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Wednesday, April 21, 2021

04/21 Links Pt2: Holocaust Memorials Are Monuments Against Civilization’s Enemies; Walter Mondale, a liberal icon who championed Israel; IDF Chief of Staff Salutes Israel's Heroes

From Ian:

Holocaust Memorials Are Monuments Against Civilization’s Enemies
Now, Americans who believe in civil rights, black and white, want to remove Confederate statues, not to dishonor Southern soldiers who died during the Civil War, but because they refuse any longer to accept the white South’s racist mythologizing of its past.

It is important to remember that attacks on Holocaust memorialization are not really about history. Holocaust monuments and museums, as Neiman argues, are “values made visible.”

Holocaust deniers and desecrators are not the only ones who want to destroy these universal values of justice and equality. So too do the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017 carrying swastiska-emblazoned banners and shouting “Blood and Soil. Jews will not replace us” — and also the violent occupiers of the US Capitol in January 2021, who wore antisemitic insignias while unfurling Confederate flags.

Over a century ago, philosopher William James gave a speech dedicating a monument to Black soldiers and the white officers who died fighting for freedom in 1864. But he also delivered a warning to future generations about where the greatest threats to civilization might come from: “The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes … [From] internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blessed above all is [the nation where] the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day … by speaking, writing, voting reasonably … by good temper between parties.”

The “internal enemies” James was warning against were bigots wearing the masks of false patriotism — a sight that is becoming all too common today in America and across the world.
Who’s Afraid of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism?
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) includes 34 member states and numerous experts who work together to strengthen, advance, and promote Holocaust education, research, and remembrance. To effectively combat the rise in antisemitism world-wide, IHRA experts determined that the definition of antisemitism must be clarified.

The IHRA’s Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial built an unprecedented international consensus around the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which was formally adopted at a Plenary in Bucharest in May 2016. The definition has since been adopted by numerous countries, government agencies, and organizations around the world, including the US State Department.

The idea embodied in the IHRA definition is that to fight Jew hatred, we must first define it.

Many people recognize antisemitism only in its classical form; i.e., the public portrayal of Jews as greedy, demonic creatures who constantly conspire to control the world. However, in the past few decades, as the memory of the Holocaust has faded and social media became a primary channel of communication and source of news, antisemitism has mutated into a new form — anti-Zionism.

By masking one’s Jew hatred as an allegedly legitimate criticism of the State of Israel, the delegitimization campaign against the State of Israel, led by the terror-linked Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, has openly promoted and fostered the new antisemitism.
Walter Mondale, a liberal icon who championed Israel
Walter Mondale, the former vice president, represented a time in American history when being pro-Israel and progressive were often synonymous.

He passed away Monday at his home in Minneapolis aged 93.

From the launch of his national political career, Mondale was close to the national Jewish and pro-Israel communities. He found in those organizations willing partners in his endeavors to expand civil rights, and they found in him an avid advocate of Israel.

Mondale acted as a buffer between President Jimmy Carter, under whom he served as vice president, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and when the talks that culminated in an Israel-Egypt peace deal turned tense. Begin was said to favor the company of the affable Mondale over Carter, who was standoffish.

Mondale was one of three US lawmakers present at the dedication of Israel’s Knesset building in 1966 — he was a Minnesota senator at the time — and he led a delegation to Israel in 1978 to mark the country’s 30th anniversary.

Vice President Walter Mondale, left foreground, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, right, strain to hear the questions of reporters above the chants of anti-American demonstrators who were nearby in Jerusalem, July 2, 1978. Mondale and Begin had just completed a round of talks in the prime minister’s Jerusalem office. (AP Photo)

Israel policy was one of the few areas where Carter and Mondale differed. (The other was Mondale’s impatience with what he believed was Carter’s tendency to scold the American public.) In 2007, appearing with Carter on CNN in an interview marking 30 years since they assumed office, he gently pushed back at his friend’s book published not long before, “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” in an exchange that was otherwise all mutual admiration.

