Scientists: Israel proves every developed country can subdue COVID with vaccines
Prominent scientists say the transformation of Israel from a COVID-19 hotspot to a vaccination success story underlines that any developed country can subdue the virus.Israel to Buy Millions of Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Doses
They estimate that a relatively small number of vaccinations are needed to take a country out of crisis mode. The moment that half of the population aged 60-plus is inoculated, authorities can expect a dramatic drop in cases and hospitals are safe from being overwhelmed, they conclude.
The claims come from authors of a detailed report, published as a peer-reviewed article in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, on just how dire a COVID situation Israel faced in the early weeks of the vaccination campaign, especially as the new, highly infectious British variant was on the rampage.
“Israel was facing a range of factors that made the situation here particularly difficult, and if it succeeded despite all of this, and we could achieve a rapid decline in cases, then any developed country can,” Prof. Dan Yamin of Tel Aviv University told The Times of Israel.
He said that most other Western countries are in a better situation as they embark, or prepare to embark, on their vaccination programs, and therefore can be particularly confident upon seeing Israel’s infection, hospitalization, and death rates hit rock bottom.
His data suggests that vaccines quickly saved “hundreds of lives” in Israel, and his statistical analysis shows that the health service was swiftly protected from meltdown as a critical mass of 60-plus received vaccines.
Israel signed a deal to buy millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc through 2022, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.Israel closes down remaining COVID wards as infection drops
The new vaccinations will be suitable to protect people against different variants of the coronavirus, Netanyahu said in a statement.
He said he hopes to sign a similar deal to purchase the Moderna Inc vaccine.
“This means that very soon we will have more than enough vaccines, both for adults and children,” he said.
Late on Monday, Israel’s Walla news website reported that Israel signed a deal with Moderna as well, although officials were not immediately reachable to confirm the report.
With about 81% of citizens or residents over 16 — the age group eligible for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Israel — having received both doses, infections and hospitalizations are down sharply.
Israel on Monday closed down its two remaining coronavirus wards nearly one year after they were initially opened, as COVID-19 infection rate continues to decline.
The country began closing down its coronavirus wards some weeks ago when Israel's high-speed vaccinations campaign began to bear fruit with declining number of new COVID cases.
COVID wards at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera and Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Tiberias had remained the only two that were still operating. Both were finally shuttered on Monday, with remaining patients being moved for treatment in the internal medicine wards.
At the peak of the pandemic, Hadera's hospital operated three dedicated COVID wards, but over the past few days there have been no more than seven patients - on average - needing treatment.
"I am pleased to announce we are closing down the last active COVID ward," the hospital director, Dr. Mickey Dudkiewicz, said. "We will now be able to allocate staff to deal with the increasing needs of our internal medicine departments, which remained understaffed because of the pandemic," he said.
"If a need arises, we will re-open the wards but hope that there will be no such need," he added.
Bruce Portnoy: Has anti-Israel discourse taken over the United States? - opinion
In the past half-decade, a virus-like, anti-Israel malady has been also brewing on college campuses across the United States. It targets pro-Israel Jewish students, faculty members and speakers brought to educate anybody willing to discuss Israeli truths.Israeli-American Actress-Turned-Author Noa Tishby Seeks to Explain ‘Misunderstood’ Israel in New Book
In the beginning, the confrontations appeared relatively civil. However, as coverage by the media expanded, the rhetoric intensified. To tone down charges of blatant antisemitism, the confrontations were termed “mere” anti-Israel policy actions. Yet, angry demonstrators could be heard spouting antisemitic characterizations, some laced with intimidation and others with violent threats. When opportune, property damage and desecrations came to be.
As they were not openly challenged, the perpetrators grew bolder and acted as if First Amendment rights gave them an entitlement to target Jews, particularly those wearing clothes traditionally identified as Jewish. These unfortunate folks became targets of opportunity.
Jewish students appeared bereft of the justice offered to other discriminated groups under Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964. This formally prohibited discrimination based on race, color, and national origin, not specifically recognized as acts of religious discrimination.
Along come US Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) among others of similar ilk who actively promote their common disdain toward the Israel- Jewish American equation. Without apparent filters, antisemitic characterizations fanned flames of malice. Pro-BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) ambushes had an instant appeal to other recognized disparagers of Israel and Jews.
