Friday, March 18, 2022

03/18 Links Pt2: Israel marks 30 years since attack on Argentina embassy; ‘Extradite Malki’s killer’; Israel and the Arabs: a new strategic reality; Israel ranked 9th happiest country in the world

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: The Costs of a New Iran Deal Outweigh the Rewards
Anew nuclear deal with Iran, in substance or principle, may be imminent. But the circumstances that would produce such an arrangement ensure that it would not bring peace. It may not even postpone war.

On the night of March 13, a volley of rockets launched from inside Iran rained down on targets in the Iraqi city of Erbil near enough to a U.S. consulate compound that it left no ambiguity about Tehran’s targets. That attack, the Associated Press reports, bolstered arguments both for and against a new nuclear deal. How? “For the administration,” the AP continued, “it confirmed that Iran would be a greater danger if it obtains a nuke.” In other words, Iran must be rewarded for shooting at Americans lest it continue to shoot at Americans. This mindboggling logic tacitly admits that a new nuclear deal is a product of duress; we are deterred by the mere potential of an Iranian bomb.

In the administration’s efforts to keep negotiations over an Iranian program from collapsing, the White House is already sacrificing its relationships with America’s partners in the region. Following the Iranian missile strike, administration officials told New York Times officials that the American facilities that were struck were not, in fact, Tehran’s target. Those officials lent credence to an Iranian narrative that the strike was a response to an Israeli airstrike in Syria in which Iranians operating a secret drone factory were killed. Tehran, the unnamed officials insisted, was actually targeting secret Israeli training facilities inside Iraq.

If that is true, the White House had just revealed the shocking and previously deniable existence of Israeli military facilities inside Iraq. If it isn’t true, it was a repulsively craven display designed to let the White House squeeze out of its obligation to defend U.S. interests from brazen attacks by rogue states. Either way, it was a betrayal of Israel and a display of weakness that will beget future attacks on the symbols of American might in the region.
Warning against Iran deal, Israel marks 30 years since attack on Argentina embassy
Dozens of people attended a memorial service Thursday at the site of a 1992 terrorist attack against the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, exactly 30 years after the site was blown up by a car bomb.

“It was a terrorist attack against my country, but it was also an attack on Argentina, the country where my father was born and raised,” Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who was leading a Foreign Ministry delegation, said at the ceremony.

The ceremony took place at the same time as the March 17, 1992 attack, when a suicide bomber killed 29 and wounded 242 in front of the Israeli embassy, in what still is the deadliest attack on an Israeli diplomatic mission. A group with ties to Iran and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah took responsibility for the bombing.

“The perpetrator of the attack in Argentina is Iran, and it is our moral duty to continue to pursue them until they are brought to justice,” Sa’ar said.

The justice minister used the ceremony to reiterate Israel’s public position on a potential revival of a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

“Recently, we are hearing about the dangerous nuclear agreement, which is being formed between the powers and Iran. The lifting of sanctions under the agreement will transfer huge sums to Iran and its proxies, like Hezbollah, harming peace and stability in the Middle East, and strengthening terror elements,” Sa’ar added.

Before the ceremony, Sa’ar met with the families of those killed and injured in the attack and with the heads of the Jewish community in Argentina.

On Friday, he is slated to meet with Argentine President Alberto Fernández, according to the Ynet news site.




‘Extradite Malki’s killer’
FIVE years after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) placed Jordanian Ahlam Tamimi on its Most Wanted Terrorists list, Israelis Arnold and Frimet Roth have repeated their calls for Tamimi, who took part in a 2001 Jerusalem bombing that killed their Australian-born daughter Malki, to be brought to justice in the US.

Tamimi helped to plan and took part in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing, in which 15 people were murdered and 130 injured. She was convicted by an Israeli military tribunal and was given multiple life sentences. But she was released in a 2011 prisoner exchange to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas.

However, speaking to The AJN, Arnold Roth pointed out that Israel commuted her sentence on the condition that she would not re-engage in incitement, something she soon openly flouted on returning to Jordan. In that country, she now enjoys celebrity status after hosting an internationally networked 2011-2016 TV talk show, and has trumpeted her lack of remorse over the deadly attack.

“Her unjust freedom – and the injustice it embodies – chokes us,” the Roths jointly stated on the fifth anniversary of the FBI listing.