“I have read the book,” Mondale said. “I think there’s a lot of good materials in there. I do have a few problems with it, but if I might, I’d like to talk to the president about it first.”


Zoom Registration For Upcoming Webinar With PFLP’s Leila Khaled Now Removed From Platform
The registration link for the April 23 webinar featuring Leila Khaled — a member of US-designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – as a speaker has been removed from the Zoom videoconference platform.

The change comes after Eventbrite decided to remove the event, co-sponsored San Francisco State University’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) program and hosted via the UC Merced Zoom portal, from its platform, for violating its terms of service. The webinar, titled “Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine?” and moderated by SFSU’s Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, was originally advertised via a Facebook streaming event, before the social media site removed the event.

Zoom did not immediately respond to an Algemeiner request for comment. In September 2020, the company joined other platforms in blocking a similar event featuring Khaled — who took part in the hijacking of a Tel Aviv-bound commercial flight in 1969 — but had recently announced a change in policy to give more deference to universities to host events that allegedly violate the company’s terms of service.

“Leila Khaled and the PFLP would love nothing more than to recruit for their hateful movement among the ranks of American college campuses. To allow them to do so would not only go against core American values, it would clearly violate the law. Thankfully, Zoom and other technology companies seem to be taking their legal obligations (or at least the potential for legal liability) seriously,” Brooke Goldstein, Executive Director of The Lawfare Project told The Algemeiner by email.

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.”

“Campuses are a place for the exchange of ideas, but hosting a terrorist & member of a US-designated FTO, who promotes violence, is wrong & offensive. SFSU and UC Merced should do better for their students and reconsider allowing this event,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) commented in a tweet Tuesday.
Women’s March, Plagued by Anti-Semitism, Demands Prominent Jew’s Resignation
The Women's March, a prominent left-wing organization plagued with ties to anti-Semites, is demanding the resignation of the Supreme Court's highest-ranking Jew.

The group's executive director, Rachel O'Leary Carmona, released a statement Monday urging Justice Stephen Breyer to relinquish his seat on the High Court before the midterm elections in 2022. "The time has come for Justice Breyer to retire and pass on the mantle of protecting women's rights," said O'Leary Carmona. "The stakes are too high to wait a moment more."

A number of controversial liberal activists have coalesced behind a "Retire Breyer" campaign in an effort to end the prominent Jew's career. Among them is Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a dark money group that advocates radical reforms such as court packing. "The longer that goes by without word from Breyer that he intends to step down at the end of this term, the more reckless it is," Fallon told Politico last week.

The involvement of the Women's March adds an extra layer of controversy to the campaign to oust Breyer, whose replacement almost certainly would not be a fellow Jew. The organization, which rose to prominence in 2017 after sponsoring anti-Trump protests across the country, developed a reputation as a hotbed for anti-Semitism.

Co-chair Tamika Mallory, for example, was ousted in 2019 after refusing to distance herself from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a virulent anti-Semite. Farrakhan, for his part, argued "wicked Jews" were to blame for the criticism of "my poor little sister, Tamika." The move came several months after Democratic organizations cut ties with the group on account of its anti-Semitic associations.

Co-chair Linda Sarsour, who also had ties to Farrakhan, was similarly forced out amid allegations of anti-Semitism. Sarsour, who participated in the virtual Democratic National Convention in 2020, was subsequently denounced by President Joe Biden's campaign. A spokesman said that Biden "obviously condemns [Sarsour's] views" because he has been a "strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of anti-Semitism" his entire life.

The campaign to bully the Jewish justice into retirement is motivated, at least in part, by the liberal establishment's failure to force the issue when it came to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka "Notorious RBG." Ginsburg turned 76 the year Barack Obama was inaugurated, yet stubbornly refused to retire during his eight years in office.
Concordia Student Union Abandons BDS
The student union at Quebec’s largest anglophone university has formally abandoned its support for the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, B’nai Brith Canada has confirmed.

