Monday, July 09, 2018
PMW: Imagine if the London bombers had been Palestinian bombers
Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of the London bombings on July 7, 2005. On that day, Muslim terrorists detonated three bombs on London's Underground and a fourth on a double-decker bus. In the explosions, 52 people were murdered and over 700 were injured.Progressive Democrats increasingly criticize Israel, and could reap political rewards
Since its creation in 1994, the Palestinian Authority has spent billions of shekels rewarding and incentivizing Palestinian terrorism against Israelis, paying monthly salaries to imprisoned terrorists as well as monthly allowances to the families of the so-called "Martyrs," including suicide bombers.
If the London terrorists had been Palestinians who had carried out equivalent attacks in Jerusalem targeting Israelis, the PA would have already paid the families of the four terrorists a combined total of £142,680 pounds (687,200 shekels).
PA Minister of Education and Higher Education Sabri Saidam announced in November 2017 that the UK government had agreed to pay its annual contribution of 20 million pounds, which is "allocated to support the [PA] general budget of Palestine." [WAFA, official PA news agency, Nov. 25, 2017]
This allocation is only a fraction of the financial support the UK government provides to the PA annually.
In its 2018 budget, the PA allocated 680 million shekels from its general budget, predominantly to pay allowances to the families of thousands of dead Palestinian terrorist "Martyrs," including those who have carried out suicide attacks.
One of the Palestinian families who receives such payments is the family of suicide bomber Wafa Idris who carried out a suicide attack in the heart of Jerusalem in January 2002, murdering one and injuring over 100.
It was during the Obama administration that Democrats’ once-united position on Israel began to fragment. The tepid relationship between Netanyahu and Obama led to voters increasingly splitting along party lines on the issue, with Democrats growing unhappy with the connection between Republicans and the Israeli government.
Over the last few decades, a handful of left-leaning Democrats have previously shown open support for Palestinian causes and regularly criticized Israel’s political and military actions. Former Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia was arrested by Israeli authorities for her participation in an effort to send a flotilla to provide aid to Palestinians in circumvention of Israel’s 2009 Gaza blockade.
Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, has polled on American attitudes toward the conflict for over a quarter century. He believes that as public opinion has shifted on the issue, Democratic candidates have responded to their voters and have become less afraid of the repercussions of criticizing the Israeli government.
“Congressional candidates and politicians who embrace Israel or fail to criticize Israel will not be punished by and large by their constituents,” Telhami said. “Those candidates who take on the Israeli government’s specific policies could be rewarded.”
Public opinion polling shows that sentiments have indeed shifted, especially among Democrats. According to a Pew Research poll conducted earlier this year, Democratic voters sympathize about equally with the Israelis as the Palestinians, with sympathy for Israel dropping 16 percentage points in the last two years.
Telhami said Democrats have increasingly seen the conservative Israeli government as one that has an opposing set of values.
“Democrats, even separate from the partisan issue, have basically seen [the Palestinian] issue as part of their value system,” Telhami said. “They increasingly see their values as not a part of the values of Israel.”
Even as Democratic voters drifted away from their previous steadfast support for Israel, Democrats in elected office have been slower to follow their base. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has continued to take ardently pro-Israel stances, as he was one of just four Senate Democrats to vote against the Iran Deal in 2015.
Earlier this year, Schumer sponsored legislation that would criminalize boycotts against Israel that he has derided as “an anti-Semitic movement.”
Nevertheless, several Democratic candidates with ties to the party’s progressive wing have still faced some controversy for associations with causes critics deem “anti-Israel.” They have not, however, lost support from prominent Democratic officials and organizations. (h/t Jewess)
UN Watch today released "The UN & Antisemitism: 2008-2017 Report Card," at a terrific event hosted in the Israeli Knesset by MK @YairLapid. Speakers included Israel's Minister of Justice @Ayelet__Shaked, Opposition Leader @HerzogMK, Professor @IrwinCotler. https://t.co/ozb5dd855r
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 9, 2018
When FDR wanted to silence the Jews
Although American presidents do not enjoy being criticized, they usually have a healthy respect for their opponents’ right to dissent.'Farhud casualties could have exceeded 1,000'
Usually – but not always.
