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Monday, April 19, 2021

04/19 Links Pt2: Macron calls for change in law following Sarah Halimi ruling; When did Palestine become Palestine?; Why do Jewish academic centers smear Israel?

From Ian:

France's Macron calls for change in law following Sarah Halimi ruling
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a change in the law after the highest French court of appeals last week ruled the murderer of Sarah Halimi could not be held criminally accountable for his actions since he took cannabis before he committed the crime.

“Deciding to take drugs and then ‘becoming mad’ should not in my eyes remove your criminal responsibility,” Macron told Le Figaro in an interview published Sunday.

“On this topic, I would like the minister of justice to submit a change to the law as soon as possible,” he said.

“It is not for me to comment on a court decision, but I would like to tell the family, relatives of the victim and all fellow citizens of the Jewish faith who were awaiting this trial of my warm support and the determination of the Republic to protect them,” Macron said.

The French Jewish community was angered by the Court of Cassation’s ruling.

In April 2017, Kobili Traoré, a 27-year-old Muslim man, beat Halimi, his 65-year-old Jewish neighbor, while screaming “Allahu Akhbar” and antisemitic slogans before throwing her out of the window of her third-floor apartment.

A lower court ruled in December 2019 that Traore was not criminally responsible for his actions since his heavy intake of cannabis had compromised his “discernment,” or consciousness.




Martin Sherman: When did Palestine become Palestine?
With Joe Biden in the White House, the question of Palestinian statehood is now back on the international agenda, after being largely sidelined under the Trump administration.

For decades, the discourse on the “Palestinian issue” has been dominated by the Palestinian-Arabs contention that Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. “The West Bank”) has long been their ancient homeland.

Preaching Genocide
However, many would probably be interested—and certainly very surprised—to learn just when realization dawned on the Palestinian-Arabs that this territory supposedly comprised their yearned-for motherland.

Indeed, long before Israel held a square inch of “the West Bank”—before there was any “occupation” or “settlements”—the Arabs claimed all the territory of pre-1967 Israel i.e. within the Green Line—as “Palestinian” territory and threatened to reclaim it by force of arms, and annihilate all its Jewish inhabitants.

Thus, in March 1965, over two years prior to the 1967 Six-Day War—after which the “West Bank” came under Israeli administration—Egyptian President, Gamal Abdul Nasser threatened, with chilling genocidal malevolence: "We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood".

No less blood-curdling were the words of Yassir Arafat’s predecessor as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ahmed Shukeiry, who on the very eve of the Six-Day War—in a somewhat premature flush of triumph—crowed:

“D Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation…This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave.[but] is my impression that none of them will survive...We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors — if there are any — the boats are ready to deport them.”

“…Jordanians & Palestinians are considered … one people."

Significantly, the first version of the Palestinian National Covenant was formulated three years before the Six-Day War—in May 1964—in East Jerusalem (then under Jordanian control).

In it, the Palestinian-Arabs explicitly foreswear any sovereign claim to the “West Bank” (or to Gaza):
At NY Times, Myth of Edward Said’s Jerusalem Home Is Tenacious
A book review in The New York Times’ print edition yesterday (“The provocative polymath,” page BR17, and online here) repeats an error about Edward Said’s childhood that The New York Times twice previously corrected, most recently on March 25.

Ayten Tartici errs, writing about Said:
At the time [1986], he had not been back to the place of his birth, what was then Mandatory Palestine, since fleeing in December 1947 at the age of 12.

While Said was born in Jerusalem in 1935, his family left for Cairo at a very young age, and that is where he spent his childhood — not in Mandatory Palestine. He did not “flee” Palestine, a falsehood about his life story that he told “as an allegory of the Palestinian people,” as the late scholar Justus Weiner, who uncovered the truth about Said’s biography, said.