On April 6, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) posted a lengthy apology to the Jewish community over antisemitism, making reference to antisemitic graffiti on campus and promising corrective measures, mandatory antisemitism training for club executives, and “the inclusion of a Jewish perspective in CSU operations.” However, the statement made no reference to the CSU’s adoption of BDS in 2014, which has fueled hostility toward Jewish students at Concordia since that time.

B’nai Brith then reached out to CSU representatives to commend their bold apology and urge them to fully implement it by abandoning BDS. The CSU replied that it had done so, and removed all mention of the BDS Movement from its website.

Until now, the CSU had been the only Canadian student union outside of Ontario to adopt BDS. It had also been the only one known to have actually divested itself of holdings in Israeli companies. Its reversal is therefore a significant setback for BDS in Canada.

“The leadership of the Concordia Student Union should be commended for charting a brave and just new course,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “The CSU’s formal move to reject BDS is a critical step in rebuilding trust with the Jewish community, and should be followed by all student unions that still endorse that antisemitic endeavour.

“We at B’nai Brith will continue our efforts, until not a single student union remains in support of BDS in this country.”

Even before its 2014 adoption of BDS, the CSU had long been known as a hotbed of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel radicalism. In 2002, it opposed the appearance of then-Israeli Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu on campus, precipitating an infamous riot in which a Holocaust survivor was kicked in the groin and a rabbi and his wife spat upon by anti-Israel protestors.
Corbyn fails in bid to overturn ruling after being sued by Israel activist
Jeremy Corbyn has failed in his attempt to overturn a High Court judge’s ruling after being sued for defamation by Richard Millett.

In a judgment handed down on Tuesday Lord Justice Warby dismissed the former Labour leader’s argument that his words spoken about the pro-Israel campaigner Millett “conveyed a statement of opinion” and instead ruled they were defamatory.

The libel case, which can now proceed, was brought by Millett and relates to an appearance made by Mr Corbyn on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show in September 2018, in which he was asked about the then notorious “English irony” speech he had made in 2013.

He said Corbyn defamed him by accusing him of being “disruptive and abusive” at a 2013 meeting featuring a Palestinian speaker.

Procedurally, lawyers for Corbyn can now serve a defence if he they wish to argue that facts in the case were true.

Corbyn had mounted an appeal against preliminary findings made by Justice Saini.

Three appeal judges considered arguments at a Court of Appeal hearing in London last month.
Viciously Anti-Israel Commenters Flood New York Times Website
The New York Times is allowing its reader comments section to turn into an anti-Israel cesspool.

The first three “Reader Picks” comments on a recent Times news article about Iran’s nuclear program are all pretty vicious.

“We cannot let Israel run our country,” insists the top “reader pick” comment, echoing a classical antisemitic paranoia about undue Jewish influence, and winning a “recommend” vote from 128 other Times readers.

“Israel is a one-way ally — only taking. Blind support of Israel is contrary to US long-term interests,” according to the second “reader pick” comment, winning the recommend upvote of 110 other Times readers despite the blatant inaccuracy.

The third reader pick comment asserts, “Seems Israel would like nothing more than to provoke another Middle East war with US troops. While we pay them $3B to this day for weapons.” That won 88 “recommend” votes from Times readers, who seem oblivious to the fact that Israel has reportedly been degrading Iran’s nuclear program quite effectively without involving any US troops, or to the fact that the military aid supports American defense industry jobs.

Reader comments have been a persistent problem area for the Times.