In 2013, the US Justice Department filed charges against Tamimi based on US nationals who were victims of the Sbarro bombing. Malki was a US citizen through her American-born mother. Four years later, the charges were unsealed (made public) and the US asked for Tamimi’s extradition, but Jordan refused.

Jordan has long claimed its extradition treaty with the US was never ratified, but in late 2020, a freedom-of-information lawsuit by Malki’s parents against the US government yielded a document proving it was ratified, and that there are no legal obstacles to extraditing Tamimi. In fact, other Jordanians wanted in the US have been extradited. Sbarro pizzeria bombing planner Ahlam Tamimi.

Roth has also rejected assertions by Jordan that re-prosecuting Tamimi would breach the US constitutional prohibition on double jeopardy – trying someone for the same crime twice – and explained that this principle does not apply to prosecution in another country.


From Hayek to Murray – shaping Israel’s discourse one book at a time
From Friedrich Hayek and Thomas Sowell, to Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson and Stephen Hicks – Sella Meir’s books are revolutionising the Israeli discourse.

“Ban Friedrich Hayek?” gasped maverick publisher Rotem Sella, “Hayek is one the greatest thinkers who ever lived, the man has changed my life.”

Sella listens with disbelief to the news of students at the London School of Economics calling for the dissolution of the HayekSoc – last year he made history when he translated Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit, to Hebrew, introducing the noted economist’s vision to the Israeli public for the very first time.

The past few years have seen Sella Meir, Rotem Sella’s publishing house, rock Israel’s culture boat through the introduction of publications that are the cornerstone of Western civilisation, written by some of its most profound thinkers – from “the great Thomas Sowell who can explain complex ideas with fluid simplicity”, to Hayek, Charles Murray, Roger Scruton, Douglas Murray and Stephen Hicks among many others. “I was shocked to discover that no Israeli publisher has ever bid for the classic titles I was interested in” Sella told me, “I didn’t know what to make of such a revelation – does this mean that Israelis have never read Sowell, Hayek, or Scruton? That for decades upon decades Israelis were only exposed to Leftist ideology? this would certainly explain the make up and evolution of Israeli society since 1948.”

Israel was founded on socialist ideology, explains Sella, “this was the state of affairs until Right Wing Begin’s 1977 historic win which turned Israeli society upside down, of course, the real cultural revolution came with the internet and exposure to alternative voices.”
Israel and the Arabs: a new strategic reality
There is no gainsaying that the Middle East is undergoing a profound transformation that reflects the broader and more far-reaching changes in the current world order. The region is in a state of flux, and the vocabulary that has long prevailed, such as “the Israeli enemy,” is changing in some countries and has already changed in a significant part of the region.

The traditional Arab view associated with Israel for decades is gradually fading and being replaced by a more natural view, although not by complete acceptance. But things are moving in that direction. I am speaking here from the public opinion in several Arab countries. I am not generalizing.

I am not saying that things have completely changed. But the overcoming of the traditional image that people have of Israel and the momentum working in this direction is a great qualitative achievement made possible by the peace agreements that the UAE signed with Israel in August 2020.

Egypt and Jordan have normalized their official relations with Israel since 1979 and 1994 respectively, and the Oslo Agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel was signed in 1993. However, it cannot be denied that these agreements have not brought the official state of peace to the streets. This is due to many reasons and considerations that we may all know.

But the advantage of the Abraham Agreements is that they immediately touched the pulse of the societies in the countries that signed them, such as the UAE and the Kingdom of Bahrain, mainly because the agreements benefited from past experiences and focused on the economy, tourism, investment and everything that establishes normal relations between countries.

Against this backdrop, I was not surprised that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, during his recent visit to Manama, called for forging “alliances” between Israel and the Arab countries.
JPost Editorial: Diplomat Nides's settlement statements highly undiplomatic
Nides’s ultimate aim of changing the status of Jerusalem from the capital of the State of Israel to a capital for Israel and the Palestinians was evident in other comments too. He said he recognizes that “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” but added that “the final status of Jerusalem would have to be decided by the parties.” He also repeated the Biden administration’s pledge that it would reopen a consulate in Jerusalem for the Palestinians that had been a de facto embassy for the PA until former president Donald Trump closed it in 2019 and consolidated all the diplomatic and consular services in the newly inaugurated Jerusalem embassy.

Israel vehemently opposes reopening the consulate for the Palestinians in the Israeli capital. It is unprecedented for one country to maintain two diplomatic missions in the same city. A US office offering consular services in Ramallah would be far more accessible for the Palestinians living in the PA territories.

