U.S. Companies Need Relief from BDS Pressure
The 1977 Export Administration Act, which I helped author at President Jimmy Carter's direction, prohibits American companies and individuals from participating in unsanctioned boycotts against U.S. allies, including Israel. For four decades, the law has been upheld by the courts.Sanders, Feinstein Urge Opposition to Anti-BDS Bill
Recently, U.S. companies have been facing the aggressive politics of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is working against Israel through international governmental organizations (IGOs).
For three years, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), operating under a mandate from the UN Human Rights Council, has been working to create a database of companies that conduct business beyond the "green line," including east Jerusalem and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Companies that appear on such a list may be subject to new, unsanctioned boycotts.
In response, bipartisan legislation is pending to address this new challenge, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (IABA). The IABA is carefully crafted to update the 1977 legislation by extending the prohibition against complying with boycotts to cover boycott-related activities by IGOs like the UN or the EU.
Some have raised free speech objections to the new legislation. However, like the 1977 legislation, the IABA exclusively targets commercial conduct only, not political speech or activities. U.S. courts have consistently ruled that regulating these commercial activities does not violate the First Amendment.
All the IABA does is follow the constitutional authority that underpinned the 1977 legislation by prohibiting U.S. individuals and companies from providing requested information to an IGO to assist in its efforts to further a boycott against a country friendly to the U.S. The IABA protects American companies from being pressured by IGOs.
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to not include the Israel Anti-Boycott Act into an upcoming spending bill.
Sanders and Feinstein argued in a letter that they are against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but the Israel Anti-Boycott Act is at odds with the First Amendment.
“Federal district courts in Kansas and Arizona have similarly considered state laws that target political boycotts of Israel and found them to violate the First Amendment,” Sanders and Feinstein wrote. “For example, in Jordahl vs. Brnovich, the court held in granting a preliminary injunction, ‘The type of collective action targeted by the [law] specifically implicates the rights of assembly that Americans and Arizonans use ‘to bring about political, social, and economic charge.’”
The senators also criticized the bill for cracking down on “certain constitutionally-protected political activity aimed solely at Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”
“At a time when the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government is pursuing policies clearly aimed at foreclosing the two-state solution, it is deeply disappointing that Congress would consider penalizing criticism of those policies,” Sanders and Feinstein wrote.
Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project, told the Journal in an emailed statement that Sanders and Feinstein are “mistaken” about the bill violating the First Amendment.
Chloe Valdary: Why Zionism Is Not Like Pan-Africanism and White Nationalism
In a piece titled “Zionism, Pan-Africanism, and White Nationalism,” author Shaul Magid argues that because Zionism was a “lodestar for other minority attempts to solve the problem of the limits of ethnic self-determination,” it is, therefore a racialized movement that can offer freedom but never equality.
There are several problems with his analysis, which I will attempt to explain in full below.
Magid correctly points out how Zionism was a model for the beleaguered African-American community, beginning with Pan-Africanist Edward Blyden’s feeling of inspiration after reading Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaadt. The twin messages of self-empowerment and chosenness proved especially compelling to a people constantly told by the dominant society that they were less than nothing and attracted black leaders from W.E.B. Dubois and Marcus Garvey to Stokley Carmichael.
But in many ways, this is where the similarities end. Although a message of self-actualization and unique destiny are part of the Zionist creed, there are other ideas within statist Zionism that make it incompatible with the notions of racial purity contained in Marcus Garvey and Louis Farrakhan’s Black Nationalism.
For starters, while Zionism concerns itself with a particular ethnic group, it does not concern itself with a particular race insofar as race connotes skin color. And this speaks to the inherent contradictions within the very concept of black nationalism. On the one hand, a call for black nationalism via a separatist movement would naturally be attractive to a people persecuted by the dominant society. On the other hand, the black experience is, ironically and paradoxically, an American creation. The shared history, culture, and collective experience of black Americans is one that is bounded by and fixed within an American construct. In this way, black American culture cannot be separated from its American roots, and calls for black nationalism are rooted in an unsolvable contradiction.