Seventy-five years ago this summer, president Franklin D. Roosevelt was poised to use the power of his office to silence American Jewish critics of his policies regarding Zionism and the Holocaust.
In late 1942, Roosevelt decided to send a personal envoy to the Middle East to canvass wartime Arab opinion, especially regarding the Palestine conflict.
The emissary he chose was Lt.-Col. Harold Hoskins of the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA), the Beirut- born son of American Protestant missionaries.
Hoskins delivered his report to the president the following spring. The primary threat to the stability of the region, he concluded, was “worldwide [Zionist] propaganda.”
Hoskins predicted that “if the issues of a Jewish political state and of a Jewish army continue to be pressed [by Zionist groups] at this time,” the Arabs would respond by instigating “a very bloody conflict” and would drag the Allies into it. This would plant “the seeds of a possible third world war.”
One of Hoskins’s supporters was Maj.- Gen. George V. Strong, head of the US War Department’s G-2 intelligence division. Strong claimed that any perceived American backing for Jewish statehood, for letting Jews enter Palestine, or even for just temporarily housing European Jewish refugees in North Africa, would provoke a Muslim “Holy War” that would “result in the death and destruction of several hundred thousand American soldiers.”
Lt.-Col. Hoskins advised the president that the only way to head off such a catastrophe was for the Allied leaders to issue a declaration that all “public discussions and activities of a political nature relating to Palestine” were endangering the war effort and therefore should “cease.”
The Mossad report of 17 July 1941 on the FarhudB'nai Brith celebrates defeat of libel suit
The Farhud pogrom of 1 and 2 June 1941 in Iraq could have claimed up to 1,000 Jewish casualties, according to a contemporaneous Mossad report.
The report, issued on 17 July 1941 after the Iraqi government had tried to suppress news of the pogrom, was apparently based on eye-witness testimonies and letters. It claimed that 90 Jews were murdered on the morning of the first day and many others were injured.
On the second day, the mob began to attack Jewish homes. "Police and military officers and students, moved from house to house, killing young boys and the elderly, without any mercy. Their actions were even more severe than of the Kishinev pogrom's killers. Jewish blood was nothing and poured like water. Besides the killing, there was looting and robbing of houses and stores," said the report, putting the total value of property lost at a million Israeli lira.
The report puts at 120 the number of Jewish patients poisoned in Iraqi hospitals. This would give a total of 210 deaths, exceeding the official estimates. But the report goes further: לפי אומדנא מגיע מספר ההרוגים והאבודים למעלה מאלף איש. ("According to estimates the number of dead and lost is greater than 1,000." )
B’nai Brith Canada is celebrating an Ontario Superior Court victory over former Green Party justice critic Dimitri Lascaris who was suing them for libel.In blow to anti-Israel profs, lawsuit against American Studies Association over BDS to stay in federal court
Justice Helen A. Rady dismissed the action on Thursday, citing Ontario’s 2015 “anti-SLAPP” legislation which “protects freedom of speech on matters of public interest” by fighting “Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation” — or SLAPP.
Lascaris, a lawyer, launched the libel suit because of an August 2016 article titled Green Party Justice Critic Advocates on Behalf of Terrorists.
The article said after meeting with the father of Palestinian terrorist Bahaa Alayan, Lascaris posted via social media that Alayan had been “killed extrajudicially by Israeli authorities.”
Lascaris argued in court there was no proof Alayan was involved in a terrorist attack when he was killed, despite a court verdict in Israel upholding the opposite.
Justice Rady ruled: “The test is whether a person could honestly believe that support for the Alayan family constitutes support for terrorists. The answer is yes.”
The American Studies Association (ASA) was the first, and so far the only, major American academic association to adopt the academic boycott of Israel, part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call to isolate and cut ties with Israel and Israelis.SPME: Email trail shows how anti-Israel zealots took over a mild-mannered scholarly organization
The fallout from the December 2013 ASA resolution was swift. The ASA action, which is considered a violation of academic freedom by the American Association of University Professors, was condemned by over 250 university presidents and numerous university associations.
ASA tried to exclude Israelis from its annual meeting in California, but the threat of legal action caused ASA to back down.