As the March 25, 2021 Times correction, about a separate Times review of Timothy Brennan’s book about Said (“Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said”), states:
An earlier version of this review misidentified the city that was Edward Said’s childhood home and misstated details about Jerusalem’s division into Jewish and Arab areas. Although Said was born in Jerusalem, his family’s home was Cairo; they did not move from Jerusalem. Jerusalem was not partitioned into Jewish and Arab halves in 1947. In 1949, control of the city was divided as part of an armistice.

When the digital article was amended March 25, the false claim that “Said’s family moved to Cairo in 1947 after the United Nations divided Jerusalem into Jewish and Arab halves” was replaced with accurate information: “Said grew up in Cairo.”

Previously, on Oct. 1, 2003,The Times published the following correction regarding Said’s obituary:
An obituary on Friday about Edward W. Said, the Columbia University literary scholar and advocate of a Palestinian state, misidentified the city that was his childhood home and misstated the date of Jerusalem’s partition into Jewish and Arab areas. Although Mr. Said was born in Jerusalem, in 1935, his family’s home was Cairo; they did not move from Jerusalem. Jerusalem was partitioned in 1949, not 1947.

According to British Mandate records, Said’s parents neither owned nor rented the Jerusalem dwelling that he at times falsely portrayed as his childhood home.


The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt was initially dubbed ‘fake news’ by some US Jews
When American political cartoonist Arthur Szyk decided to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, he crafted a montage dedicated to “the heroic battle of our brothers in the war against the Nazi barbarians,” as the caption read.

The image showed a cross-section of Warsaw Jews fighting against a Nazi war machine intent on burning the ghetto to the ground. Most of the ghetto’s 400,000 Jews had already been deported to the death camp Treblinka in 1942, and about 800 people — most of them young adults — participated in armed resistance the following year.

Although Szyk knew that women were involved in the revolt, no woman appeared in his widely circulated image. There were boys with side-curls and men in workers’ caps, as well as resisters with symbols nodding to socialism, Zionism, and Polish nationalism — just no women.

“The memory of the revolt and memory of resistance does end up being very gendered,” said historian Avinoam Patt, whose book — “The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt” — will be published on May 4.

Among ways in which the revolt was “edited” for American audiences, said Patt, was a “specific type of heroic image that privileged masculine fighters as leaders of the resistance while presenting women as symbols of martyrdom and sacrifice,” he told The Times of Israel in an interview.

In his book, Patt explores the revolt’s immediate afterlife, when Jewish communities began to “process” what took place and shape narratives that still endure. For example, Patt demonstrates how the revolt was memorialized in Israel to enforce Zionist ideology, while American Jews generally framed the revolt as part of Allied war efforts.
Israeli Government’s Arabic-Language Twitter Account Shares Sympathetic Video From Iraq
The Israeli government’s Arabic-language Twitter account posted on Sunday a video it said had been received from an Iraqi paying tribute to the State of Israel and the victims of the Holocaust.

In the video, a hand is seen with a Star of David drawn on it, along with what appears to be the word “Jude” inside the star.

The image harkens back to the yellow stars the Nazis forced Jews to wear on their clothing, which also contained the word “Jude” — “Jew” in German — in the center.

The Israeli government tweeted in Arabic, “A message from an Iraqi expressing sympathy for the State of Israel.”

“It is one of hundreds that we receive every day in which there is a clear aspiration for peace with Israel and getting rid of the militias that have exhausted the energies of Iraq,” the tweet said.
Antisemite of the Week: Richard Falk - Bigot Non Grata
Richard Falk is a retired Princeton Professor and disgraced ex-UN official. He was officially denounced by the United Kingdom on at least three separate occasions for antisemitism.

In 2011, then British Prime Minister David Cameron and the ADL strongly condemned Falk’s publication of an antisemitic cartoon; the image showed a dog wearing a Jewish head-covering urinating on a depiction of justice, and devouring a bloody skeleton.

In 2012, the British Foreign Office condemned Falk for providing the cover endorsement of an antisemitic book that describes Jews as Nazis and which further asks whether "Hitler might have been right after all."