Addressing concerns for a possible escalation in violence when Ramadan and Passover coincide next month, Nides spoke out against the PA policy of paying monthly stipends to terrorists and their families – but not for the moral reasons that should come to mind.

“These martyr payments... have caused an enormous amount of problems,” Nides said, adding that they give the “haters” an excuse not to support the PA based on the argument that it is “paying for people who killed Jews.” In other words, paying the families of terrorists is not innately wrong for rewarding terror and encouraging more attacks, but because it serves as an excuse for the “haters.”

By taking sides, Nides is ignoring the nature of his job and is making the situation worse, not better. The US ambassador needs to remember the role of a diplomat and he should act as an ambassador in good faith.
The Israel Guys: We Went Inside the Terror Tunnels in Gaza
We went down the Gaza border and checked out the tunnels that were built by Gaza terrorists for the purpose of sneaking into Israel and killing Jews. The security professional in the area Keith Isaacson took us around and showed us how these tunnels were found, as well as what they looked like on the inside.

This video was filmed several months after the 2014 Gaza War also known as Operation Protective Edge. This episode of our TV series "The Joshua & Caleb Report" has only been release on DVD and TV networks and has never been published on YouTube.




Israel indicts head of Hamas in Jerusalem on terror charges
A joint investigation by the Shin Bet intelligence agency and the Israel Police has exposed Hamas activity in Jerusalem funded by senior members of the terrorist organization residing in Turkey.

Four suspects have been indicted on suspicion of funding and membership in a terrorist organization.

According to the indictment, during his visits to Turkey over the years, the head of Hamas in Jerusalem Khaled Sabah met with senior Hamas operatives at the terror group's headquarters in the country. Among those senior Hamas officials was Zacharia Najib, who was convicted for his involvement in the 1994 kidnapping of the late Nachshon Wachsman. Three other Hamas operatives were convicted in the kidnapping and murder of police officer Nissim Toledano.

Sabah was joined by his wife and sons Munib and Musa'ab on some of these flights abroad to foster the appearance of a family trip. On his most recent Turkey trip, taken last month, senior Hamas officials promoted Sabah, putting him in charge of Jerusalem to promote the terrorist organization's activity in the city, including clashes with security forces, enlisting new operatives for the organization, raising funds, and other activities. Within the new role, Sabah was asked to establish and operate a military and organizational framework in Jerusalem and make plans for the holy month of Ramadan in particular.

In early February, three members of an east Jerusalem family were arrested on suspicion of terror-related crimes upon landing in Israel. Those suspects, Sabah, Munib, and Musa'ab, from the neighborhood of Sur Baher, were taken for interrogation, during which it arose that they had worked with the Lajnat Zakat Al Quds organization, which has offices on the Temple Mount and serves as a platform for the transfer of funds including to support families of terrorists under the cover of its purported work with orphans.

As part of the investigation, another 43-year-old suspect from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina was arrested. Thanks to a joint effort with the tax authority, documents, 500,000 shekels in cash, cars, and properties were seized and bank accounts were frozen in the arrest.
Hamas’ Illicit Bitcoin Network Continues to Operate Despite DOJ Seizure
The “Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades” Telegram channel run by Hamas posted a message Wednesday soliciting approximately one hundred and eighty thousand of its online followers to send bitcoin to an account registered under the organization.

“Book yourself a share in support of the resistance through the Bitcoin donation link,” the message stated.

The solicitation also offered “other ways to donate” that included a link to an email address setup by Hamas.

In Aug. 2020, the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) dismantled several illicit networks run by Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) including Hamas. The statement published by the DOJ said it successfully targeted Hamas’ cryptocurrency network that was used to launder funds for the organization.

“Working together, IRS, HSI, and FBI agents tracked and seized all 150 cryptocurrency accounts that laundered funds to and from the al-Qassam Brigades’ (Hamas) accounts,” the statement said.

However, despite DOJ’s actions, Hamas has reorganized and resumed its online campaign to raise funds via cryptocurrency. Since the DOJ’s operation, Hamas has posted four notices to its online followers directing them to a website ending in “.ps” that was established after the DOJ seized the previous domain in 2020.