NGO Monitor: ICC Lobby Group’s Embarrassing Account of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
The Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) is the most powerful non-governmental organization (NGO) group involved in lobbying the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ). Founded in 1995, CICC boasts that it comprises over 2,500 member organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH).Nation of Islam receiving federal cash to teach prisoners
The “Palestine” section of the CICC’s website features an account of the Arab-Israeli conflict that reflects a stunning ignorance of basic history and current events, to understate the case. Publishing such blatantly wrong information calls into question the organization’s ability to provide credible reports to the courts and the public.
The CICC’s highly inaccurate summary states, in full:
“The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the longest running in modern history. Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, violence erupted between Israeli armed forces and Palestinian armed groups. During the first and second intifadas in the late 1980s and early 2000s respectively, mass violations of international law occurred, with civilian casualties on both sides. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled to neighboring countries, where many remain in refugee camps. Gaza saw a recurrence of violence in April 2014 after the collapse of US-led peace negotiations. The death of two Palestinian teenagers and the subsequent abduction and death of three Israeli teenagers led to the launch of an Israeli military campaign into Gaza (Operation Protective Edge). The conflict caused a high number of civilian casualties. Between June and November 2014, over 2,000 Palestinians and 70 Israelis were reportedly killed, and more than 11,000 Palestinians and 1600 Israelis injured according to reports by the UN Refugee Agency and others.”
The Nation of Islam and its leaders have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U.S. government since 2008 to teach religious study programs for federal prison inmates, according to records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.Labour's NEC Drops South Thanet Candidate Over Hitler Tweets
A black nationalist group led by Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam preaches that white people are “blue-eyed devils” and Jews are “the synagogue of Satan." Its leaders have received at least $364,500 in contracts and awards from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2019.
The funding was designed to provide "Nation of Islam religious services," "Nation of Islam spiritual guide services," "Nation of Islam study services," and other related programming led by the organization’s leaders, according to Bureau of Prison records. The Nation of Islam has been labeled a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
New York Republican Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, told the Washington Examiner the funding was "beyond the pale."
He said: "Categorically, no group or entity or individual associated any way with Farrakhan or the Nation of Islam should receive any federal funding. What Farrakhan preaches is hatred and anti-Semitism and racism, and to use any federal money for any group that’s he’s involved with that do any type of teaching or proselytizing is just wrong."
Yesterday Labour’s NEC decided not to endorse Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt as a candidate on the basis that she had brought the Labour Party into disrepute. In a late night posting on Facebook she blamed Guido for her demise as a candidate:Ivan Lewis Quits Labour With Damning Resignation Letter to Corbyn
“The NEC’s decision was taken on the basis of three tweets that were posted from the Centre for Cultural Change Twitter account, run by a group of academics, to which I occasionally contributed well before I decided to stand as a parliamentary candidate. The Centre for Cultural Change tweets were in no way intended to imply that antisemitism doesn’t exist in the Labour Party. They were taken out of context on the right-wing Guido Fawkes hate blog to imply that I was antisemitic.”
Well you can judge for yourself why the NEC really dropped her as a candidate by reading our original story where she attacked, for example, the “zionist sympathies” of John Bercow and asked “Has anyone looked into Hitler’s policy on Zionism?” Credit where credit is due, Guido was not convinced the new NEC would take decisive action. The prospect of her fighting a crucial target swing seat obviously focused minds…
Former Government Minister and Bury South MP Ivan Lewis has resigned from the Labour Party over Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to tackle anti-Semitism in the party, saying he “could no longer reconcile my Jewish identity and current Labour politics”. Lewis has been suspended from the Labour Party for twelve months over harassment allegations but accuses the party of a “politically motivated delay” to his investigation, claiming that the party had never interviewed him over the complaints and chosen not to move forward with his disciplinary process “for political reasons”.Alice Walker: Antisemitism claims are 'smears' against my BDS support
Lewis accuses the Labour leader of sacking him “by text message after I had asked to meet with you to discuss anti semitism” and is severely critical of both Corbyn and Seumas Milne:
“It is for others to determine whether you are anti semitic, but what is absolutely clear is that you and Seumas Milne do not believe in the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their own state. This is different to your view on the right to self-determination for every other minority community… To compound this, all too often you have been unwilling to condemn those whose hatred of Israel becomes Jew hatred…
“Your long standing preferences are for the values of Putin’s Russia and the Islamist fundamentalism of Iran. It is no wonder that so many British people are uncomfortable at the prospect of you becoming Prime Minister…”
Following days of criticism over her endorsement of a rabidly antisemitic author, writer Alice Walker spoke out on her web page about the controversy.New York Times Book Review Editor Defends Alice Walker Interview
Walker, the acclaimed author of The Color Purple, said she does "not believe" that David Icke "is anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish." Rather, she said, the recent outrage over her comments to The New York Times are an attempt to silence her support of the Palestinian people.