Even aspects of the relatively new social justice movement appeared hijacked by anti-Israel forces. False racist and apartheid accusations were spewed like venom toward Israel and by extension to Jews; an act of hypocrisy coming from black minorities that seek for themselves relief from racist attitudes and actions.
Too much of today’s psychological warfare appears reminiscent of tactics employed by Nazi Germany during the 1930s and ‘40’s against its vulnerable populations, which eventually led to their decimation without meaningful objection from within Germany.
Facing danger from the far Right and far Left, the Palestinian Authority joined radical Islam and other determined hostile groups as Jews found themselves with few friends openly advocating for their rights and protection. Jews appear once again in perpetual danger and may now be vulnerable to “In every generation, one shall rise up against us, to destroy us.”
History will not be favorable to our current American political leaders unless they promptly correct the strong perception that they abandoned Israel and Jews, in deference to a demanding population that in a matter of time may likely turn against the United States
Fans already know Noa Tishby as an actress, producer, activist and entrepreneur — and now she’s adding “author” to that list.Join Hollywood’s Noa Tishby for a chat about her new book
Her debut book, “Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth,” is a breakdown of the Jewish state in chronological order, from the biblical times to Israel’s founding, with key moments in the country’s history. It also dives into the country’s ongoing conflicts and serves as part-memoir, combining personal stories from Tishby’s own family history.
Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Tishby takes a self-deprecating approach to discussing her family’s role in establishing Israel and the Zionist movement. Her grandfather co-founded one of Israel’s first kibbutzim, and her great-grandfather established the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Jerusalem.
By the end of the book, Tishby told The Algemeiner in an interview, readers are “armed with all the facts.”
“To anybody who is a supporter of Israel or knows his or her history, it’s self-evident that Israel is misunderstood; that Israel gets a disproportionate amount of attention and scrutiny to its size and standing in the world,” she explained. “And it’s self-evident that it’s been skewed and filled with disinformation and misinformation that is targeting the single consistent democracy in the Middle East, which also happens to be a Jewish state.”
Like ISRAEL21c,Tishby’s book highlights the triumphs and successes of Israel to present a reliable image of Israel to those around the world.Accusations ZOA supports white supremacy is undeserved abuse - opinion
Please register for the event and join us at 10am PST/1pm EST/8pm IST for what promises to be an informative and entertaining discussion hosted by Tishby’s longtime friend and acquaintance, ISRAEL21c board member Jonathan Baruch, founding partner of Rain Management Group/StoryBy Entertainment in Santa Monica, California.
Through bite-sized chunks of history and personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland’s evolution from biblical times to today, tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance of facts to provide critical context around headline-generating controversies.
The book has gotten glowing endorsements from celebrities including Bill Maher, Aaron Sorkin, Maajid Nawaz and Yossi Klein Halevi.
Baruch says that Tishby will “discuss everything you might not know, what you ought to know, and how to pull the rug out from underneath a dozen misconceptions about the tiny nation that dominates the news.”
THE BOSTON-JCRC committee report also expressed “concern” about innocent ZOA retweets. The retweets were for their content; and did not endorse the initial maker of the tweet. For instance, on Veterans Day, Klein looked for a nice picture of a veteran to retweet. He found and retweeted a heartwarming picture showing an elderly US veteran saluting Veterans Day, previously tweeted by Congressman Steven King.Criticizing BLM is Unforgivable, Killing Jews is Understandable
Klein’s retweet was about Veterans Day – not the congressman. Incidentally, King was a great friend of Israel for years. He also rehabilitated himself by voting for a strong congressional resolution condemning his own words on white supremacy.
It’s important to note that ZOA and Klein also have a long record of combating real white supremacy, neo-Nazis and Nazis. Klein testified in Congress about hate crimes in 2019, and began his testimony by recalling how the Nazis murdered his grandparents and other relatives. Klein then urged, “Neo-Nazism must not be written off as marginal. Most of us correctly treat neo-Nazis and white supremacists as beyond the pale.
But history reminds us that we cannot write neo-Nazism off as a marginal phenomenon. There is a plethora of sickening neo-Nazi, white supremacist Internet sites, fomenting hatred and violence, primarily against Jews and blacks, but also directed towards LGBTQ, women, feminists and Muslims. We need to determine who is funding and behind this. . . .”