FDD’s Long War Journal has been tracking the use of cryptocurrency by several Palestinian militant organizations since 2020.
Concessions to Iran, Russia Pile Up in Nuclear Talks
After eight weeks of gridlocked and often grueling negotiations through international intermediaries in Vienna, the United States and Iran looked on track to secure an agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s expanding nuclear program this month. But last week nearly saw the efforts derailed in their final stages after Washington roundly rejected demands by Russia—a key player in the talks—to shield its own trade with Iran from Ukraine-related sanctions. Instead of the broad protections Moscow requested, U.S. negotiators agreed to Russia’s involvement in a much narrower scope of nuclear-related activities.

So why did Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov take a victory lap with his Iranian counterpart in Moscow this week, claiming that talks had entered the homestretch and touting the two countries’ growing economic ties?

A recently rediscovered $10 billion contract between Iran’s atomic energy organization and a Russian state-owned company, Rosatom, might explain why. The contract detailed plans now underway for Russia to build two nuclear reactors at Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran, an enterprise the new Iran-U.S. nuclear agreement would explicitly protect. And there could be more to follow. A November 2014 protocol between Russia and Iran, outlined in a Rosatom document obtained by The Dispatch, left the door open for Russia to build six additional reactors and generate billions more in revenue in the future.

This carveout could extend President Vladimir Putin a meaningful monetary lifeline as the West has backed Russia into an economic corner with sanctions. For context, Russia’s entire bilateral trade with Iran last year was only $4 billion in total, which was an 80 percent increase from the previous year.

Russia’s last-minute move to force the United States’ hand seemed to bet on the administration’s willingness to make concessions—even to Russia, despite simultaneously pressuring Putin to halt his unprovoked war on Ukraine—all for the sake of inking a new nuclear deal. The Biden team’s conciliatory approach last year marked a sudden reversal from the Trump administration’s 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and full enforcement of a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime. The Biden administration says the concessions are justified if they keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but critics—which include regional experts, lawmakers, and former government officials—say the administration is willing to concede too much, including so-called “inherent guarantees” to Iran that could bind future U.S. administrations.

While the precise shape of the current draft agreement remains uncertain, it’s clear that the administration’s early hopes of pressuring Iran into a more robust version of 2015’s JCPOA have dwindled. When assessing the value of the forthcoming deal, experts typically ask two questions: Does this compromise meet the goal of meaningfully curbing Iran’s future atomic ambitions? And does it empower or impede the ability of the U.S. and allies to respond to non-nuclear threats currently posed by Iran?


Israel’s Bennett, Lapid ‘Refuse to Believe’ US Would Lift Terrorism Designation Against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
The Israeli government on Friday said that it “refused to believe” reports that the United States is preparing to remove the designation of the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

In a joint statement, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid reiterated the view that the IRGC is a “terrorist organization that has murdered thousands of people, including Americans.”

“We refuse to believe that the United States would remove its designation as a terrorist organization,” the pair declared. The IRGC was originally designated as a terrorist organization by former President Donald Trump’s administration in April 2019.

The statement pointed out the links between the IRGC and terrorist proxies elsewhere in the region, among them Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

The statement described the IRGC as “an integral part of the brutal machine of oppression in Iran. Their hands have on them the blood of thousands of Iranians and the crushed soul of the Iranian society.”

It added that “the attempt to delist the IRGC as a terrorist organization is an insult to the victims and would ignore documented reality supported by unequivocal evidence. We find it hard to believe that the IRGC’s designation as a terrorist organization will be removed in exchange for a promise not to harm Americans.”
Report: US mulling taking IRGC off terror list



AIPAC hates the Iran deal, but it’s backing 27 Dems who supported the 2015 accord
Killing the Iran nuclear deal has been one of the signature issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the country’s largest pro-Israel lobby, for almost a decade.

In 2015, as the deal signed by the United States, Iran, and five other global powers gained momentum, AIPAC launched a massive effort to stop it in its tracks, enlisting activists to intensely lobby Congress and rallying the organized Jewish community to stand as one against the deal. There were reports of tearful angry exchanges in congressional offices. One Jewish congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, got emotional on CNN in explaining her agonized decision to vote for the bill.

Now AIPAC is endorsing 27 Democrats who voted “yes” for the deal in 2015, offering them financial support through their newly-formed political action committee, the AIPAC PAC.

On March 3, the group announced that it had raised $1.67 million for the PAC itself, and another $1 million to be funneled directly to candidates.

The Democratic endorsees are a mix of prominent names such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and reliable centrists known for their pro-Israel postures outside of the Iran vote, such as Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas and Derek Kilmer of Washington. Others are progressives seen as key to maintaining support in that growing caucus, such as Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who is Jewish.

