroke. The patient was at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where the study is being led by a team of researchers from the Boston University College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College.
The study seeks to enroll 40 participants at five of the top rehabilitation hospitals in the US, the company said in a statement last week.
“Launching the clinical study is a crucial step forward in the effort to offer the ReStore as a commercial product for the rehabilitation of stroke survivors worldwide,” said ReWalk CEO Larry Jasinski in the statement. Spaulding is a renowned rehabilitation facility, he said, and the trial will help patients access this cutting edge technology.
The device, which was unveiled in 2017, is the second product line from ReWalk. It represents the company’s next step in its efforts to develop technologies to serve patients with various forms of lower limb disabilities. It will also allow the still loss-making company, whose shares are traded on the Nasdaq exchange, to expand its offering to a wider market — the stroke population — that that served by its ReWalk exoskeleton, which is aimed at helping paraplegics — those with spinal cord injuries — walk.
The ReStore product is less bulky and less heavy than the ReWalk frame, said Jeff Dykan, the chairman of ReWalk, in a phone interview. And it is also less expensive.
Palo Alto Networks Inc., a maker of cyber security firewalls, said Tuesday it has entered an agreement to buy Israel-based cyber security firm Secdo.Jewish-American WWII soldiers endured anti-Semitism as they fought the Nazis
Details of the transaction were not released, though the Israeli financial website Calcalist estimated the deal at around $100 million, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Secdo develops software meant to help security teams cut the incident response time to minutes, through automation, and respond to attacks without affecting business continuity.
Large companies get thousands, or tens of thousands, of security alerts every day, most of which are false positives. Investigating these alerts involves collecting evidence after the fact, which is slow and leaves security teams overextended. Secdo addresses this gap in incident response by continuously and automatically collecting data from all endpoints in the system, e.g., if someone has connected to a specific IP through Microsoft Word on their laptop. Secdo’s system investigates alerts automatically using the collected data, and provides users with a full analysis.
CTO Gil Barak, left, and CEO Shai Morag, right. (courtesy)
The Ra’anana, Israel-based company was founded in 2015 by Gil Barak and Shai Morag, both of whom served in the Israeli Army’s elite 8200 intelligence unit. The firm has raised to date some $11 million, according to the database of Start-Up Nation Central.
“GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II” begins as many Holocaust documentaries do, with a history of the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany mixed with what is now standard archival footage of Brownshirts and Kristallnacht. Throw in interviews with some Jewish celebrities — in this case, Carl Reiner and his friend Mel Brooks wearing his old Army jacket — and it has all the workings of a typical PBS documentary.Holocaust museum dedicates classroom in honor of Jewish author
But the film, which premieres April 11, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, quickly takes an unexpected turn. Jewish-American soldiers, the viewer learns, weren’t only fighting Nazis during the war — they had to battle the anti-Semitic prejudice of many of their fellow soldiers.
All told, some 550,000 Jews served in World War II. A few had experienced anti-Semitism at home already in the form of “Gentiles Only” signs, for example, which were found at some public facilities across the country.
Mimi Rivkin, one of the 10,000 Jewish women who enlisted, a future member of the Women’s Army Corps, recalled a more personal incident in public school: “Suddenly kids weren’t playing with me. I asked one why and she said, ‘The teacher told us you’re a Jew and we’re not supposed to play with you.’”
But for the most part, these soldiers were immigrants or the children of immigrants who lived in largely Jewish urban areas, and it was a major culture shock for them to suddenly hear anti-Semitic slurs from their peers. In one case, a Jewish Marine chaplain assigned to accompany combat units was asked to conduct an interfaith service following the battle of Iwo Jima — until his fellow chaplains objected, forcing the military to conduct three separate services.
A classroom at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. will be dedicated in honor of author Amy Krouse Rosenthal.New York congresswoman to introduce Holocaust education bill
Rosenthal, the author of more than 30 books, died last year after a battle with ovarian cancer, ten days after The New York Times published her column titled “You May Want To Marry My Husband.”
The classroom, which will be dedicated this week, was supported by a $1 million donation from Ann and Paul Krouse, the author’s parents, the Forward reported. The Krouses have been benefactors of the museum though out its 25-year-history.
No Krouse family members were killed in the Holocaust. They became supporters after attending a fundraiser featuring actress Liv Ullmann, who is not Jewish. They decided then that if a famous non-Jewish person could show her public support of the museum that they should too, according to the Forward.
“I’ll be thinking of Amy with love, and missing her, but proud that there’s something representing her at the museum,” Ann Krouse told the Forward.
A New York congresswoman is set to introduce a bill to the US House of Representatives this week aimed at increasing and improving Holocaust education in the United States.How diplomacy helped save lives during the Holocaust
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, announced on Monday that she had partnered with Jewish advocacy groups to craft the Never Again Education Act, legislation designed to give American teachers the “resources and training” to teach the Holocaust more effectively.
She is set to formally announce the measure on Tuesday in New York City, alongside representatives from B’nai B’rith International, the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America and the Association of Holocaust Organizations.
The proposed bill comes during annual Holocaust Remembrance Week.
It also comes as anti-Semitic incidents in the United States have notably surged in recent years. According to the Anti-Defamation League, such incidents jumped 57 percent from 2016 to 2017.
The FBI has also reported an increase in overall hate crimes, with 2016 marking a five-year high. The agency’s data found that there were 381 anti-Muslim crimes reported last tear (a 20% rise from 2015) and 834 anti-Jewish crimes (a 16% rise from the previous year).
