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Tuesday, February 02, 2021

02/02 Links Pt2: Israel's hasbara efforts - it's time for an anti-propaganda agency; 170 Celebs, Execs to Launch New ‘Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance’

From Ian:

Israel's hasbara efforts - it's time for an anti-propaganda agency
The antipropaganda issue is a complex one, which people know very little about. The answer to the above two questions requires spelling out a number of key aspects in some detail. Perhaps the most important is that such a private agency would have to collaborate closely with the Mossad, the domestic security agency Shabak, the military intelligence agency Aman, and the Israel National Cyber Directorate. These are all government agencies, which cannot disclose state secrets to a non-government body.

I raised the idea of the anti-propaganda agency for the first time in my book, The War of a Million Cuts, The Struggle Against the Delegitimization of Israel and the Jews, and the Growth of New Anti-Semitism, which was published in 2015. At the time I consulted with a number of people who were somewhat familiar with the field. We estimated the annual budget for a properly functioning state anti-propaganda agency to be approximately US$250 million. Even for a number of the largest private pro-Israel donors together, this is a very large amount.

Yet there are further aspects that differentiate a state anti-propaganda agency from an aggregate of private pro-Israel bodies. The American CAMERA organization is an example of a pro-Israel organization that does very good work in exposeng media distortions in the US and some other countries such as Great Britain. One of its executives follows the Guardian and regularly depicts the many fallacies about Israel in its articles. His rhetoric, however, has to be restrained. The same is true for another valuable organization active in this area, Honest Reporting.

An Israeli anti-propaganda agency would operate in a very different way. It would start from the realization that the Guardian is an extreme anti-Israel paper. It can be considered a part-time enemy of the country. The anti-propaganda agency would not spend time pointing out to the public what is wrong in articles in the Guardian, identifying lies, or noting instances where this newspaper mobilizes extreme anti-Israelis including Jews and Israeli hate mongers against the state such as the head of the Israeli B'zelem organization.

Instead, the Agency leaders would ask themselves: “How are we going to damage this enemy as fast as possible with minimal effort. The originator of such damage could be open or hidden. The answer to these questions is not very difficult but disclosing it here would be counterproductive.
170 Celebs, Execs to Launch New ‘Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance’
More than 170 leaders of the entertainment industry released a unity statement on Feb. 1 after launching the Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance (BJEA), a joint initiative by Black and Jewish entertainment industry professionals devoted to countering racism and anti-Semitism.

In the face of institutional racism and rising anti-Semitism the members of the Alliance feel it is critical to stand together and support one another.

Signatories of the statement include Billy Porter (“Pose”), Mayim Bialik (“Call Me Kat”) Jeremy Piven (“Entourage”), Sharon Osbourne, Tiffany Haddish, Nick Cannon, Jason Alexander (“Seinfeld”), Co-chairman & CEO of Warner Records Aaron Bay-Schuck,, Antoine Fuqua (Director/Producer), President of Motown Records Ethiopia Habtemariam, CEO/Chairman of Columbia Records Ron Perry, Dulé Hill (“The West Wing”) The late-Larry King, Gene Simmons, Pittsburgh Steeler Zach Banner and Jeff Ross among many others.

“The Black and Jewish communities, who have a long history of supporting and working together, are so much stronger when we stand together in the fight against hate,” said Aaron Bay-Schuck, Co-Chairman & CEO of Warner Records. “This Alliance will elevate voices in the entertainment community that can help the public to better understand the causes, manifestations, and effects of racism and antisemitism, ensuring that our industry is doing its part to be a voice for hope, unity, and healing in our country.”

While many organizations combat anti-Semitism and racism individually, the Alliance will aim to create a unified voice against both. It will host programming to highlight their common mission to fight hate and facilitate collaborative events to build solidarity between the Black and Jewish communities. They will also work to elevate voices within the entertainment community to help the public better understand the causes, manifestations and effects of institutional racism and anti-Semitism.

The unity statement (which can be read in full here) starts by acknowledging the “subjugation and persecution” that both Black and Jewish Americans continue to face in the U.S. daily, and continues with a promise to condemn hate when they see it take place.