ZOA also successfully campaigned to deport real Nazi war criminal Jakiw Palij from the United States. To our knowledge, the Boston-JCRC folks who wrongly claimed that ZOA “elevated white supremacists” never assisted our important anti-Nazi campaign.
In 2019, Rina Shnerb, a 17-year-old girl who had been hiking in Israel with her father and brother, was blown up by a bomb. Rabbi Eitan Shnerb, who ran a charity that handed out clothes and food to the poor, had enough time to kiss Rina on the forehead, before she died.Jewish Center at Temple University Spreads Revolting Lies Against Israel
"I will say of the LORD, who is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust," the Rabbi at her gravesite chanted the words of Psalm 91. "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, and see the recompense of the wicked."
Abdel Razeq Farraj, who was indicted for authorizing the attack, had been named as a career PFLP terrorist who had served 6 years in prison and had been arrested six times. The year that Rina was murdered, Farraj took part in an Adalah youth event in partnership with a PFLP affiliate.
Adalah is one of the anti-Israel hate groups funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF).
According to an NGO Monitor report, the NIF has directed $720,481 to Adalah. George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, who has also funded J Street, is another major donor.
Last fall, Beth Badik, a J Street supporter who serves on the regional committee for the anti-Israel NIF, and Barbara Penzner, a Reconstructionist cleric who had signed a J Street petition opposing a ban on BDS and another calling for engagement with a terrorist government, demanded that the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston kick out the ZOA.
The Zionist Organization of America is the country’s leading pro-Israel group so Badik and Penzner’s animosity toward it and to Morton Klein, its unapologetically pro-Israel leader, was understandable. The anti-Israel Left had spent generations trying to seize control of the organizational establishment of the Jewish community in order to cut off support to Israel.
And they didn’t have far to go.
Badik, who is a supporter of one anti-Israel group and affiliated with another, also sits on the JCRC of Boston's Israel & Global Jewry Committee.
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”?Noura Erakat’s Gaza gaffes and other errata
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 he was a strong supporter of Israel. 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 host a public program called “The Weaponization of Discourse: Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and Free Speech on Campus,” featuring professor Kenneth Stern of Bard College and Joyce Ajlouny, general-secretary of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The Feinstein Center’s advertisements for the event declare that it will explore, among other things, “increased state violence against Palestinians.”
The phrase “state violence against Palestinians,” means that Israel, as a matter of national policy and in a systemic way, is carrying out violence 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 April 20 program is responding to, in part, 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 Stern, object to the IHRA definition because it includes demonization of Israel as an example of antisemitism.
Devoted to the modern, nonsensical nostrums of Palestinian nationalism, Erakat rejected that Gaza’s inhabitants ever “would have to surrender that they are Palestinians.” While Arabs throughout the Middle East and North Africa fleeing for a secure, wealthy Europe have shown little allegiance to countries like Iraq, Libya or Syria, she held high Palestine’s flag for Gaza’s inhabitants. “They could be Arab, they could be nomads, they can be random refugees, but they are not an indigenous people with a right to the land and a return,” she said.
Meanwhile, analysts who have ignored such “indigenous” ideological pretensions have offered practical solutions for Gazans to live in dignity.
A supporter of the BDS movement against Israel, Erakat euphemized as Palestinian “resistance” decades of relentless efforts by Arab states and the broader Muslim world to destroy Israel. The “call for sanctions from Palestinians comes after decades of trying other forms of resistance that have been squashed, criminalized and made unavailable,” she said. She whitewashed this total warfare of economic, political and military assaults as measures ranging “from legal remedies to diplomatic remedies, to political remedies, to military remedies.”
Gaza plays a central role in Erakat’s wider diatribe against a Western “liberal veneer that masks and shrouds this violence.” Accordingly, she blamed chronic instability in the region on America’s “unrelenting penetration and intervention into the Middle East because of its natural and geopolitical resources.” More activist than scholar, she championed “challenging imperialism as a legitimate system of economic exchange” and “critiquing U.S. empire. We’re talking about just devastation.”