Last week, Walker was featured in The New York Times "By the Book" column, where she said she was reading And the Truth Shall Set You Free by Icke. The book is a known antisemitic tract which denies the Holocaust and claims Jews are to blame for antisemitism, among other conspiracy theories. Many were outraged that The New York Times printed Walker's recommendation without any qualifier about the nature of Icke's work.
In a post on her website on Wednesday, Walker said the book is "very important to humanity’s conversation, especially at this time," and said that Icke is "brave enough to ask the questions others fear to ask, and to speak his own understanding of the truth wherever it might lead."
Walker said that the "attempt to smear David Icke, and by association, me, is really an effort to dampen the effect of our speaking out in support of the people of Palestine."
The editor of The New York Times Book Review, Pamela Paul, is pushing back against criticism that she helped to promote an antisemitic book.American Lutheran In Jerusalem Affirms that IDF Soldiers Are “Stormtroopers,” Backtracks
The magazine Tablet sparked a furor about the issue on Monday with an article by Yair Rosenberg headlined, “The New York Times Just Published an Unqualified Recommendation for an Insanely Anti-Semitic Book.” In a series of tweets and in an interview with The New York Times “reader center,” Paul argued, in essence, that the Times itself wasn’t promoting the book, but that it was providing readers a valuable service by exposing the proclivities or antipathies of the person who did recommend it, the author Alice Walker.
“What people choose to read or not read and what books they find to be influential or meaningful say a lot about who they are,” Paul said in the reader center interview. “If people espouse beliefs that anyone at The Times finds to be dangerous or immoral, it’s important for readers to be aware that they hold those beliefs. The public deserves to know. That’s news.”
Asked by the reader center whether, in retrospect, she would have handled the Walker “By The Book” column any differently, Paul responded, “No. Readers have certainly learned something about the author and her tastes and opinions. I think it’s worthwhile information for them to know. Our readers are intelligent and discerning. We trust them to sift through something that someone says in an interview, whether it’s the president or a musician or a person accused of sexual harassment, and to judge for themselves: Do I agree with this person?”
Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith is a pastor at the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. She ministers to the English-speaking congregation that meets at the Lutheran church, which is located in the Old City of Jerusalem. She is also listed as “special assistant to the Bishop” of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. Her husband is Rev. Dr. Robert O. Smith who used to work for the University of Notre Dame’s Jerusalem Global Gateway before he stepped down from this position in June. (More about him below.)
In a recent discussion on Facebook, one of Ballenger Smith’s friends referred to Israeli soldiers standing guard near Damascus gate in the Old City of Jerusalem as “stormtroopers.” Ballenger Smith’s friend declared, “nothing about Zionist stormtroopers is ‘normal’.”
In response, Ballenger Smith declared “exactly!”
Upon being challenged by an Israeli expert in Christian-Jewish relations, Ballenger Smith backtracked a bit, declaring, “I didn’t use that word but am affirming that nothing about the situation is normal. Should have clarified.”
Here is a screenshot of the Facebook conversation:
Swastika, Feces Found at Kent State University; Jewish Student Group Denounces ‘Act of Hate’
Police are probing an incident of vandalism involving a swastika at Kent State University in Ohio.Dutchman rants about Jews during pro-BDS rally
On Monday morning, custodians at the school found a swastika on a glass window at Satterfield Hall, alongside feces on the floor and broken microwaves, English department head Robert Trogdon told KentWired.
The vandalism is believed to have taken place on Sunday evening. The swastika and feces have since been removed.
“It looks to be mischievous criminal damage,” a spokesperson for the university told The Algemeiner on Wednesday.