In 2013, the United Nations condemned Falk’s comments which blamed the Boston terrorist attack on "the American global domination project" and "Tel Aviv."

In 2014, UN Watch detailed Falk’s blog filled with crude antisemitic comments by contributors whom he defends and praises, such as -
"The Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] is an uncannily accurate description of what is happening right now."
"The world is beginning to understand just how toxic Jewish religious practice and cultural indoctrination really is."
"Judaism is a pyramid scheme of social shaming leading to great accumulation of wealth by those at the apex."


Why do Jewish academic centers smear Israel?
Why is a major academic center for the study of American Jewish history, which was founded by a stalwart friend of Israel, falsely accusing Israel of "state violence against Palestinians"?

The Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, at Temple University, was founded – and for many years directed – by the late Dr. Murray Friedman, a distinguished historian and longtime leader of the American Jewish Committee in Philadelphia.

I had the privilege of attending presentations by Murray Friedman and I know what a strong supporter of Israel he was. He is surely turning over in his grave at the news that his center is now being used to spread anti-Israel lies.

On April 20, the Feinstein Center will be hosting a public program called "The Weaponization of Discourse: Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and Free Speech on Campus"

The Feinstein Center's advertisements for the event declare that it will explore, among other things, what it calls "increased state violence against Palestinians." The phrase "state violence against Palestinians" means that Israel, as a state, is carrying out a policy of committing war crimes against Palestinian Arabs. That's false.

I expect Arab propagandists to spread such lies. I don't expect the falsehoods to come from an academic center that was founded by a pro-Israel scholar, and is funded in part by donations from pro-Israel members of the Philadelphia-area Jewish community.

The context of the April 20 program is the ongoing debate over the definition of antisemitism that has been crafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and accepted by numerous governments and Jewish organizations around the world. Some left-wing academics, including Kenneth S. Stern of Bard College, object to the IHRA definition because it includes the demonization of Israel as an example of antisemitism.


Israeli art exhibition in Dubai draws criticism from BDS groups
Israeli art is on display in the United Arab Emirates for the first time ever, as Dubai's "Abyss of Bliss" art exhibition opens its doors to the public. The exhibition, running from the end of March until mid-May, features the work of three Israeli artists, Ariela Wertheimer, Keren Shpilsher, and 18-year-old photographer Yinon Gal-On.

The decision made by the Oblong Contemporary Art Gallery to showcase Israeli art has drawn criticism from BDS groups across the globe, and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has called on the general public to boycott all the gallery's future events and exhibitions.

Despite the criticism they have attracted, the co-founders of Oblong Gallery, Paola Marucci and Emanuela Venturini, released a joint statement saying that they are "very pleased to bring this unprecedented exhibition with three renowned and established artists for the first time in the history of the Middle East art world to Dubai.

"The art scene in the region generally has been witnessing growth," they said, "and Dubai has a vibrant arts scene, showcasing various exhibitions, and is home to the most internationally diverse fairs in the world."

As one of the three artists featured at the exhibition, Wertheimer expressed admiration for the owners' bravery and willingness to showcase Israeli art. She mentioned the interest she and her fellow artists have received from the Emiratis, saying that she is glad for this opportunity to bring her work and language to the country for the first time.
How Tufts University Can Prevent Another Antisemitic Fiasco
Max Price recently joined an involuntary club that includes USC’s Rose Ritch and UCLA’s Rachel Beyda. All three had their suitability for student leadership questioned — purely because of their Zionism. Max retained his position, but if Tufts and other universities do not implement significant reforms, it is only a matter of time before the club grows.

In his role as a member of the Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ), Max pointed out inaccuracies in the wording of an anti-Israel referendum about “Deadly Exchange.” Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) agitated for him to recuse himself from the proceedings due to a “conflict of interest,” despite a unanimous decision by the other members of the TCUJ that he had no need to do so.