But by then, Erakat had devastated her credibility. Confused about basic facts, she lacks the erudition of a genuine scholar and the intellectual honesty expected from people of even modest learning. Academic charlatans like her are undermining the nation whose heroes flew P-47s to defeat totalitarianism almost 80 years ago and which produces the advanced F-35 today. Defeating their ilk will require top-to-bottom reforms of America’s educational system. Are Americans willing to accept and see this challenge through to victory?
So, @amnesty is big on lecturing others, but a new report finds that the organization has culture of white privilege and systematic bias and racism employed by senior staff and leadership.https://t.co/xw0OgelYe5
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) April 20, 2021
As Calls to Cancel Leila Khaled Event Continue, San Francisco State University Livestream Airs on Facebook Featuring PFLP Veteran
A San Francisco State University-sponsored livestream featuring Yacoub Odeh — a veteran of the US-designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – aired on Facebook on Saturday, as calls continued for hosting platforms to cancel a separate, upcoming SFSU event featuring another PFLP member.
The April 17 webinar, “FreeThemAll: In Sumoud and Solidarity from the US to Palestine,” was co-moderated by SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) program Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, who has previously been criticized by Jewish groups for her rhetoric against pro-Israel students.
Among the sponsors of the event is the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which the Israel-based watchdog NGO Monitor describes as an affiliate of the PFLP. Odeh is an Addameer board member who previously served 17 years in an Israeli prison for his activity in the terrorist group, and who NGO Monitor has linked to a 1969 Jerusalem bombing that killed two Hebrew University students, citing an interview with a woman involved in the attack.
In September 2020, Facebook joined the videoconferencing platform Zoom in refusing to stream an online SFSU seminar hosting Palestinian terrorist and PFLP member Leila Khaled, as it violated its terms of use. But a new SFSU event featuring Khaled is now planned for April 23, with hosting platforms facing calls to again drop the seminar.
“The US Department of State has drawn bright lines as to what is and is not a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), and federal law unequivocally prohibits providing material support or resources to a member of an FTO,” Brooke Goldstein, Executive Director of The Lawfare Project told The Algemeiner in an emailed statement about Saturday’s livestream. “The law is the law, and it is imperative that these social media companies comply.”
The PFLP — which is founded on a Marxist-Leninist ideology and has been involved in suicide bombings, shootings, and assassinations, among other terrorist attacks — is dedicated to the removal of Western “imperialism” and capitalism from the Middle East to create a “democratic Palestine.”
Wow - San Francisco State Uni is not even trying to HIDE the fact they're supporting terrorists now!
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) April 20, 2021
First Leila Khaled & now this past Saturday they hosted Yacoub Odeh, a veteran of the US-designated terror org PFLP.
What sort of circus is President Mahoney running over there? https://t.co/gKcyRjvwSp pic.twitter.com/rV7ygkxfV8
In Student Governments, Jews and Zionists Need Not Apply
The story goes like this:
A Jewish student is elected to the university’s student government. The student’s fitness for office is challenged by peers who question whether that student can maintain “neutrality” on campus issues because of their Jewish identity. The student is targeted for impeachment, presumed guilty of the apparent high crime of being a Jew.
Several cases following this exact formula have disrupted campus life at schools across North America, causing Jewish students to feel isolated and ostracized simply because of who they are. At UCLA, the University of Southern California, McGill, Tufts and other campuses, a common thread in anti-Zionist activism has been attacking students for their Jewish identity.
Perpetrators of anti-Jewish discrimination insist that their bigotry comes from authentic desire to combat the “oppression and subjugation of the Palestinian people.” They claim that “Zionists” are the targets of these campaigns. Protesters chant “No Zionists!” during campus rallies, and student organizations exist solely to demonize and ostracize Zionism on campus. One former New York University Students for Justice in Palestine president made the goal very clear: “Our point is to make being Zionist uncomfortable on the NYU campus.”
For most Jews, being Jewish and Zionist go hand in hand. A Gallup poll found that 95 percent of American Jews have a favorable view of Israel. Similarly, a 2020 American Jewish Committee survey found that 85 percent of American Jews believe that rejecting Israel’s right to exist—in other words, rejecting Zionism’s core principle—is anti-Semitic. Since Zionism is rooted in Jewish identity and since Jews are overwhelmingly pro-Israel, as a result, any anti-Zionist activity on campus will unquestionably have a negative impact on Jewish students. In effect, to target Zionists is to target Jews.