The Hillel at Kent State — which is currently on winter break — said it was “shocked” to hear about “this act of hate, vandalism, and anti-Semitism that occurred on our campus.”
“We are in communication with our partners at Kent State, the [Anti-Defamation League], and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland to combat this hate and ensure an action like this does not ever occur again,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday.
A Dutch watchdog against anti-Semitism complained to police about a far-right activist who inveighed against Jews during an anti-Israel protest at a monument for victims of Nazism.
The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, complained against Finidi Fares, a man in his twenties who was filmed Sunday at a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement rally at Amsterdam’s Dam Square.
“You people have no respect for goyim,” Fares told a counter protester, Michael Jacobs. The Hebrew-language word denotes non-Jews, but also peoples or nations. “The Jews are the enemy of all people,” Fares added.
Fares was filmed against a Palestinian flag while posing alongside Simon Vrouwe, a local leader of the BDS movement against Israel. Vrouwe has said that Jews do not deserve a country because they are not a real people.
"The Jews are the enemy of all people." Last weekend, the Christian far-right activist Finidi Fares made horrible antisemitic comments om Dam Square, next to our national WWII monument.
— Hidde J. van Koningsveld (@koningsveld) December 18, 2018
It's not the first time! When will the municipality take action? @CIDI_nieuws filed charges. pic.twitter.com/HpISW2OCjS
3 arrested for vandalism of Penn State U fraternity’s menorah
Three men were arrested for the theft and vandalism earlier this month of the nine-foot menorah in front of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house at Penn State University.Tim Blair: WALEED ALY’S NEVER BEEN MORE ANGRY AND SHAKEN
The incident took place on December 2. A member of the fraternity attempted to stop the men as they vandalized the menorah and was assaulted, according to a criminal complaint, the student newspaper The Collegian reported.
A total of five men affiliated with or visiting another fraternity house were involved in the incident, according to State College Police.
The menorah was valued at $1,800. ZBT is a traditionally Jewish fraternity.
The three arrested men, ages 19 and 20, were charged with theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and criminal mischief.
Poor Waleed Aly. Apparently the tragic drama baby was once strip-searched by Jews.NGO Monitor Podcast: "Human Rights & Hot Coffee"
Think of it as a mere irritant, Waleed. You know, just like the nice Islamic terrorism that as you say “kills relatively few people and is not any kind of existential threat”.
For the record, I was strip-searched when entering Israel in 2007. No big deal. I was directed into a room, asked to remove all outer clothing, had a few swabs runs over my skin, answered a bunch of questions and that was it. The whole process took maybe 15 minutes. Considering Israel’s terror-threat situation, this was no problem at all.
I’ve also been given the private-room strip-search treatment at a few other airports. In Paris I requested it but was declined. Those French chicks are picky.
On NGO Monitor’s “Human Rights and Hot Coffee” podcast, we discuss Israeli current events through the lens of human rights, international law, humanitarian aid, and international relations.Rights groups call for Facebook board overhaul for ‘weaponizing anti-Semitism’
Episode 5: How should the Israeli government approach the Diaspora? What voice should the Diaspora have on affairs in Israel? How should governments address antisemitism?
Dozens of civil rights groups on Tuesday called on Facebook to purge Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg from its board for blunders including “weaponizing anti-Semitism.”State Journal-Register Corrects About West Bank Pre-1967
Advocacy and rights group took direct aim at Zuckerberg and Sandberg for Facebook enlisting Definers Public Affairs to conduct research on company critics.
“You retained the services of Definers Public Affairs to investigate, undermine and attack our allies, mimicking the tactics of the worst, disreputable political operatives and hate groups,” read the letter.
“It’s an absolute disgrace that Facebook sought to deflect criticism and discredit advocates by exploiting anti-Semitic campaigns against philanthropist George Soros.”
The letter called on Zuckerberg and Sandberg to step down from the Facebook board as long as they serve as top executives, and to expand the board with members reflecting the social network’s diverse global community.
The 32 groups signed to the letter included Arab American Institute; Bend the Arc Jewish Action; Freedom From Facebook, Media Matters for America; MomsRising; MoveOn NAACP; National LGBTQ Task Force, Southern Poverty Law Center, and The Sikh Coalition.