SJP launched a vicious campaign against Max. He was forced to mute himself during the Zoom meeting where the TCUJ finalized and voted on the referendum’s wording. Despite the fact that Tufts students ultimately voted in favor of the Deadly Exchange referendum, SJP filed a complaint against Max with the TCU Senate, seeking his impeachment and removal, and a hearing was set for February 28, 2021. Max sought the representation of Alyza Lewin of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. The Brandeis Center wrote a detailed letter to the administration on Max’s behalf, but the administration’s response was not to intervene. The Brandeis Center went public with Max’s story. On February 26th, the complaint was withdrawn.

The Tufts situation pains me on multiple fronts. As leader of the Tufts Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF) chapter, I work to protect Jewish students from the bias and unfair treatment Max endured. But for me, Max’s story was not simply another distressing news item.

Max is my son.
Pro-Israel Students at Arizona State Face Harassment After BDS Pulled From Vote
Pro-Israel students at Arizona State University are facing harassment after a BDS resolution sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine was removed by the student government.

SJP co-sponsored a resolution supporting the BDS movement that was slated to be presented to the Undergraduate Student Government Senate on Tuesday, which fell on Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. It accused the Israeli economy of being “built on and currently complicit with colonization, exclusion and apartheid,” and called on the university to end its working relationships with Israeli manufacturers and institutions.

On Monday night, SJP said in a statement that the resolution would not be introduced at the senate meeting the next day. The group complained that senate president Katherine Hostal “knew about this resolution for weeks, and promised an opportunity to be heard and express interest in doing something for the Palestinian community at ASU, which she denied last minute.”

SJP said students who support the resolution “don’t approve of ASU’s collaboration with these actions committed by the Israeli government” and accused Students Supporting Israel (SSI) of “spreading misinformation, gaslighting their audience and not addressing the concerns of our BDS resolution.”

It also noted that “SSI released a statement claiming that we decided to do this on a Jewish holiday, which is false,” saying the resolution was meant to be presented two weeks ago.

SSI chapter president Koral Zaarur clarified in an email that while the resolution being presented on Yom Hazikaron “was harmful and suppressive to Jewish voices,” it never claimed that SJP intentionally proposed the legislation on Israel’s Memorial Day.

Zaarur said since then, members of the school’s Jewish community have been harassed by those who “subscribe to anti-Israel rhetoric and are involved with this resolution.”


An idea so stupid that only a Guardian columnist can believe it
To paraphrase George Orwell, some arguments are so self-evidently stupid that only Guardian columnists can believe them.

To boot, an article in the Guardian by their veteran columnist (“Shadow warrior: Benjamin Netanyahu takes a dangerous gamble with Iran”, April 18) opened with the following:
In a region famous for warmongers and tyrants, who is the most dangerous man in the Middle East right now? Not Bashar al-Assad, the isolated gauleiter of Damascus. Not disgraced Mohammed bin Salman, the princely Saudi executioner. Not even Turkey’s misogynist-in-chief, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the local neighbourhood bully. Step forward Benjamin Netanyahu, easily the most convincing contender for the “danger man” title. Israel’s prime minister has outdone himself of late, threatening war with Iran, ordering one-off attacks, assassinating a top scientist, sabotaging international fence-mending, and defying the US, his country’s indispensable ally.

First, let’s very briefly unpack Tisdall’s opening dossier on the man who ‘most threatens peace’ in the Middle East.

Tisdall claims that Israel, under Netanyahu, assassinated a “top scientist”.

However, the man in question, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was not just a “scientist”. He was Iran’s leading nuclear weapons scientist and member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S.-designated terrorist entity that has trained terror groups like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, provided shelter to Al-Qaeda and murdered U.S. servicemen and women.
CAMERA Op-Ed Once Again, POLITICO Ignores Palestinian Rejectionism and Terror
“Joe Biden,” a Politico headline blared on April 6, 2021, “is not planning to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” This may or may not be true. But what is clear is that Politico isn’t interested in providing readers with the truth about the conflict.