In April 2016, ASA and its leaders were sued in federal court in D.C. by other ASA members, claiming irregularities in the way ASA adopted the boycott, American Studies Association and its leaders sued over Israel boycott.
In late March 2017, a federal judge granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss the case, Judge: Lawsuit against American Studies Assoc over BDS can move forward. In November 2017, the plaintiffs sought to expand the lawsuit against ASA in an Amended Complaint. We reported on the attempt to expand the lawsuit at the time, Lawsuit: BDS movement engineered takeover of American Studies Association:
In December 2013, the American Studies Association adopted a boycott of Israel. The organization, which says it “promote[s] the development and dissemination of interdisciplinary research on U.S. culture and history in a global context,” banned ties to Israeli educational institutions.BDS calls for lacrosse team to withdraw from championship in Israel
The Israel boycott resolution was first approved by ASA’s leadership, known as the National Council. Then, due to low voter turnout, it was ratified by a mere 20 percent of the organization’s members.
Four distinguished ASA members have since sued the group and certain ASA leaders, claiming that the small turnout invalidated the vote’s result under the ASA’s bylaws and the District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act. The members also claimed that the boycott violated laws barring a nonprofit from acting outside its chartered purpose.
Even apart from these legal defects, the boycott is an embarrassment. It runs afoul of the principle of academic freedom; its adoption was immediately and harshly criticized by the distinguished 62-member Association of American Universities. And the exclusive focus on Israel smacks of anti-Semitism. The ASA has never boycotted any other country, either before or since.
But here’s the really interesting part: During the course of the litigation, lawyers for the plaintiffs uncovered information suggesting that the ASA’s anti-Israel boycott did not arise organically from within the organization. Rather, it resulted from a carefully planned hostile takeover by outside activists eager to use the ASA and its money to advance their hateful agenda.
Emails uncovered during the litigation point to a coordinated action led by organizers of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, working alongside Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the worldwide anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
The boycott Israel movement has set its sights on this week's World Lacrosse Championships in Netanya, calling on the Iroquois Nationals, a Native American team, to pull out of the competition.Teachers lose jobs for sharing anti-Israel views with students
The BDS movement attempted to spark sympathy among Iroquois people, according to an open letter on the movement’s official website in which it argued that both the Iroquois Confederacy and the Palestinian people “struggle for self-determination and against ongoing dispossession and colonization.”
The boycotters' letter claims that the Wingate Institute, a sports college and facility where most of the games will be held between July 12-21, is a settlement on Palestinian land, even though it is on sovereign Israeli territory, within pre-1967 lines.
According to the BDS letter, the Wingate Institute was “built on the lands of Khirbat al-Zababida, ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian inhabitants in 1948 as part of the attacks focused on clearing indigenous villages along the coast north of Tel Aviv.”
The BDS movement's founder, Omar Barghouti, has said that Israel has no legitimacy to exist as a Jewish state.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed two casualties at the pricey Riverdale Country School.PreOccupiedTerritory: Troll Commenting On Niche Jewish Website Definitely Winning Hearts And Minds (satire)
Two history teachers lost their jobs at the Bronx private school after a parental uprising over how they communicated anti-Israel views to students.
“We have looked into questions that were raised about the conduct of a very small number of faculty members and have initiated conversations with the faculty both broadly and specifically about the most effective and appropriate ways to deal with controversial subjects,” according to a letter to parents sent last week by Riverdale headmaster Dominic Randolph and board chairman David Westin. “As a result of these events, two faculty members will not be returning in September, and though the reasons are different, both are linked to this situation.”
The teachers were identified by a source as Shawn Redden and Joel Doerfler.
Controversy at the school erupted in May after Israeli soldiers killed 60 Palestinians at the Gaza border. The terror group Hamas has said most of those killed were its members.
Redden, according to one parent, went on a classroom tirade against Israel and verbally attacked students. Redden told The Post he hadn’t attacked anyone.
An internet user who devotes time to posting incendiary comments to articles on a Jewish website with a modest following believes he has come closer to accomplishing his goal of raising public awareness of Jewish misdeeds, the man disclosed in an interview this week.Comparing BBC coverage of fires in England and Israel
The anonymous troll told PreOccupied Territory that he devotes some time each day to checking the site, which focuses on Jewish culture and political issues affecting the Jewish community and Israel, for new content. If new content has appeared since his last visit, the man looks for a reason to submit a comment denigrating Jews as a group, Israel as a country, or mentioning people of Jewish extraction whose actions can be portrayed in a negative light and used to reflect negatively on Jews in general.