CAMERA yesterday prompted correction of an article appearing in the State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill.), which inaccurately reported that “Israel claimed the West Bank from the Palestinians in the 1967 Middle East War.” In fact, prior to the Six Day War in 1967, the West Bank was under Jordanian control.BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ Gaza Strip special – part four
The Dec. 12 article (“Illinois investment boards says Airbnb West Bank action is illegal“) had originated with the Associated Press. The wire agency apparently caught the error almost immediately, and the corrected version, which appeared in numerous news sits, accurately reported: “Israel claimed the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War.“
For whatever technical reason, the corrected AP story did not make it to the site of the Springfield paper. In response to communication from CAMERA, editors commendably amended the article, which now correctly reports that “Israel claimed the West Bank from Jordan,” not the Palestinians. In addition, editors posted the correction to the top of the story, alerting readers to the change: “This story was updated to correct the circumstances of Israel claiming the West Bank.”
David then went on to promote the notion that terrorism and violence are the inevitable result of unemployment.BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ Gaza Strip special – part five
David: “And going forward, how concerned are you by the situation ahead because – as you say – we have a crisis here in humanitarian terms and it is affecting in particular the young and that means rising tensions.”
After Tchaidze had outlined the difficulties of “coming up with a precise forecast” David closed the interview.
As we see, by the time listeners were half-way into this programme they had heard three remarkably uniform opinions from officials from UNRWA, the World Bank and the IMF. They had not however heard any differing views of the notion that the solution to Gaza’s economic troubles is “opening up access to Israel both for goods and for some workers” and they were told absolutely nothing about relevant factors other than Israeli counter-terrorism measures.
In other words, the BBC took a complicated topic and reduced it to a simplistic politically motivated narrative by airbrushing a plethora of relevant factors from audience view.
As we see Husain’s nine main questions to the group in Gaza included two questions relating to the future, two about Hamas and/or the PA, four about personal experiences and opinions and just one about “Israelis on the other side”.Brussels Jewish Museum terror suspect appears in court
Notably Husain failed to challenge statements made by her interviewees regarding “the Israeli occupation” and “the siege” – neither of which exists in the Gaza Strip. When one of the speakers alleged that he had seen Israel ‘kidnap’ Palestinians at the fence “by force”, Husain’s reaction was “Well I mean I should say that Israel regards everything that is happening close to the fence as a threat to its security”. And when the final speaker complained that Israeli politicians are “still looking at Gaza as they are terrorists”, Husain had no comment to make.
That, by the way, was the sole mention of the word ‘terrorists’ throughout the entire seventy-five minutes of Mishal Husain’s BBC Radio 4 broadcast from the Gaza Strip.
An alleged French terrorist accused of returning from Syria and shooting dead four people in a jihadist attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels appeared in court Thursday.‘Fake News #MAGA’ sign planted with arrow pointing to Texas Holocaust museum
Mehdi Nemmouche, allegedly the first foreign fighter to return to stage a terror attack on European soil, is charged with murder in the May 24, 2014, attack.
Since then there have been several deadly attacks in both France and Belgium by terrorists connected to or inspired by movements like the Islamic State jihadist group.
Belgium’s State Security intelligence agency warned last month of a possible new wave of violence from fighters radicalized in prison or Middle East conflicts.
The 33-year-old confirmed his identity in the Brussels criminal court alongside his alleged accomplice, fellow French citizen 30-year-old Nacer Bendrer.
“Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, no profession,” said the young man, with a thin beard and a dark jumper, who was brought to court under tight security.
No pleas were submitted at what was a pre-trial hearing, but defense lawyer Sebastien Courtoy said Nemmouche wants, after four years in custody, “to see his innocence recognized.”
A sign reading “Fake News” and “#MAGA” was planted with an arrow pointing at the marquee of the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio.Microsoft mulls acquisition of Israeli chipmaker Mellanox – report
The sign discovered on the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Campus of the San Antonio Jewish Community was removed on Tuesday morning, the news website MySanAntonio reported.
It was discovered early Tuesday morning by the campus groundkeepers.
MAGA is a catch phrase of US President Donald Trump and stands for Make America Great Again, as is the term Fake News.
“It’s clearly a statement of Holocaust denial,” Ronit Sherwin, CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, told the news website.