President Biden, reporter Nahal Toosi notes, has yet to name a special envoy to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And “aside from taking a few small steps” such as “restoring some modest aid to the Palestinians,” Biden is “signaling that the conflict is simply not a priority.”

Toosi speculates on possible reasons for this apparent lack of interest: prioritization of Sino-American relations, the dust settling from elections in Israel, and scheduled elections for the Palestinian Authority. But, she says, “some warn that by de-prioritizing the issue or moving too slowly, Biden could be putting a two-state solution out of reach, especially if Israel keeps expanding its settlements in territory claimed by the Palestinians.”

According to Politico’s framing, Jewish home construction — and not the Palestinian leadership’s affinity for rejecting peace and celebrating terror — is somehow responsible for the lack of a two-state solution.

Contrary to what Politico would have you believe, Palestinian leaders have rejected numerous offers for a “two-state solution,” in which two states, one Arab and the other Jewish, would live side-by-side and in peace.

Palestinian leaders have refused opportunities for statehood going back to the 1930s: rejecting the recommendations of the 1937 Peel Commission Report, the 1947 Partition Plan, as well as efforts following the 1967 Six-Day War and the Camp David Agreement with Egypt, among others.
New York Times Shorthand Cites Tel Aviv As Israel’s Capital
In at least one edition of the April 12 print publication, The New York Times published a sub-heading wrongly referring to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel. The sub-headline on the (A10) jump of a front-page article (“Explosion Rocks Nuclear Center, Enraging Iran”) stated: “Intelligence officials in the U.S. and Israel implicate Tel Aviv,” using the common journalistic practice of referring to a nation’s capital city as shorthand for the country’s government.

Numerous media outlets have corrected this very point in the past, including The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, Newsweek and The Guardian, among many others. Even Arabic-language reports at Al Hurra and CNN were commendably corrected this summer in an encouraging first, and then BBC Arabic subsequently came through with multiple corrections of the identical issue.

On Nov. 22, 2002, The New York Times published the following correction:
An article yesterday about a man accused of having tried to hijack an El Al plane en route to Istanbul from Tel Aviv on Sunday referred incorrectly to Tel Aviv. It is not the capital of Israel; Jerusalem is.

CAMERA has contacted The New York Times requesting a print clarification making clear that Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, is the capital of Israel. Stay tuned for an update.


SNP candidate’s comment comparing Goebbels and the Labour Party’s political strategy in Scotland “diminish the meaning and memory of the Holocaust”
It has been revealed that a candidate for the Scottish National Party (SNP) posted a comment on Facebook comparing the Labour Party’s political strategy in Scotland to that of the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Colm Merrick, the SNP candidate for Eastwood in Glasgow, the seat representing Scotland’s largest Jewish community, reportedly shared a post in February 2015 in connection with an article. In the post, Mr Merrick wrote: “Analysis of UK Labour in Scotland’s election strategy…becomes truly terrifying when the following potential source of its inspiration is considered: ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it’.”

The quotation is attributed to Joseph Goebbels, one of Hitler’s closest henchmen and Reich Minister of Propaganda for the Nazi Party.

Mr Merrick has since apologised, saying: “I am sorry for this stupid post I made over six years ago.”

Within the last fortnight, another SNP candidate was forced to apologise after comments from 2017 emerged in which she had reportedly compared tactics by the Conservatives to Hitler and the Holocaust.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This is the second time in as many weeks that past comments by current SNP candidates have emerged comparing a major political party to the Nazis. Last time it was the Conservatives and Hitler, this time it is Labour and Joseph Geobbels, the mastermind of Nazi propaganda.
Arizona Holocaust Education Bill Stalls Over IHRA Antisemitism Amendment
In Arizona, the issue of Holocaust education and the debate over how to combat modern versions of antisemitism have suddenly collided with the state’s legislature.