American Jewish Committee, U.S. Conference of Mayors Launch Campaign Against Antisemitism
American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) announced today the launch of a national effort to combat antisemitism. The two organizations, which have partnered on other projects, are calling on mayors across the country to sign a statement declaring that antisemitism is incompatible with fundamental democratic values.

“Antisemitism is a growing societal menace, it comes from multiple sources, and mayors are uniquely positioned to lead their cities in taking concerted steps to fight it,” said AJC CEO David Harris. “By launching this joint effort on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we recall the darkest period of genocide against the Jewish people, and the constant need for vigilance to guard against any and all forms of antisemitism.”

“In the last few years we have seen a significant increase in hate crimes directed at individuals and institutions based on faith, with the biggest increase among these incidents having been those directed at Jews,” said Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran. “We have always called on mayors to speak out against hate crimes when they occur, and the statement we are inviting mayors to sign today provides a way for them to register their opposition to the dramatic increase in antisemitism we have experienced in our country and work together to reverse it.”

Mayors United Against Antisemitism
The AJC-USCM initiative comes as incidents of antisemitism, some of them violent, continue to rise across the United States, confirmed in FBI reports and AJC public opinion surveys. American Jews, who make up less than 2% of the American population, were the victims of 60.2% of anti-religious hate crimes, according to the FBI 2019 Hate Crimes Statistics report.

AJC’s 2020 State of Antisemitism in America report found that 88% of Jews considered antisemitism a problem today in the U.S., 35% had personally been victims of antisemitism over the past five years and 31% had taken measures to conceal their Jewishness in public. Moreover, the AJC report revealed that nearly half of all Americans said they had either never heard the term “antisemitism” (21%) or are familiar with the word but not sure what it means (25%).




Completing the Work of Richard Schifter
In the midst of all of the challenges of 2020, the loss of Richard Schifter in October at the age of 97 was sadly overlooked. A lawyer by training, he served his country from 1981 to 2001, working for presidents from both parties, and in his steadfast, direct, facts-focused way, fighting for freedom and human rights around the world. His work took him from the halls of the United Nations to the Department of State and the National Security Council. Not as well-known as other diplomats and never demanding media recognition, Schifter, who was a family friend, was a tireless advocate for freedom fighters. From China and the USSR to Somalia and Liberia, his dedication to helping others made him an exemplar of American statesmanship.

In the early 1980s, he represented the American delegation to the United Nations as the U.S. Representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights and as Deputy U.S. Representative to the UN Security Council. In 1985, after serving at the UN for five years, he was appointed assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs by President Reagan. Using the bureau’s annual report on human rights practices around the world, Schifter helped shape American strategic policy and stood up to some of the world’s most notorious human rights abusers.

As the Soviet Union began to falter, he helped Jewish refuseniks leave for freer lands. His work was instrumental in persuading Soviet officials to loosen emigration restrictions and allow hundreds of thousands of refugees to seek religious freedom around the world. In 1989, in the wake of Tiananmen Square, he fought to toughen America’s stance towards China. In his later work with non-profits, he served as a powerful advocate for those struggling in Bosnia, Somalia, and Liberia.

For all his achievements, his aspirations remain unrealized in one important case concerning Israel. Despite his efforts, every year, the UN still pushes for completely unrealistic, outdated resolutions that stand in the way of a lasting peace in the Middle East. The United Nations General Assembly is still passing annual resolutions to renew the mandates of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the Division for Palestinian Rights. Among other biased and anti-Israel agenda items, these entities, endorse the so-called “right of return” which has long hampered negotiation and ossified opposition on both sides of the conflict.
A Christian Peacemaker Who Shows the Truth About Palestinian Society
The film also provides on-camera proof of how Palestinians who wish to speak the truth about the conflict between the PA and Israel are harassed and bullied by extremists in the West Bank.

The film provides an opportunity for Israelis to speak about their desire for peace with the Palestinians and juxtaposes this desire for peace with troubling, on-camera evidence of hostility and bigotry to Israel and Jews expressed by Palestinians in the West Bank. (The willingness of Palestinians to express — on camera — support for ugly conspiracy theories about the Jews may be the most shocking and troubling aspect of the film.)