Location South Tunnel, one of the walkway arteries on campus for students to get around. pic.twitter.com/wZAc3J82aO
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) April 20, 2021
AP Story on Spike in Settlement Growth Contradicted By Israeli, UN Figures
“Trump-era spike in Israeli settlement growth has only begun,” is the headline of a surprising April 14 Associated Press article which alleges that an AP investigation has uncovered “a construction boom which could make fading hopes for an internationally backed two-stated solution — Palestine alongside Israel — even more elusive.”Independent (in Arabic) again suggests Jews have no connection to Jerusalem
“An aggressive Israeli settlement spree during the Trump era pushed deeper than ever into the occupied West Bank — territory the Palestinians seek for a state — with over 9,000 homes built and thousands more in the pipeline, an AP investigation showed,” AP’s Joseph Krauss begins, and then cites “satellite images and data obtained by the Associated Press.”
A slideshow accompanying the article contains 16 images with captions that include the following: “Israel went on an aggressive settlement spree during the Trump era, according to an AP investigation, pushing deeper into the occupied West Bank than ever before and putting the Biden administration into a bind as it seeks to revive Mideast peace efforts.”
It’s a startling revelation because other news reports have reported the opposite, pointing to a decline in construction starts of residential units in settlements in recent years, when Donald Trump was president. Thus, this past September, The Jerusalem Post reported:
In 2016, during the last year of the Obama administration, there were 3,276 settler housing starts. It was the highest such number since the year 2000, when there were 4,965 housing starts.
The annual number of housing starts under the Trump administration has not hit that same height, with 1,733 starts in 2017, 2,376 starts in 2018 and 1,548 starts in 2019.
Similarly, a Haaretz report in recent days citing a “dwindling stream of new residents” to the settlements seems to contradict the notion of a building boom.
For the second time in less than six months, the West Bank correspondent for Independent Arabia (a partnership between the UK based Independent and the Saudi Research and Marketing Group) warned his readers of a sinister Israeli plot to “Judaize Jerusalem” by the means of “Tanakhic Parks”. (Tanakh refers to the Hebrew Bible)Editor of Major Dutch Daily Apologizes for Publishing Cartoon That ‘Evokes Memories of Nazi Era’
As we’ll show later, the reporter, Khalil Mousa, also suggests that Jews have no proven historical connection to the holy city.
Whilst his October 2020 headline at Independent Arabia reads:
“ISRAEL TRIES TO ESTABLISH ITS CONNECTION TO JERUSALEM BY THE MEANS OF ‘TANAKHIC PARKS’”
His more recent, March 2021, report opens with the following:
“PALESTINIAN AND JORDANIAN REJECTION OVER A PROJECT OF ISRAELI PARKS IN JERUSALEM
“Israel intends to set up Tanakhic parks […]”
However, other than the existence of these “Tanakhic” parks, somewhere in Israel’s grand scheme to take over Jerusalem and “form” a Jewish connection to it, the two reports agree on little else (see the full translation of both in the appendix). Each provides a totally different version regarding the parks’ proposed size, location within the Holy City, duration and other details:
One of the leading newspapers in the Netherlands has apologized for publishing a cartoon that lampooned a well-known Dutch pollster using antisemitic tropes.Clubhouse shuts down chatrooms after anti-Semitism complaints
Pieter Klok, editor of the daily De Volskrant, issued an apology on Monday morning for the cartoon, which appeared in the Sunday edition of the paper. It showed a caricature of Maurice de Hond — a Dutch pollster who is Jewish — holding two sets of puppet strings in his outsized hands, in a manner reminiscent of cartoons in the Nazi press that showed Allied leaders as the marionettes of powerful Jewish bankers.
The cartoon “evokes too many memories of the antisemitic caricatures of the Nazi era and should never have been published,” Klok wrote to the paper’s readers. “We apologize.”
Klok explained that the problem had “started with a picture editor with not enough historical awareness. He proposed [the cartoon] and approved it. After that too many people did not look at it closely enough. At the weekends we have fewer staff and fewer chances to review an image like this, so you run the risk of this kind of dreadful incident.”