US technology giant Microsoft is interested in buying Israel’s Mellanox Technologies Ltd., a maker of servers and storage switching solutions, TheMarker financial paper reported on Wednesday, citing unidentified market sources.New drug may lead to cure for aggressive brain cancer, Israeli researchers say
Valued at $798 billion, Microsoft is a key client of Mellanox products, and sees an acquisition as a way to strengthen its services in cloud computing as it competes with the likes of Amazon and Google, TheMarker said.
Mellanox in October reported record quarterly revenue, of $279.2 million, up 24 percent, year on year. The “strong” results stemmed from the growth in demand for Mellanox’s high-speed Ethernet adapters, switches and cables, for use in the cloud, in enterprise data centers and by artificial intelligence customers, to maximize the efficiency of computers.
The Yokne’am, Israel-based firm said revenue from its Ethernet products was up 59% year on year, as market share grew. The firm projected fourth quarter revenue of $280 million to $290 million.
The report of the possible acquisition comes after CNBC said last month US tech firm Xilinx Inc. was seeking to buy the firm.
Neuroscientists at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer have discovered a new drug they say has “the potential to cure terminally ill patients” suffering from glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive brain cancer.Miss Iraq 'rebuilding relations between Muslims and Jews'
Arizona Senator John McCain recently died of the cancer, and according to medical industry sources, there over 240,000 new cases of GBM diagnosed worldwide every year.
Israeli neuroscientists Dr. Efrat Shavit-Stein and Professor Yoav Chapman, who have been working on the treatment at the Joseph Sagol Neuroscience Center, Sheba Medical Center, published their discovery in the December 17 issue of Frontiers in Neurology magazine.
Glioblastoma is believed to be the most common and deadly primary brain tumor. Despite extensive research in the field, the results of current treatments
are limited and there is no cure for the disease. It is therefore necessary to seek innovative approaches, the Sheba Medical Center said in a statement.
In recent years, research has found that thrombin, a coagulation factor that is secreted from tumor cells, and PAR1, a protease-activated receptor, play a part in the pathology and progression of glioblastoma.
Feel-good story in the Wall Street Journal by Eliora Katz about how Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, has been helping good Jewish causes in Israel and abroad. What the article does not say is that Iraqi hostility to her pro-Israel activities caused Sarah and her family to flee the country in 2017 for the USA:Sodastream to open factory in Gaza
The first Miss Iraq, Renée Dangoor, was a Baghdadi Jew. She was crowned in 1947. Last year Sarah Idan became the first Iraqi in 45 years to compete in the Miss Universe pageant, held in Las Vegas. There Ms. Idan took a selfie with Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, and posted it on Instagram.
“Saddam’s regime taught us that Israel and the U.S. are our enemies, and so we need to be at war with them,” Ms. Idan tells me at an Iraqi restaurant near Regent Park. Ms. Gandelsman sits to her left. The two have reunited to host a fundraiser supporting United Hatzalah of Israel.
The Jerusalem-based organization is the Uber of emergency medicine. It trains, equips and deploys 5,000 volunteers to medical emergencies through a smartphone app. When Israel’s 911 receives a call, a GPS-enabled app dispatches the closest and best-suited volunteer before an ambulance arrives, reducing average response time to 90 seconds.
Things could bubble up in Gaza soon, as SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum announced plans on Thursday to open a manufacturing facility in Gaza.
“We want the people in Gaza to have jobs, real jobs, because where there is prosperity there can be peace,” Birnbaum said, on day two of the Globes Business Conference in Jerusalem.
The CEO explained how “Sodastream’s values” led the company to make this decision.
“Our diversity is very important,” he said of the company, which was acquired by PepsiCo for $3.2 billion in August 2018. “We love to show what peace looks like.”
In the Sodastream factory in the industrial park of Idan HaNegev, a mosaic of Israeli Jews and Arabs, Palestinians, Bedouins, Ethiopians and Russians work together to produce the foot-and-a-half tall device of the same name, which carbonates water by adding carbon dioxide from a pressurized cylinder to create soda.
According to Birnbaum, there are 1,000 Jews and 1,000 Arabs working in the factory, some 100 of the Arab are Palestinians.