In 2017, the paper awarded a gold ribbon “NYT Pick” to a reader comment claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “likes to control the US Congress,” describing American supporters of Israel as a disloyal “fifth column” and calling the Israeli leader a “parasitic thug.” After the Algemeiner reported about it and the advocacy group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis complained, the Times deleted the comment, saying it had been posted inadvertently.
Reviewing BBC News website coverage of the Natanz incident
No effort was made to inform readers of these reports that – as the BBC knows – in December 2015 (after the JCPOA had already been agreed) the International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA – produced a report which stated that:
“…the agency “assesses that a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and some activities took place” up to 2009.”

The BBC also knows that in April 2018 Israel revealed documents from Iran’s nuclear archive which raised new issues and that Iran has refused to grant IAEA inspectors access to sites of interest.

Also notable – and predictable – is the fact that despite there being no concrete evidence to date concerning responsibility for the incident, all the BBC News website’s coverage of this story steers audiences towards one sole explanation which is currently based entirely on other media organisations’ reports quoting anonymous sources.

In Frank Gardner’s article, for example, readers are told of media reports “quoting officials” but are not informed that those “officials” were not identified:
“Israel has not publicly said it was behind what Iran calls “an act of sabotage” but US and Israeli media reports are quoting officials as saying it was carried out by Israel’s overseas intelligence agency, Mossad.”
Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf: Fauci ‘doesn’t work for us,’ got $1m from Israel
Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf suggested that Dr. Anthony Fauci is beholden to Israel rather than serving the United States.

Wolf, an anti-vaccine activist who has also promoted conspiracy theories about ebola and the Islamic State, appeared Monday on Fox News to criticize pandemic restrictions promoted by Fauci. The one-time Democratic consultant said Fauci was “so conflicted” and doesn’t serve the cause of “public health for the American people.”

“He doesn’t work for us,” she said in a segment reposted by the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America. Among the examples of purported conflicts Wolf cited was an award that Fauci received from an Israeli university.

“He got a million dollars from the State of Israel for a humanitarian gift,” she said.

In fact, Fauci received the Dan David Prize, a prestigious $1 million award that comes not from the Israeli government but from Tel Aviv University. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was cited for achievement in public health and praised, according to a statement, for “speaking truth to power in a highly charged political environment.”

The Fox host who interviewed Wolf, conservative pundit Ben Domenech, did not address Wolf’s mention of Israel. After the statement, Domenech said Wolf’s skepticism of public health restrictions would be “vindicated.”

Wolf has harshly criticized Israel before. In 2019, responding to a Twitter poll asking “Which nation is the biggest threat to peace in the world?” she replied, “Where is Israel?”


Bipartisan group of 22 senators urge Biden to name anti-Semitism monitor
The bipartisan Senate anti-Semitism task force urged US President Joe Biden to name a State Department monitor to combat anti-Semitism.

“Tragically, 76 years after the end of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism remains a serious and growing danger for Jews in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere in the world,” said the letter sent Monday and spearheaded by Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Jim Lankford, R-Okla, the task force chairs, and signed by another 20 senators on the panel.

“To combat the rising tide of global anti-Semitism, the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism works to promote accurate Holocaust education, improve the safety and security of at-risk Jewish communities, ensure foreign public officials condemn anti-Semitic discourse, and strengthen foreign judicial systems in their prosecution of anti-Semitic incidents,” the letter said.

The letter noted that a law passed just before US President Donald Trump left office elevates the position to ambassador level, lending it more prestige and clout within the State Department. The new designation also means that any nominee requires Senate confirmation.

The task force brings together senators who otherwise would have little to do with one another in an increasingly polarized Senate. Among the signatories are Tom Cotton, the conservative Republican from Arkansas, and Raphael Warnock, the freshman liberal from Georgia.

Speculation within the organized Jewish community has been rife as to who will get the job, with a number of figures named as front-runners. Some applicants for the job have made their interest public, although the Biden administration has not given any serious indication of any leading candidate.
Dutch Chief Rabbi to Meet With Soccer Fans Following ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas’ Crowd Chant
The chief rabbi of the Netherlands will meet with fans of soccer team Vitesse Arnhem, in the wake of last week’s clash with Ajax during which Vitesse supporters chanted the slogan “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.”

Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs intends to engage with fans in a town-hall style meeting where he will be joined by Ahmed Marcouch, the Muslim Mayor of Arnhem.

“Clearly the chants are abhorrent and disgusting,” Rabbi Jacobs said in a statement on Wednesday. “They are ignorant and a twin attack on Jews: on Israel and on the Holocaust. The natural reaction is to condemn in the strongest possible terms. We, of course, do so.”

Jacobs added that both himself and Marcouch, “a Jew and a Muslim are fully aware of the dangers of ignorant prejudice.”

He continued: “We are also fully aware that boxing people in with condemnation can just entrench positions into ‘them and us.’ This serves nobody’s interest. Our town hall meeting for which I am grateful to the mayor for initiating, will be a frank, and we imagine difficult, exchange of views. But an entirely necessary one.”

Amsterdam-based Ajax have frequently been targeted by fans of other teams with antisemitic invective, because of the team’s historic connections to the Dutch Jewish community and the practice of its almost exclusively non-Jewish fanbase of waving Israeli flags at matches.
Warsaw unveils monument to secret archive documenting Holocaust horror
A group of Jewish organizations has unveiled a monument marking the area where a group of Jewish writers and activists buried an archive of material documenting their Holocaust experiences.

The commemoration of the Ringelblum Archive was timed to the 78th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on Monday.

A group of historians, journalists, writers and social activists led by Emanuel Ringelblum and known as Oneg Shabbat collected the material — from reports and diaries to posters, drawings and even candy wrappers — documenting the horrid conditions in the ghetto and hid the cache underground in metal boxes and milk cans. Most of the documents have been found.

The monument at 28 Nowolipki St., designed by Łukasz Mieszkowski and Marcin Urbanek, centers on a transparent cube containing a copy of an archival document.

Due to the pandemic, no official ceremony was organized. But the groups involved in the project — among them the Stacja Muranow Association, which educates locals on Warsaw Ghetto history, and the city’s Association of the Jewish Historical Institute, dedicated to research on the Ringelblum Archive — released an eight-minute video about it on YouTube.
Israeli Startups Orca and Wiz Reached Unicorn Status Despite Revenue of Just a Few Million Dollars
One month ago, Israeli cybersecurity startup Orca Security achieved unicorn status when it announced the completion of a $210 million round C funding at a valuation of $1.2 billion, with Alphabet’s independent growth fund CapitalG leading the round.

There was, however, one detail that the company didn’t reveal at the time which was uncovered by US publication The Information on Tuesday. According to the report, Orca’s annual recurring revenue when raising the funds was only around $4 million. Such a valuation with that amount of revenue gave the young Israeli company an unfathomable multiplier of times 300. It is important to note that, while the funding round was only announced in March, it was completed long beforehand, and that Orca’s current revenue is significantly greater with the company experiencing continued growth.

Orca co-founder and CEO Avi Shua wouldn’t confirm or deny the story in a call with Calcalist. “We don’t publicly detail the company’s revenue, which has doubled twice over just a few months. Serious funds saw our success story and our clients, like Robinhood and others, and made their calculations accordingly,” said Shua. “The company reached its revenue while employing only two salespeople and after just a short period, and our sales are currently far more significant. What’s important is our revenue compared to our competition and our growth chart.”

Shua added that Orca could have “raised funds at an even higher valuation with investors that don’t hail from the cybersecurity world.”

Another company that benefited from a massive multiplier on its revenue while raising funds was Wiz. According to the report, when the company announced last month that it had raised $130 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion it was doing so at a multiplier of times 600 on its revenue. The company refused to comment on the report, but noted that when it began raising funds it had only been selling its product for four months.
Miss Israel to Wear Gown Made of 300 Face Masks in Miss Universe Competition
Miss Israel Tehila Levy will wear a dress made of 300 face masks in the 69th Miss Universe pageant on May 16, it was announced on Friday.