Earlier this year, a bill to require education on the Holocaust and other genocides was introduced and passed by the Arizona State House unanimously. However, the bill has hit a snag in the Arizona senate, where there is a push to include an amendment that contains the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

Arizona State Sen. Paul Boyer, a Republican, told JNS that the goal of the Holocaust education bill is not only to teach about the past but to prevent future injustices.

“The purpose of this bill is not simply to mandate a fact-of-the-matter, look back in history for our children,” he said. “It is ultimately about our forward-facing goal of improving our future as a society by reflecting upon outstanding tragedies and injustices of the past from which key lessons must be learned.”

As such, Boyer said that the IHRA definition must be included to provide a safeguard against other forms of antisemitism.

“We have to make sure we include the International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition in any Holocaust education legislation that we put into state law in order to prevent Holocaust Inversion,” he emphasized, referring to which is a term used to describe the false portrayal of Jews and Israel as Nazis or oppressors.
Federal Prosecutors Ask Court to Keep Nazi-Sympathizing Capitol Rioter in Jail Due to Threat to New Jersey Jewish Community
US Justice Department prosecutors, in a court filing on Friday, said that a known Nazi sympathizer and army reservist who was arrested in connection to the January 6 Capitol insurrection should not be released while awaiting trial, because he poses a threat to the Jewish community of New Jersey.

CNN reported that Timothy Hale-Cusanelli — who worked at a naval base near Lakewood, New Jersey, which is home to a large Hasidic community — has been charged with seven felonies, including civil disorder, disorderly conduct, and obstructing congressional proceedings.

He has pleaded not guilty and denied to the FBI that he is a Nazi sympathizer. His lawyers claim that he is not a member of any white supremacist organization.

They have also claimed he cannot be a white supremacist because he is of Puerto Rican descent on his father’s side.

Federal prosecutors disagree, and have asked that Hale-Cusanelli remain in jail, citing police reports of him harassing and “doxing,” or publishing private information about, members of Lakewood’s Jewish community.

“Defendant poses a more localized threat to the community,” the prosecutors said in their court filing, “particularly the Hasidic community in Lakewood, New Jersey.”

“Defendant has demonstrated specific animosity towards the Jewish population and expressed a desire to commit violence against Jewish people,” they asserted.
Dutch soccer fans chant ‘Hamas, Jews to the gas’ before match against Ajax
Fans of the Dutch soccer team Vitesse chanted “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” at a fan rally before a scheduled match against Ajax, an Amsterdam-based team known for its history of Jewish supporters.

Police began examining footage from the action on Wednesday night, which occurred in Arnhem, where Vitesse is based. The two clubs played Sunday, and Ajax won 2-1.

Supporters and rivals of Ajax often affectionately refer to the club and its fans as “Jews,” out of recognition of the centuries-long strong presence of Jews in Amsterdam. It’s a pattern across Europe, used for fans of teams in England, Italy and Germany.

But in the Netherlands, the “Hamas, Jews to the gas” chant has become more commonplace in recent years.
Muslim convert tasered at flat in Cornwall after threatening to shoot Jewish group
A Muslim convert threatened to carry out an atrocity against Jewish people before being tasered by armed police at his home in Cornwall.

Adam Mark Burgoyne, 31, contacted another Muslim man in attempt to get him to help him but was quickly told it was not the way of the religion.

Burgoyne, of Trelawney Road in Helston, appeared at Truro Crown Court for sentence having pleaded guilty to sending malicious communications.

Opening the case, Brian Fitzherbert described how in February this year a Muslim man received a Facebook message from Burgoyne saying that he wanted to do something in the name of Allah.

Burgoyne in the message and a subsequent phone call, told the man that it was his intention to kill Jewish people and that he needed a gun, adding that he knew where Jewish people could be found.

After being refused help and told it was not the way of Islam, Burgoyne said to the man “shame on you, when you want to rise up let me know”.