The film also documents the role the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem played in inciting violence against Jews in pre-state Palestine.

The movie also demands that its Christian viewers and Palestinian Christians recognize the Jewish roots of their faith, the legitimacy of the Jewish presence in the Holy Land, their right to a sovereign state, and the blessings the Jewish state can and does bestow on Palestinians who are willing to live in peace with Jews in the land.

It also exposes how the BDS movement promotes Palestinian unemployment and suffering.

The film also reveals how Palestinians who do speak the truth about the conflict put themselves at great risk (and provides dramatic footage to demonstrate this reality).

Just to get a sense of how directly the movie confronts the misdeeds of the Palestinians, read this quote which comes very close to the end of the movie. It’s from Todd Morehead, the Christian pastor (and surfer dude) from California who produced and narrated the film with Justin Kron. After admitting that as a Christian Zionist he has, to his current dismay, regarded the Palestinians as his enemies and obstacles to God’s plan for the Holy Land, he then goes onto say:
Now that I’ve seen life through their eyes, God has changed my heart toward them. I now see the West Bank as a beautiful place with beautiful people with a strong connection to the land. But the Palestinians live under an oppressive regime that keeps them living in fear, that keeps them from speaking out against it. Their government continues to reject Israel’s right to exist and has made little effort to educate for peace, keeping generations of people stuck in a cycle of victimhood and conflict.

That is probably the best encapsulation of the problems with the Palestinian Authority put forth by a Christian peacemaker since the PA was established in the mid-1990s under the Oslo Accords.

Finally, a Christian peacemaker has words of criticism and warning — which have been so often leveled at Israel and its supporters — for Palestinian elites.
Why Conspiracy Theorists Like Marjorie Taylor Greene Always Land on the Jews
The answer is that as long as there are conspiracy theorists seeking scapegoats to blame for the nation’s problems, there will be anti-Semites. That’s because anti-Semitism is the world’s biggest and most durable conspiracy theory. It constructs itself as the ultimate explanation for how the world works, and blames powerful shadowy Jewish figures for all problems. This conspiratorial mindset invariably demonizes any Jews who accumulate wealth or status—from the Rothschilds to George Soros to the state of Israel—though it is not limited to them.

The reason figures like the Rothschilds or the fictional Elders of Zion remain salient targets even today is that any conspiracy theorist seeking someone to blame for the world’s ills is just one Google search away from centuries of literature telling them that that someone is “the Jews.” In other words, you might start out as free agent conspiracy theorist with no particular problem with Jews, but the deeper you dive into this world, the more likely you'll ultimately land on Jewish people as the ultimate culprits. Many conspiracy theories have followed this trajectory to anti-Semitism, from David Icke’s bizarre ravings about Illuminati lizard people and “Rothschild Zionists” to QAnon today.

Simply put, once a person like Greene has decided that an invisible hand is behind the world’s problems, it’s only a matter of time before they decide it belongs to an invisible Jew.

Beyond explaining the thought process of cranks, why does this matter? Because it helps us identify people with anti-Semitic mindsets—and tells us how to reduce their numbers. As we’ve seen, individuals who are prone to conspiracy theories, whatever their personal ideology, are most susceptible to anti-Semitic appeals. Which means that a key component of any effort to counter anti-Semitism must entail combating conspiracy theories and the simplistic thinking that underlies them. Teaching people to understand the world in all its complexity, rather than default to superficial explanations, inoculates them against the reductive arguments of anti-Semites—no matter where they encounter them.

Until we do that, though, we could settle for not electing them to Congress.
McConnell slams Greene’s ‘looney lies,’ calls them a ‘cancer’ for Republicans
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell denounced newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday, calling the far-right Georgia Republican’s embrace of conspiracy theories and “loony lies” a “cancer for the Republican Party.”

“Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality,” said McConnell.

“This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party,” he said.

Greene retorted, saying: “The real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully. This is why we are losing our country.”