The cartoon in the paper illustrated a feature on a 1999 murder case in which de Hond had led a campaign alleging that a miscarriage of justice in the Dutch courts had convicted the wrong man.
Clubhouse, the new audio-based social network, announced that it “shut down a number of rooms” in the wake of complaints about anti-Semitism.UK moves to outlaw neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, National Socialist Order
On Sunday, a Twitter user with the handle @EliKohn3 wrote about a chat on Clubhouse that discussed “Jewish Privilege,” where they said users were repeating and promoting anti-Semitic stereotypes.
“Nearly 200 people talking about how Jews control the federal reserve, Jews were behind the trans Atlantic slave trade, minorities are pawns for the Jews to destroy whites,” @EliKohn3 wrote. “I can’t believe the amount of antisemitism omg.”
Later that day, Clubhouse announced that it had shut down groups that violated its anti-discrimination policies.
“We shut down a number of rooms found to be in violation and, where appropriate, issued suspensions and removed users indefinitely,” it said, responding to @EliKohn3’s tweet but not referring specifically to any accounts or groups. “All forms of racism, antisemitism, hate speech and abuse are prohibited on Clubhouse and are a direct violation of the Community Guidelines.”
The app, which was launched about a year ago and already boasts over 8 million downloads, connects users by allowing them to join together in “rooms” to talk with each other. It has faced accusations of allowing anti-Semitism in the past, and in September the Verge, a tech publication, reported that it “is still struggling with moderation.”
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel asked the country's Parliament to proscribe white supremacist group Atomwaffen Division (AWD) and list National Socialist Order (NSO) as an alias for the organization, the government announced Monday.Antisemites bombard social media claiming football’s proposed European Super League is product of Jewish greed
AWD promotes a "race war" the aim of which is to bring about a fascist, white ethno-state, according to the Home Office. AWD disbanded in 2020, but NSO declared itself the successor of the organization online in July of 2020, just months after the AD was disbanded.
This proscription would outlaw the group under the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill, making it a criminal offense to be a member of or support the group. Those who violate this law could face up to 10 years in prison. This would support British law enforcement in countering the treats posed by this group, said the Home Office.
In the US, there have been five murders, offenses related to explosive and hate crimes committed by people associated with the AWS, according to The BBC.
"Vile and racist white supremacist groups like this exist to spread hate, sow division and advocate the use of violence to further their sick ideologies," said Patel.
"I will do all I can to protect young and vulnerable people from being radicalized which is why I am taking action to proscribe this dangerous group.
Twitter users have responded to news of a possible launch of a new European Super League (ESL) by blaming Jews for “ruining football.”Israeli startup begins selling cocoa spreads in US, touting 50% less sugar
The announcement of the ESL has proved controversial and unpopular with swathes of football fans due to the potential harm it is believed may be caused to domestic football leagues. Many fans apparently feel that the concept of the ESL is not in keeping with the game’s integrity.
However, for some Twitter users, what began as reasonable criticism regarding the direction of modern football quickly escalated into vitriolic, antisemitic accusations levelled against some of the league’s creators. who are the owners of the football clubs involved. Some of the owners or chairmen are Jewish. Among the tropes were claims of Jewish greed, a classic antisemitic notion.
One user wrote: “Notably, most of the owners of these ‘big’ football clubs pushing for a Super League are Jews, including Roman Abramovic and the Glazers…..Jews are ruining football, they dont give a f**** about the Gentile fans..”
Another tweeted: “All this talk of the European Super League. It’s jew rats behind it. All money grabbing c***s. It’s no wonder that people hate them as much as the muslims.” This abhorent post was accompanied by a popular antisemitic meme.
Yet another wrote: “Them 3 fat AMERICAN C***S YOU F***ING BASTARDS. And as for that Jew levy your family should have been gassed. Inters owners also ruined the cal champions. Perez is in the f***ing mafia”. Daniel Levy is the Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, one of the founding clubs of the ESL. He was recently targeted by antisemitic abuse online.“
Another still said: “Hey Zionists it’s not all about money you suckers“.