“I’m definitely making an impact,” he assessed. “I don’t know the traffic numbers, but everyone who scrolls far down on the various articles so that the comments are visible will definitely see my contributions, and they’ll walk away knowing something they didn’t before about how sinister the Jews are.”
Of special importance, he stressed, is the moniker he chooses to fit the content of his comments. “I like to call myself a member of whatever group should feel most threatened by the content on which I’m commenting,” he explained. “So, for example, if the article can be construed to be dissing African-Americans, I’ll choose either a black-sounding name or just the generic ‘a black guy’ and then proceed to spam the page with my drivel.”
“Alternatively,” he continued, “I will call myself ‘goy’ or something and go one about Jewish cabals and ethnosupremacism and what have you. Truth is I don’t really have to address what’s in the article to make my point – if the article discusses something unrelated, I just accuse the author, or the site, of neglecting to discuss, or trying to distract from, what’s actually important, namely Jewish perfidy and power.”
Readers may recall that last month we documented the BBC News website’s first ‘reporting’ on the arson attacks upon agricultural land and nature reserves adjacent to the Gaza Strip which have been going on since April.BBC Radio 4’s peace process tango for one – part one
BBC News finally mentions Gaza arson attacks – in just sixteen words
“…sharp-eyed visitors to the BBC News website’s Middle East page on June 7th may have noticed that a photograph captioned “Flaming kites sent from Gaza during the protests have burnt 2,250 acres of land in Israel” was included in a report titled “Israel blames Iran for Gaza border violence“.”
The only additional reference to that terrorism that visitors to the BBC News website have seen since then came in a report published on June 20th in which readers were initially told that:
“The military said Iron Dome missile defence system intercepted seven rockets fired by militants. Kites carrying containers of burning fuel were also sent into Israel, the military said.”
According to the old adage it takes two to tango but an edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Analysis’ – which self describes as a “programme examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics” – managed to disregard that maxim throughout the overwhelming majority of its 27 and a half minutes.BBC Radio 4’s peace process tango for one – part two
Titled “The Middle East Conundrum” and presented by Edward Stourton, the programme – aired on July 2nd and repeated on July 8th – was described in the synopsis as follows:
“Edward Stourton asks if there any chance of a long-term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tensions have been rising following the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the deadly clashes at the border between Israel and Gaza. The peace process – if it exists at all – seems to be in deep freeze. The idea of a two-state solution does not appear to be getting any closer, while a one-state solution would effectively mark the end of a Jewish state. Does Israel have a long-term strategy?”
As Stourton admitted early on, this programme did not even try to give audiences an objective and balanced view of the reasons why the ‘peace process’ has failed to make inroads after so many years and that editorial decision in itself is a topic for discussion. The quaint view that only Israel needs to have “a long-term strategy” because it is “a fully functioning state with military superiority” clearly deliberately ignores the very relevant fact that no such process can succeed without leaders on both sides being committed to its aims.South Carolina becomes first state to adopt uniform definition of anti-Semitism
But even given the programme producers’ bizarre decision to present a one-sided narrative, crucial elements of the story were omitted. The history – which of course includes three full-scale wars initiated by Arab countries attempting – unsuccessfully – to eradicate the Jewish state – is highly relevant to audience understanding of the background to the conflict, as are decades of Palestinian terrorism that peaked when peace seemed to be on the horizon.
The Palestinian Authority’s ongoing incitement to violence, glorification of terrorism and payment of salaries to convicted terrorists is also a crucial part of the picture, as is Iranian funding of Palestinian terrorism. And no less relevant of course are the proposals put forward by Israeli prime minister Olmert and US president Clinton which the Palestinians refused.
While this Radio 4 portrayal presented Palestinians as being in favour of the two-state solution but turning to the one-state option out of disillusion, notably it failed to inform BBC audiences of the crucial context of the Palestinian Authority’s continued rejection of the demand to recognise Israel as the Jewish state – and thus bring an end to any future claims.