The black and white off-the-shoulder gown has a long train and includes the elastic cords of the masks in its design. It was created by the Israeli fashion house Shai Shalom, which shared photos of the dress in a series of Instagram posts on Friday. The designer said the dress is a nod to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is really a cool and original idea,” said Levi, 18, according to the Spanish-language publication Netnoticias. “The masks show the time that we are passing. They are really the main representation of the pandemic and I am happy to wear them and that they [have] become a fashion accessory.”

Levi, who was born in Yavne, has an older sister who is a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces; a 14-year-old brother who is studying at a boarding school; and her younger brother, 10, was diagnosed with autism as a child. Her parents divorced when she was 14, she told the Israeli magazine La’isha last year. She hopes to be a communication clinician and treat children who have difficulties. The 5-foot-11 beauty queen was crowned Miss Israel in July 2020.
Israel, UAE Sign Multi-Faceted Healthcare Cooperation Accord
Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a multi-faceted healthcare cooperation deal, Israel’s Health Ministry announced on Wednesday.

The accord, which is the result of a joint effort by Israel’s Health and Foreign ministries, was signed by Israel’s Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and was attended by his Emirati counterpart Abdul Rahman Bin Mohammed Al Owais.

As part of the agreement, Israel and the UAE will cooperate in a wide variety of fields and projects within the healthcare sphere.

These will include joint efforts against pandemics, cybersecurity, and data protection in healthcare, medical training, innovation, artificial intelligence, and other high-tech endeavors.

“In addition, there will be an exchange of expert visits between the countries, and large-scale economic and health projects,” the press release adds.

The two nations will also seek to promote and foster cooperation between individual medical institutions.
UAE Inaugurates New Initiative to Upgrade Kosher In-Flight Catering
A year ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that the national airline of a Muslim Arab country would aspire to be a leader in elevating the quality of kosher food for the benefit of Jews around the world. Yet that is exactly what occurred when Kosher Arabia, the new kosher catering company based at Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport, recently celebrated its grand opening. Like many things following the Abraham Peace Accords, all of us present felt that we were experiencing something groundbreaking.

As noted by Director Ross Kriel in his welcoming speech, from the beginning the aspiration was that Emirates – one of the world’s top ranked airlines, would also serve the best kosher food in the world.

While Kosher Arabia was inaugurated only last week, the vision for a catering company to provide kosher catering was floated four years earlier by Saeed Mohammad Ahmad, the CEO of Emirates Flight Catering, who explained, “we want to have the best Kosher meal served on our aircraft and in our lounges worldwide.”

At that time, long before the Abraham Peace Accords, the project was deemed commercially viable through a partnership with Emirates Flight Catering, the company that already supplied in-flight catering services to Emirates Airlines, the flagship airline of the UAE, offering access to its 58 million passengers and 3,500 weekly flights this new gourmet food option. The Abraham Accords have made the commercial opportunity far more relevant since there are now many daily flights to Tel Aviv and a greater number of Jews expected to come to UAE as a result of the agreement.

Until now, In-flight kosher catering has been renowned for its poor quality. It is excessively wrapped in cellophane and aluminum foil to protect its separateness and must be ordered well in advance.


IDF Chief of Staff Salutes Israel's Heroes
""May the memory of our fallen boys and girls be a blessing."

On the eve of Israeli Memorial Day, April 13, 2021, IDF Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi gave a speech titled "Three Mothers".

The speech was delivered at the Western Wall, the holiest site of the Jewish people, in order to commemorate the soldiers who fell guarding Israel and their bereaved families.

Lt. Gen. Kohavi spoke about three mothers whose children fell in battle—Rachel, Nechama, and a third who has no name but represents countless other grieving mothers. Their strength serves as an ongoing testament to the resilience of the State of Israel.