DouxMatok, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based food-tech company that says it is able to cut sugar levels in foods without affecting their taste, on Tuesday started sales of a hazelnut cocoa spread and a dark-cocoa salted caramel spread in what marks a first offering of its low-sugar brand directly to US consumers.Microsoft says new Israel cloud data center to start operations in early 2022
The Israeli startup, founded by now-102-year-old Prof. Avraham Baniel and his son Eran, developed technology that it claims is able to deliver sugar directly to the mouth’s sweet taste buds. In this way, food can contain 30% to 50% less sugar than when made with original recipes, but still provide the same sweet taste, texture and feeling.
Start of sales will allow US consumers to taste a product made with the sugar reduction solution, called Incredo Sugar, which demonstrates “how sugar can be used to reduce sugar,” the company said in a statement. Incredo Sugar, the flagship product of the food-tech company, is made from real cane sugar and allows for up to 50% sugar reduction.
The ingredient is used already by bakeries in Israel, including Maison Kayser, Piece of Cake, Danny & Galit, Superpharm and Matzot Aviv.
The limited US launch “marks the first time the brand has released a direct- to-consumer product, and also marks the first time a product with Incredo Sugar is available in the US,” Liat Cinamon, VP of business development at the firm, said in a text message.
US tech giant Microsoft said Tuesday it will open its regional data center in Israel at the beginning of next year, offering cloud services to Israeli customers starting with Azure and followed by a full range of services.Enes Kanter: Israel’s unlikely NBA ally - opinion
The company had originally said that the regional data center was expected to be operational in 2021, but that date has now been postponed to “early 2022.”
Services provided at a later stage, after Azure, will include Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics and the Power Platform, which are the cloud solutions used internationally.
“Israel is a hotbed for digital innovation and entrepreneurship, and cloud technology is playing a pivotal role in new and exciting opportunities for local organizations and communities,” said Ronit Atad, general manager, Microsoft Israel, in a statement. “Behind every successful organizations resilience and growth is the need to enhance their own digital capability. Cloud computing is at the heart of that, with customers’ data one of their strongest assets in leading to acceleration of their business, and the Israeli economy.” Ronit Atad, Microsoft Israel CEO (Guy Hecht)
The Israel data center region will be made up of multiple data center facilities with redundant power, cooling, and networking, the statement said. Azure Availability Zones, comprising a minimum of three zones, will allow customers to spread their infrastructure and applications across discrete and dispersed data centers ensuring that Azure customers have access to “highly resilient services” to support their workloads and processes, the statement said.
The company’s Israel data center would comply with security and privacy requirements for data storage in Israel and Europe, the company said.
Last year Israel made history in sports with Deni Avdija becoming the first ever NBA draft top 10 pick from Israel. But as Deni kicks off an NBA career that’s sure to be a great one, there’s another ally of Israel in the NBA, a perhaps somewhat unlikely ally. Enes Kanter is not only not Israeli, but he’s actually a Turkish Muslim – and he’s not afraid to get political when it comes to defending human rights, or combating antisemitism and racism.
For Enes Kanter, the 2.08-meter center for the Portland Trailblazers, fighting against oppressive regimes is personal. Kanter has long-standing beef with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his cronies, and has faced threats, harassment and outrageous violations of his basic rights by Turkey, simply for speaking out against Erdogan since a corruption scandal in 2013.
Within Turkey, for years, Erdogan has oppressed and imprisoned journalists, purged academics who oppose him, censored the press, forbidden peaceful protests, and trumped up charges against dissidents, in particular after the attempted coup in 2016. Similar to the situation in Iran, it’s not unusual for pro-Erdogan thugs to go after dissidents even on foreign soil – apparently, even NBA players such as Kanter. For example, in 2017, Turkish security violently attacked peaceful protesters outside the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC for their opposition to Erdogan, an incident Kanter himself spoke out about.
In 2017, the Turkish government reported Kanter as a threat to Indonesia while he was visiting, forcing him to flee in the middle of the night, and then canceled his passport mid-travel for his criticism of the government, leaving him stranded in Romania. Kanter spoke publicly on the ordeal stating, “The biggest threat to Erdogan is free speech, so he will punish anyone who speaks up or thinks for himself.” Indeed, at nearly every step of the way in Erdogan’s increasingly dictatorial rule, Kanter has spoken out, especially on social media, in favor of human rights and for justice – even at risk to himself.