South Carolina became the first state to adopt a uniform definition of anti-Semitism, but it is only on the books for the next year.Swastikas discovered in Connecticut town
The definition is contained in a proviso to the annual state budget bill, which was signed into law on July 6.
Under the measure, universities must take the definition into account when reviewing charges of discrimination or bias.
Efforts earlier this year to pass a permanent version of the law were frustrated when concerns about an impingement on free speech hindered its advance in the Senate.
The proviso uses as its template the State Department definition of anti-Semitism, which includes as anti-Semitic calls for violence against Jews, advancing conspiracy theories about Jewish control, and Holocaust denial. It does not target speech, only unprotected conduct such as harassment, assault, and vandalism, according to StandWithUs, an Israel education organization that operates on college campuses, which in a statement praised Governor Henry McMaster for signing the proviso.
“We need to define anti-Semitism in order to defeat it. Thankfully, South Carolina is leading the way,” Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, said.
Swastikas were discovered carved into picnic tables in the Connecticut town of Ridgefield, JTA reported on Sunday.Illinois gov. calls on voters to ‘vote for anybody’ but neo-Nazi
The swastikas were discovered last month, according to local reports.
This is not the first time that swastikas have been found in Ridgefield.
In January, five swastikas were found drawn outside the Masonic Lodge and Aldrich Museum. Swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti also have been a recurring problem at Ridgefield High School, where a swastika and racist and anti-Semitic graffiti were found in March of 2017.
Ridgefield is a bedroom community near the city of Danbury and about an hour from New York City.
The governor of Illinois, who called on a neo-Nazi candidate for a Chicago-area congressional seat to drop out of the race, has called on voters to “vote for anybody” else.Group of Syrians suspected of assaulting Jewish man in Germany
Last week, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner denounced Arthur Jones, also a Republican and a former leader of the American Nazi Party, but declined to endorse the opposing Democratic candidate or recommend a write-in candidate for the 3rd Congressional District seat.
His response differed from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a former presidential candidate, who in a tweet had called on Illinois voters to “write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat” running against Jones.
On Thursday Rauner clarified in a tweet: “To the voters of the 3rd Congressional District: vote for anybody but Arthur Jones. Nazis have no place in our country and no one should vote for him. For the media or anyone else to suggest I think otherwise is offensive and irresponsible.”
A group of Syrians is suspected of assaulting a Jewish Syrian man wearing a Star of David necklace in Berlin on Saturday.Drama about Holocaust denial takes top prize at Czech film festival
The 25-year-old victim said he got into an argument after asking a group of men and women for a cigarette lighter in the German capital's central Mitte district.
He said one of the men spotted the Star of David and launched an anti-Semitic tirade, ultimately punching him.
The victim ran away but was chased and then punched and kicked by several people in the group.
Three women and seven men aged 15-21 – including six Syrians and three German nationals – were detained in the park after passersby intervened on behalf of the victim, who was later hospitalized for his injuries.
The German daily newspaper Welt reported that all the suspects involved were Syrians.
The suspects were released after several hours in custody pending further investigation.
Amid the raging controversy over Poland’s Holocaust legislation, a film about Romanian Holocaust denial won the top prize at the Karlovy Vary International film festival on Saturday.US veterans get smoother wheelchair ride with tech twist from Israeli startup
PM Netanyahu welcomes Poland's Holocaust law change, June 27, 2018 (GPO)
"I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians," a drama directed by Romanian Radu Jude, focuses on a young theater director in present-day Romania.
The character, Mariana, seeks to stage a show about the real-life massacre of hundreds of thousands of Jews by Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu, in collaboration with Adolf Hitler. But while staging the show in the present day, Mariana encounters government censorship, all sorts of attempts to whitewash history and lingering antisemitism.
The title, “I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians,” is taken from a 1941 speech by Antonescu justifying the mass murder of Jews.
“The reason one looks in history, I think what it is for me, is always to find a connection with something from the present,” Jude said during a red-carpet interview at the festival. “This film deals with the memory or lack of memory, or the possibilities of representation of the ethnic cleansing done by the Romanian Army.... You look at today’s Europe, and you see racism and antisemitism and negationism and a lot of those things. So a story from that time is relevant.”