The statements come as House Democrats are mounting an effort to formally rebuke Greene, who has a history of making racist remarks, embracing conspiracy theories and endorsing violence directed at Democrats. It also puts pressure on House Republican leaders to discipline her.

Democrats have teed up action Wednesday to send a resolution to the House floor that would strip Greene of assignments on the House education and budget committees, if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy doesn’t do so first.
San Francisco Teacher: Bernie’s Mittens Oozed ‘White Privilege, Male Privilege, and Class Privilege’
Lady, are you new here? Have you ever watched Sanders? Have you ever seen Sanders?

The man is a cranky old man. He yells at clouds. The man is louder than my Italian family and that’s saying something. The only time I’ve seen him relax is with his wife.

The man has no fashion sense. I don’t think he owns a brush.

Sanders is a hypocrite. He screams for socialism, but owns three houses and is a millionaire. Once people pointed that out he threw his argument at billionaires.

Seyer-Choi needs to re-evaluate a few things. This is not just because she is exasperated that no one else saw Sanders’ privilege. It’s also because she took the time to sit down and write it out.

Your privilege is showing, my dear. You obviously know you are more intelligent than everyone else so you had to woman-splain it to everyone. You obviously get to tell people how to dress and appear at any event.

Bernie even released a YouTube video of the memes. He said people in Vermont know the cold and they’re “not so concerned about good fashion.”
Sugar Creek Charter School Teacher Loses Job Over Anti-Semitic Tweet
A kindergarten teacher at Charlotte’s Sugar Creek Charter School lost his job Monday after posting an anti-Semitic tweet over the weekend.

Late Sunday morning, a tweet went out from Jarrin Wooten’s account. It said, "Hitler was trying to keep those demonic … Rothschilds and fractional reserve banks out of Germany and then we let those same 'Jews' come to America and teach us he was a terrorist … all I’ll say is look into it some more.”

A Jewish watchdog group, StopAntisemitism.org, quickly tied him to Sugar Creek, a K-12 charter school in northeast Charlotte.

Superintendent Cheryl Turner says she started investigating Monday morning. She said the teacher initially told her he was hacked, adding that such a tweet would be surprising from “a black male teacher who has experienced racism himself.”

But a few hours later Sugar Creek board chair H. Bryan Ives III issued a statement saying the tweet was real and the teacher “is no longer employed at our school.” The tweet violates the school’s social media and nondiscrimination policies, the statement says, adding that “hateful speech and discrimination against any person of any religion, race or color, will never be tolerated at Sugar Creek Charter.”

The statement did not name the teacher, but a source with knowledge of the investigation confirmed that StopAntisemitism.org had correctly identified him.

In October, Wooten appeared on a Leadership Charlotte education panel that Turner organized, speaking about “schools from the front lines.” His bio from that event says he had taught kindergarten at Sugar Creek for five years.


Guardian op-ed shills for faux progressive 'human rights defender' Issa Amro
Finally, let’s address Shehadeh characterisation of Amro, the protagonist in his tale, as some sort of progressive ‘human rights activist’. First, as the late Petra Marquardt-Bigman documented, Amro tweeted explicitly antisemitic content.
Amro, who’s been framed as the “Palestinian Ghandi” by other media outlets has also rooted for a Third Intifada on social media repeatedly. His group ‘Youth Against the Settlements’ referred to Palestinian terrorists killed by Israeli forces while they were in the act of carrying out an attack as “martyrs“, and has engaged in incitement with the libel that thousands of settlers were “storming the Ibrahimi Mosque” in Hebron.
Of course, the mosque is known by Jews as the Cave of Machpelah (Tomb of the Patriarchs), and it is considered Judaism’s second holiest site. So, even if those Jews shown in the photo entered the building, they were simply visiting a site that’s extremely holy to Jews. The “storming the mosque” libel has been used for generations – usually in connection to Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – to incite violence against Jews.

As such, it’s not difficult to understand why Amro would be charged with incitement, and why the Guardian op-ed’s claim that he’s a “peace activist” is absurd.
The BBC News website’s partial bomb story background
On the afternoon of January 29th a report headlined “Delhi blast: Small bomb detonates near Israeli embassy in Indian capital” and tagged ‘India’ appeared in the ‘updates’ section of the BBC News website’s ‘Asia’ page.