The American Jewish Committee brought together ambassadors from Lithuania, Belgium and Sweden to Jerusalem, where on Monday night they explained how their countries’ diplomatic teams helped save thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust.Fewer Jews in the world today than on eve of the Holocaust
The Jerusalem Report Editor-In-Chief Steve Linde moderated their panel discussion at the fourth annual AJC event ahead of Holocaust Remembrance day on Thursday.
Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Edminas Bagdonas opened the discussion by holding up a map of Lithuania and explaining that during the Holocaust, “85% of Lithuania’s Jews were killed in brutal ways.”
In contrast to the lives lost, Bagdonas recounted how in 1939, Japanese ambassador Chiune Sugihara and Dutch ambassador Jan Zwartendijk, both of whom were based in Lithuania, saved at least 2,000 Jewish lives by simply issuing visas and travel documents to their countries.
“By getting a visa to Japan, Lithuanian Jews were able to travel to Moscow by train,” he explained.
“From there, Vladivostok, [from] where it was a relatively short trip to Japan, [and] from Japan, South America or the United States.”
“In two weeks [after the Nazis occupied Belgium],” said Belgian Ambassador to Israel Olivier Belle, “the world fell apart.”
According to data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Holocaust Remembrance Day, more than 70 years after the Holocaust, the number of Jews in the world is still lower than before the outbreak of the Holocaust in 1939.IDF Blog: A unique celebration for Israel and the IDF’s 70th anniversary
According to these figures, there are currently only 14,511,000 Jews in the world, compared with 16,600,000 Jews who lived in the world on the eve of World War II.
The number of Jews today is similar to the number of Jews in the world in 1922, that is, 96 years ago, when around 14 million Jews lived around the world.
About 85 percent of world Jewry currently live in the two largest Jewish population centers, Israel and the United States.
The largest Jewish population today is in the State of Israel, where some 6.45 million Jews live, while the second largest Jewish population is in the United States, where 5.7 million Jews live.
Other prominent Jewish populations include France (456,000), Canada (390,000), Britain (290,000), Argentina (181,000), Russia (176,000), Germany (117,000) .
A number of exciting events will take place to celebrate Israel and the IDF’s 70th Independence Day. The IAF will hold an aerial show featuring a collection of aircraft from the IAF, Israeli commercial airlines, the fire-fighting unit, and Israeli Police. The IDF’s Paratroopers Brigade will also parachute from the planes, landing on the beaches of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and the Sea of Galilee. During the aerial show, the IAF’s main bases will be open to the public to view a variety of exhibitions. The IDF’s military partners will also join the IAF aerial show, including fighter planes from Greece and Italy, and cargo aircraft from Poland, Canada, England, and Austria.Yom HaShoah
Simultaneously, a Naval fleet including submarines, cruise ships, a naval helicopter, and vessels from the Navy’s elite commando unit, Shayetet 13, will sail along the Mediterranean Sea from North to South. The Naval expedition will begin in the morning in the port of Haifa, will pass along the coast of Tel Aviv, and will complete its journey in the port of Ashkelon in the South. Throughout the event, the Navy vessels will remain in close proximity to the coast so that the event can be viewed along the country’s beaches.
The traditional Air Force flight will take place as part of the IAF's annual training program, and will pass over 40 cities in between the northernmost point of Israel in Kiryat Shmona and the southernmost point in Eilat. Dozens of IAF aircraft will be participating this year, including fighter jets, attack-helicopters, and cargo aircraft. Additionally, aircraft from Israeli airlines El Al and Arkia, and aircraft from the fire-fighting unit and Israeli Police will be partaking in the show.
The background of today's image is the New York Times May 7 1943 report of the Warsaw Uprising.
The Jewish holiday of Yom HaShoah ( Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day) is a national day of commemoration in Israel, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and the Jewish resistance to the Nazis are memorialized.
In Israel, it is a national memorial day. On the evening which begins the observance, there is a state ceremony at the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Authority, Yad Vashem. At 10am on the day of Yom HaShoah, air-raid sirens are sounded and people across the country stop what they are doing and stand at attention in respect of the fallen.. Places of public entertainment are closed and flags on public buildings are flown at half mast.
The original proposal was to hold Yom HaShoah on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the date of the Warsaw ghetto uprising (April 19, 1943), but this was problematic because the 14th of Nisan is the day immediately before Passover. The date was therefore moved to the 27th of Nisan, which is eight days before Yom Ha'atzma'ut,(Israeli Independence Day)
Lost dog identified thanks to singing talent
Police found an emaciated Siberian Husky near Beer Sheva – and identified the owner through the dog's gift of song.
The policemen were carrying out an assignment at the Bedouin town of Tel Sheva when they spotted a group of youths accompanied by the Husky, who was obviously malnourished. The youths claimed that they had only just found the dog, in an open field.
One of the policemen noted that the dog fit the description of a dog that had recently been reported lost by a resident of Beer Sheva's Ramot neighborhood. They took the canine to the station, gave him water and tended to him.
They then contacted the owner and asked him to come and see if the dog is his. He told them there was an easier way to know the answer to that question: All they needed to do was to play the dog the theme music to a old Israeli sitcom, "Shemesh", or to the children's cartoon called "Arthur". (h/t Yenta Press)
הכלב האבוד הזה זוהה על ידי המשטרה, בהמלצת בעליו, בדרך הכי מושלמת שאי פעם שמענו עליה: השמיעו לו את השיר מתוך 'שמש' - והוא התחיל לשיר (!!) https://t.co/PJu1ANOFbP pic.twitter.com/oAOVn9rCFm
— החדשות (@NewsChannelIL) April 9, 2018
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