The film festival, held in the Czech Republic, also gave the prize for best actor to Moshe Folkenflik for his role in the Israeli film Geula. That film features a former rock and roll star turned Orthodox Jew who discovers his young daughter, Geula, is gravely ill.
The movie, directed and written by Joseph Madmony and Boaz Yehonatan Yacov, had its world premiere at the festival last week. In addition to the best actor prize, Geula, stylized as Redemption in English, received the ecumenical prize for its depiction of religious themes. Folkenflik did not pick up his prize in person, since he is Shabbat observant.
US army veterans can now get a smoother ride on their wheelchairs thanks to technology developed by a Tel Aviv-based startup that is giving a high-tech twist to the wheel.Two Israeli firms seek to cash in with Dead Sea cannabis cosmetics
The US Department of Veterans Affairs has already approved the supply of some 361 wheelchairs outfitted with wheels developed by SoftWheel, which have a flexible shock absorption system built into the wheel itself, allowing for better stability and a smoother ride without sacrificing speed. Some 1,639 additional wheelchairs will soon make their way to other US veterans, as part of a deal between a VA-approved manufacturer of wheelchairs and SoftWheel, to supply 2,000 sets of shock-absorbing wheels over a period of three years.
This is the largest deal to date for the Tel Aviv firm, said Hanit Marinov, the head of marketing and sales at SoftWheel. The firm, which was set up in 2011, employs 34 workers and has production facilities in Haifa and in Canada.
Each set of wheels costs $2,500, and the US Veterans Affairs will fully reimburse the expense, she explained. The deal was struck with Key Mobility, a wheelchair manufacturer that produces the chairs for the VA, she explained.
Israel’s Together Pharma Ltd., a manufacturer and distributor of medical cannabis, has signed an agreement with local skincare firm Premier Dead Sea Cosmetics Laboratories to cooperate in the creation of a line of therapeutic and cosmetic products that combine Dead Sea minerals with the cannabidiol compound, CBD, extracted from cannabis plants.Ozzy Osbourne casts his heavy metal spell over mesmerised crowd
As part of the accord, the two companies will set up a joint venture that will be based in Europe, according to a filing on Monday to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, where Together’s shares are traded.
Premier will supply the joint company with creams based on Dead Sea minerals, while Together will supply the joint company with the CBD compound derived from cannabis.
CBD is a non-psychoactive antioxidant extracted from the cannabis plant that is rapidly gaining importance due to its numerous benefits to humans’ overall well-being. Unlike THC, which is the part of the cannabis leaf that makes you high, CBD is a nontoxic, anti-inflammatory substance that is very well tolerated by the body with few side effects, researchers say.
The deal will come into force only when the companies find that CBD can indeed be integrated into the cosmetic products of Premier, to the satisfaction of both parties, the filing said. Testing of the compound has already started at a Permier facility in Italy.
The two companies estimate that the manufacturing of the joint products have a “big marketing potential,” the filing said.
Israel has been getting used to British royalty recently. A couple of weeks ago, Prince William paid us a visit and charmed the nation. Tonight, it was British royalty of a very different kind that arrived. Ozzy Osbourne is known as the Prince of Darkness and the Godfather of Heavy Metal. He created the genre almost single handed in the 1970s with his band Black Sabbath and throughout the 1980s and early 90s during his solo career. On Sunday night, the 69-year-old played a truly memorable set to a raucous 20,000 sell-out crowd at the Rishon Lezion Live Park in the Israeli leg of his Farewell Tour.
The stage set included a giant crucifix-shaped LED which displayed roaring flames and various other psychedelic effects during the show. There were also giant screens to show hazy footage of the performance and laser displays. All this added to the atmosphere. But it was Osbourne himself and his well-oiled band of supremely talented musicians that ripped the night to shreds with a magnificent belting performance.
The show started with a very short montage of photographs on the screens of Osbourne as a young boy and then through different stages of his career, before the band launched into the first song of the night, “Bark at the Moon”.