The man, concerned for Burgoyne’s mental state, tried to talk him around but when Burgoyne said he didn’t need him as he had a gun already, police were called.
Billionaire Paul Singer to set up tech research institute in Israel
New York-based billionaire, hedge fund manager and philanthropist Paul Singer is setting up a new economic research and policy institute in Israel that will focus on Israeli technological innovation.

The new institute will be launched by Start-Up Nation Central, an independent nonprofit organization Singer founded in 2013 to connect international business and government leaders with Israeli technology.

The institute will be home to researchers who will develop long-term policy recommendations to foster the continued growth of Israel’s tech sector and secure Israel’s economy, Start-Up Nation Central said in a statement Monday.

The research team will conduct empirical research, tackle challenges related to growth of the innovation economy, and collaborate with players in the sector, both in Israel and globally, to identify and analyze trends, challenges, gaps and opportunities. The statement said that “particular focus” will be dedicated to research and co-innovation projects that may develop from diplomatic breakthroughs with the UAE and other Arab nations, as part of the normalization of ties following the Abraham Accords.

The institute will collaborate with the team at Start-Up Nation Central, which connects business, government and nonprofits from around the world with Israeli innovation.
Israeli tech said to give precise, knife-free skin cancer diagnosis in seconds
New Israeli technology will allow doctors to diagnose melanomas and other skin cancers in 10 seconds without cutting into the body, its inventors say.

Assessing potentially cancerous lesions is generally a painful and lengthy process that normally relies on dermatologists spotting them and sending the patient to surgeons for a biopsy. Alternatives, like reflectance confocal microscopy, tend to rely on highly skilled doctors.

But Tel Aviv University scientists say they have developed a super-speedy automatic method to analyze lesions on the skin.

They have exploited the fact that lesions emit different colors when placed under infrared light depending on whether or not they are cancerous — and, if they are, what type of cancer is present.

The fact that different cancers reflect different colors, and that this can be used for diagnosis, isn’t a new discovery. But the Israeli team has broken new ground by pioneering a way to assess lesions using light while they are still on the body.

The optical tech will “have the potential to cause a dramatic change in the field of diagnosing and treating skin cancer,” said Prof. Abraham Katzir, from Tel Aviv’s exact sciences faculty.
Sudan’s Only Jewish Cemetery Restored: ‘I Kept Thinking That These Were People’s Families, Aunts, Uncles, and Parents’
“I kept thinking that these were people’s families, aunts, uncles and parents,” said Chaim Motzen of Sudan’s only Jewish cemetery, which he rediscovered and has successfully restored following decades of neglect and desecration.

The cemetery is located in Khartoum, where there was once a small but thriving Jewish community mostly composed of Jews from Muslim countries.

But after an eruption of antisemitism across the Muslim world following Israel’s creation in 1948 forced the Jews out, the cemetery was over time all but destroyed, and turned into something both garbage dump and public toilet.

British daily The Telegraph reported Sunday that Motzen, who works on renewable energy projects in Africa, rediscovered the cemetery in the mid-2000s, and leapt at the chance to restore the site after Sudan’s hardline Islamist regime was overthrown by a revolution in 2019. The revolution led to a wave of liberalization and, a year later, a normalization deal with the State of Israel.

Sudan’s new Minister of Religious Affairs, Nasr Eldeen Mofarih, granted permission to restore the cemetery in Jan. 2020, and Motzen personally paid for an archeologist and workers to help do so. They removed tons of garbage, litter, and insects from the site, and then reconstructed as many of the headstones from the 71 graves as possible.

One grave of infant Diana Yacoub Ades, who had died at eight months old, eventually led Motzen to hunt down the deceased’s cousin, 88-year-old Albert Iskenazi, who now lives in London.

“I remember Diana well. She died suddenly of a fever. It made me feel very happy that he found the gravestone. Now we can mourn her properly,” Iskenazi told The Telegraph.
First Israeli Druze Woman to Break Boundaries in Basketball






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