As of January 31st the same short article also appeared on the website’s ‘Middle East’ page.

The report gives an initial account of the incident itself which has not been updated to include later developments such as the discovery of a letter.

“Indian media reports said investigators had found an envelope with a letter addressed to the Israeli ambassador in the street describing the low-intensity explosion as a “trailer” and making references to “Iranian martyrs” Qassem Soleimani and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. “We can end your life, anytime, anywhere,” the letter read.”


Arkansas Lawmakers Consider Bill to Mandate Holocaust Education in Public Schools
Lawmakers in Arkansas have introduced a bill that would mandate Holocaust education to be taught in all public schools starting with the 2021-22 school year. The move comes a few months after a report by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany found that the state ranked last in Holocaust knowledge.

According to U.S. Millennial Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey, only 17 percent of millennials and Gen Z residents in Arkansas meet “Holocaust knowledge criteria,” defined as “definitely” having heard of the Holocaust, being able to name a concentration camp, death camp or ghetto and knowing that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The report, released back in September, was the first-ever survey that focused on all 50 states and aimed specifically at millennials and Gen Z—those between the ages of 18-39.

Nationally, the study found that 63 percent of all national survey respondents do not know that 6 million Jews were murdered and 36 percent thought that “2 million or fewer Jews” were killed during the Holocaust.

Only 31 percent of Arkansas residents survey knew how many Jews perished in the Holocaust.
Swiss Jews Launch Legal Action Against Neo-Nazi Group For Pushing Hoax ‘Protocols’
Switzerland’s Jewish community is taking legal action against a far right political grouping for publishing the antisemitic hoax, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The latest edition of the “Protocols” — first fabricated more than a century ago by the secret police in Tsarist Russia — was published by the Swiss Nationalist Party (PNOS), a far right grouping that is active mainly in the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland.

The Swiss Federation of Jewish communities (SIG-FCSI) filed a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office of Bern Oberland after the publication was featured in the PNOS magazine “Harus.”

“Especially in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy myths, including those with an antisemitic background, have once again gained popularity,” the SIG-FCSI declared in a statement.

“The publication of the ‘Protocols’ encourages such conspiracy myths and promotes Jew-hatred. That these are the goals of the PNOS is shown by the preface to the hoax: ‘Whether real or fake, we don’t need to worry, because we are mainly concerned with the content,'” the statement continued.

The PNOS was classified as an “extremist” group by the Swiss police in 2001.

Espousing a basic national socialist ideology, the party is not represented in any of Switzerland’s cantonal parliaments.
Teenager from Cornwall who talked about “gassing” Jewish people is UK’s youngest terror offender
His home was searched and police found a Nazi flag, a racist slogan on the garden shed and manuals on his computer and phone about making weapons.

The prosecutor observed that “The age is the alarming factor and his conduct betrays a maturity beyond his chronological age.”

Sentencing at the Old Bailey is expected on 8th February.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “There has been a notable rise in far-right activity among the young, with older activists deliberately targeting youth with specially-designed videos and other material. Social media companies are too often failing to act against the threat, which, as this latest conviction shows, is very real. The number of prosecutions of young offenders shows that the criminal justice system is taking the matter seriously, but further preventative action is necessary to stop the deplorable brainwashing of young people with far-right hate.”
Dummy?Star of K-pop’s GFriend sorry for hugging Nazi uniform mannequin
The managers of K-pop girl band GFriend issued an apology after leader Sowon was pictured hugging a mannequin dressed in a Nazi-era German army uniform.

Images taken during a video shoot at a European-themed café in Paju, north of Seoul, showed the 25-year-old embracing the dummy, her eyes closed and with a dreamy smile.

The photos triggered outrage online after she posted them over the weekend.

“It’s not difficult to avoid situations like this,” said one Twitter poster. “Some issues are too broad to be ignorant (of).”

Sowon deleted the photos “right after she learnt of the implications” of her action and felt “heavy responsibility,” her agency Source Music said.