Too many these days will only know Osbourne as a mumbling bumbling caricature of himself from his MTV series The Osbournes in which he starred with his wife Sharon and two of their children. To many more, including everyone who came to the show on Sunday night, Osbourne is a living legend, a rock icon and the last of a dying breed. We came to see this man of heavy metal nobility for maybe the last time and we were not left disappointed.
Excellent show in Israel @OzzyOsbourne. The Mossad thanks you. pic.twitter.com/6jowh3ZJ7j
— The Mossad (@TheMossadIL) July 8, 2018
David Guetta returning to Israel
David Guetta, one of the most influential and well-known DJs in the world, will be returning to perform in Israel this fall.Israeli emergency response team heads to Japan floods
The French-born musician will be coming back to the Holy Land for a show on September 29 at the Rishon Lezion Live Park. It will be five years since Guetta's last performance in Israel, at 2013's Dead Sea Rave at Masada.
The 50-year-old musician is known for a slew of hit songs, including "Without You," "Sexy Bitch," "Titanium" and more. He has collaborated with Usher, Sia, Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars among others. The music video for "Hey Mama" has topped 1.2 billion views on YouTube since it was released in 2015.
Several months after his Masada show, Guetta released a 12-minute video titled "A Party 424 Meters Under the Sea."
"I'm really amazed by the place. It is a real symbol in Israel and I think for the world too," he said in the video. "It's a big symbol of resistance."
Israeli humanitarian aid organization IsraAID deployed an emergency response team to western Japan Monday, two days after torrential rains and floods began.Mind-blowing 1,600-year-old biblical mosaics paint new picture of Galilean life
JISP, IsraAID's Japan branch, will distribute urgent relief items and is assessing the medical and post-trauma psycho-social needs. IsraAID staff is equipped to provide Psychological First Aid and mental health support for evacuees.
Over two million people were ordered to evacuate their homes during the search and rescue efforts. There are 95 reported fatalities and dozens are still missing. According to reports from IsraAID this is one of the worst weather-related catastrophes since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The severe floods have left many stranded travelers and residents, including Israelis.
One such Israeli, Dana Eisenberg, said "people walked around five streets just to cross the road. I was already soaked in water so I crossed the road in that river. People in cars looked at me with admiration for my 'courage.' I almost fell into the water, because the current was too strong."
In its eighth dig season, the vibrant mosaic flooring of a fifth century synagogue excavated in the small ancient Galilee village of Huqoq continues to surprise. The 2018 Huqoq dig has uncovered unprecedented depictions of biblical stories, including the Israelite spies in Canaan.Gal Gadot is real-life superhero as she visits children's hospital in Wonder Woman tiara and bodysuit
With its rich finds, the Byzantine-period synagogue busts scholars’ preconceived notions of a Jewish settlement in decline.
“What we found this year is extremely exciting,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Prof. Jodi Magness told The Times of Israel, saying the biblically based depictions are “unparalleled” and not found in any other ancient synagogue.
“The synagogue just keeps producing mosaics that there’s just nothing like and is enriching our understanding the Judaism of the period,” said Magness.
A recently unearthed mosaic shows two men carrying between them a pole on their shoulders from which is hung a massive cluster of grapes (the same as the easily recognizable symbol of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism). With a clear Hebrew inscription stating, “a pole between two,” it illustrates Numbers 13:23, in which Moses sends two scouts to explore Canaan.
She delighted viewers around the world as the lead in last year's Wonder Woman.
And Gal Gadot brought the joy live and in person to Inova Children's Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia this weekend - in full costume as the superhero.
Dr. Lucas Collazo, who works at the pediatric medical center, tweeted a sweet photo of the 33-year-old actress surrounded by a group of his colleagues.
'The kids loved it': Gal Gadot visited Inova Children's Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia this weekend in full costume as Wonder Woman,
'Thank you @GalGadot for visiting us @InovaHealth Children’s Hospital. You are a true Wonder Woman. The kids loved it...and so did the staff. #wonderwoman84,' he wrote above the picture.
His hashtag referred to the upcoming film Wonder Woman 1984, which is due out next year and is named after the year in which it is set.
The official Inova Health Twitter account quoted the doctor's tweet and wrote: 'We are so honored that #WonderWoman stopped by to visit the kids and caregivers at #InovaChildrensHospital! Thank you @GalGadot. #ForTheKids'.
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