The managers added they had “failed to recognize the issue with the mannequin’s uniform.”
Israeli firm uses military-grade tech to defend Jewish communities abroad
Injecting the civilian world with military-based video surveillance techniques is a vision that Col. (res.) Oded Halevy, CEO of the Gotrack HLS company, has spent recent years turning into a reality in Israel. Now, concerned by the threat of anti-Semitism, he is seeking to make the same preventative security services available for Jewish communities abroad.

Halevy served for 26 years in the Israel Defense Forces, including in special units, as well as headed the military's Combat Collection Doctrine Department in the Ground Forces. He served as commander of the Combat Collection School Brigade and is still on active reserve duty.

His approach to surveillance is playing an increasingly growing role in securing multiple sectors in Israel, from city councils to factories. He is now also determined to keep a watchful, remote eye over synagogues and Jewish community centers around the world as they face rising threats.

During his military service, Halevy pioneered the concept of building centralized control centers that receive camera and radar feeds from multiple locations, helping to reshape the IDF's Combat Intelligence Corps on the border with Gaza.

"Instead of having control-room operators sitting under every mast in dozens of sites, I wanted to link all of the sensors to unified centers," he said. "When I retired, I realized that in the civilian world, there is plenty of technology in the form of cameras, which is fairly cheap, and that the cameras replaced security guards. This happened in communities, in local authorities and in factories, but they forgot two things."
Israeli startups raised record $1.2b in January
After raising a record $10 billion in 2020, Israeli tech startups have begun 2021 with more capital raised than in any single month before.

Israeli startups raised a record monthly figure of over $1.2 billion in January 2021, according to press releases from the companies and their investors. The figure may be more as some companies prefer to remain in stealth and sometimes do not publicize the investments they have received.

January's record figure edges past the $1.2 billion raised by startups last September, which was a record according to Start-Up Nation's Finder database.

Israeli tech companies raised a record more than $10 billion in 2020, according to IVC-ZAG, up from $8.3 billion raised in 2019, and $6.4 billion in 2018.

In many instances, financing rounds by tech companies that facilitate remote working and healthcare and cybersecurity, have been boosted rather than hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic.
McDonald's Brazil goes greener with Israeli cleantech startup UBQ
As part of its vision to reduce plastics, McDonald's largest independent franchise has announced that it will be replacing its standard plastic food trays with a more sustainable, recycled plastic produced by Israeli cleantech startup UBQ Materials.

Since launching its plastics reduction program in 2018, Arcos Dorados, which operates McDonald's restaurants in Latin America and the Caribbean, has removed over 1,300 tons of single-use plastic from its outlets.

UBQ Materials converts household waste into a climate-positive, biobased, thermoplastic. In contrast to standard recycling procedures, UBQ's technology takes all types of landfill- waste – food leftovers, paper, cardboard, and mixed plastics – and converts it all into a single composite thermoplastic material compatible with industry machinery and manufacturing standards.

In the first phase of the partnership, 30 restaurants operated by McDonald's Brazil replaced 7,200 serving trays with new ones from UBQ. The plan is to extend the model to all McDonald's outlets in Brazil. Another 11,000 trays are already in production, and the new trays will keep over 1,200 kg of waste out of landfills.

According to UBQ, every ton of its bio-based thermoplastic keeps nearly 12 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent prevents nearly 12 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent out of the environment. According to Quantis, a firm that assesses environmental impact, this metric makes UBQ the most climate-positive thermoplastic on the market.
Car data firm Otonomo to go public on Wall Street at $1.4 billion valuation
Israeli startup Otonomo, which runs a vehicle data platform, said Monday it will go public on the Nasdaq at an implied value of $1.4 billion.

Otonomo will make the move by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, called Software Acquisition Group Inc. II. The SPAC is based in Las Vegas and went public last year, raising $172.5 million.

The deal is expected to net Otonomo some $307 million in cash and cash equivalents, the company said in a statement.

After the deal goes through, Otonomo will trade under the ticker “OTMO.” The SPAC currently trades on the Nasdaq as “SAII.”

Otonomo said it intends to use the cash proceeds from the deal to fund growth and enter new markets.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.

SPACs are shell companies that aim to raise capital by going public, then merge with and into an existing company, in a process that is generally easier and quicker than a traditional initial public offering. SPACs have been around for decades but have been a major market trend in the past year.

Israel’s Otonomo has developed a cloud-based platform that allows car companies, service providers and apps to share and integrate data generated by vehicles, such as speed, temperature and battery levels. The data can be anonymized to protect user privacy, Otonomo said.

The platform takes in over 4 billion data points per day from over 40 million vehicles, the company said. The platform is used by 16 vehicle manufacturers and over 100 service providers, the company said. Organizations and businesses can use the data for fleet management, insurance purposes, in-vehicle management, emergency services, mapping, parking, maintenance, subscription services, traffic management and smart cities.
Israeli Model Yael Shelbia Makes ‘Historic’ Splash on UAE Magazine Cover
Yael Shelbia, an Israeli model ranked as the world’s “most beautiful face” in 2020, became the first Israeli to appear on the cover of an Emirati magazine Monday.

“I’m so happy to be a part of this historic cover,” Shelbia wrote in an Instagram post. “Thank you @lofficielarabia & @laishamag Together we are stronger.”

L’Officiel Arabia’s February issue features the Tel Aviv-born model with the headline “Peace of History,” a nod to the normalization accords signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in Sep. 2020.

In an interview with The Algemeiner after her photo shoot for the cover spread, Shelbia said that the February issue was a sign of progress.

“As a Jewish, religious IDF soldier and a model, I’m so very honored to be the first one to participate in such a historical cover,” Shelbia, 19, told The Algemeiner in December. “I hope that in the near future, we will be privileged to extend the peace in the Middle East.”

Boba Stanic, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, told the UAE’s Gulf News, “I’m proud that we are the first in the region to present not only a cover with an Israeli model, but moreover provide a firm endorsement of the talents of a country that has previously been inaccessible to the UAE.”


Identities in iconic Yemenite family photo revealed
The photo is of my grandfather, Mori Chaim Zviv, who is carrying the Torah. It was taken, apparently, by a British soldier at the Hashd Camp, where the Yemenite Jews stopped en route to Israel. During the life of my grandfather, now in his 90s, this photo was published in books about Aliyah, such as “Amud Ha'esh” (“Pillar of Fire.”) It became an icon of Zionism, a realization of its dream and its optimism, showing the passion and dedication of the Yemenite Jews to living in Israel.

Because of this, it is important to me to honor my grandfather, Chaim Zviv, who brought his family through great difficulties and a strong spirit to Israel in order to realize the story of our heritage through many generations, and to respect the people in the photos who are still alive. I aim to tell the authentic experiences, or witness through these icons the memory, similar to the well-known photo of the Paratroopers at the Kotel in 1967, who are remembered during that event and afterwards. I want to share their stories, and to give credit where due to these images in the photo.

The names of the people in the photo, from left to right: Ezra Gafni (Zviv), my uncle, who today lives in Binyamina, Zecharia Zviv, z”l, my uncle, who lived in Kfar Saba, whose children can share his story. The girl in the photo is my aunt Yona Bura (Zviv), who today lives in Petach Tikva. My grandfather, Chaim, z’l, who is holding the Torah and lived in Binyamina. Grandmother Sada (Mazal), z”l, is holding baby Rachamim Gefen (Zviv) who lives in Haifa. The women onthe far left are my mother’s sister, Shoshana Klaf (Evron) and their mother Lulva D’Hari (my great grandmother.)

This photograph enriches and accompanies me personally throughout my 37 years of life. The photo is powerful, and important to me and my family. If it is also an icon for others, since it represents the story of the nation of Israel altogether in some way. I will be happy to respond to requests about the photo, or the people in it. I also think it would be fitting and desirable to invite these people, who became icons of the Aliyah from Arab countries, to the dedication ceremony of the statue. With blessings and great excitement, Avichai Cohen, grandson, and all the generations of the Zviv family."



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