In all, AIPAC’s PAC is endorsing a total of 59 Democrats, including eight who voted against the deal in 2015 — such as Reps. Grace Meng of New York and Ted Lieu of California — and 24 who were not in Congress at the time.


Eleven Jewish House Dems: Amnesty director’s full remarks ‘even more troubling’
A day after all 25 Jewish House Democrats issued a statement condemning Amnesty International USA Director Paul O’Brien’s comments on American Jews and Israel, eleven of those members wrote to the organization’s international chief on Tuesday expressing concern that O’Brien’s full comments were “even more troubling” than the remarks initially reported by Jewish Insider.

In an event last week, O’Brien claimed that American Jews do not support Israel’s existence as a Jewish state — a statement that the original group of legislators described as “alarming” and “antisemitic.”

JI published the full audio and a partial transcript of O’Brien’s remarks to the Woman’s National Democratic Club.

“Mr. O’Brien’s comments, coupled with Amnesty International’s report released last month, appear to be part of Amnesty International’s continued dangerous degree of bias and denial of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” the letter to Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard reads, referring to a recent report from the NGO that accused Israel of apartheid. “Amnesty International cannot credibly advance human rights around the globe while simultaneously denying the only Jewish state their right to self-determination.”

The letter was organized by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who was joined by Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Elaine Luria (D-VA), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Mike Levin (D-CA), Lois Frankel (D-FL) and Dean Phillips (D-MN).

“Mr. O’Brien’s comments, if not denounced, lay bare the real purpose of Amnesty International’s report on Israel,” the letter continues. “It is not an attempt to give a fair analysis of Israel and its policies, nor an effort to support the aspirations of both the Arab and Jewish people. Rather, it is a tacit attempt to delegitimize and ultimately destroy Israel as the only Jewish state in the world.”
Students for Justice in Palestine Assaults Academic Freedom
Last month, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Chicago (SJP UChicago) took to social media to launch an aggressive anti-Israel campaign that targeted academic freedom at the university.

SJP’s divisive statement read, “DON’T TAKE SH*TTY ZIONIST CLASSES,” and urged students to boycott courses about Israel, arguing that they “legitimize” the Jewish state through propaganda.

Now, SJP is expanding its initial boycott to include academics associated with the Israel Institute, an off-campus nonprofit organization that encourages bilateral academic engagement between scholars in the US and Israel.

The three courses SJP cites — “Multiculturalism in Israel,” “Narrating Israel and Palestine Through Literature and Film,” and “Gender Relations in Israel” — do not center geopolitics in the slightest. Nonetheless, SJP resorts to attacking academic freedom and suppressing meaningful discourse to maintain a monopoly on the conversation surrounding Israel.

We must stand against this fundamentally dangerous and anti-intellectual tactic, which attacks the very foundation of academic inquiry and the pursuit of truth.

In their statement, SJP resorts to demonizing Israel and makes several unsubstantiated claims about the Jewish state and Jewish history. SJP goes as far as to claim that “Jewish national identity” is “a recent invention of the settler-colonial Zionist project.”

By doing so, SJP is effectively telling the Jewish people that their shared history and connection to their indigenous ancestral homeland is a figment of their imagination. There is extensive archaeological evidence of deep-rooted Jewish communities in the land. Forced into diaspora and persecution, Jews have sought to return to their homeland for thousands of years, and there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land.


BBC News reporting on incident in Balata
On March 15th the BBC News website published a report headlined “Three killed in Israel, West Bank violence” on its ‘Middle East’ page.

The report relates to three separate incidents in which members of Israel’s security forces were attacked while carrying out arrests and opens as follows:
“Two Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank.

A 16-year-old boy was shot dead during clashes in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, while a man in his 20s was killed in the Qalandia camp outside Jerusalem, Palestinian officials said.

Israeli troops said they were attacked during raids to arrest militants.”

With regard to the incident in Balata, readers have to reach paragraph nine before they are given any kind of information as to what the “16-year-old boy” was doing at the time of his death.
“Sixteen-year-old Nader Haytham Rayan died after being shot in the head, chest and stomach by Israeli troops in Balata on Tuesday morning, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Another three people were wounded, one of them critically, and were being treated at a hospital in Nablus, it added.

Israel’s paramilitary Border Police said its troops entered Balata to arrest a wanted suspect and that they found an M16 assault rifle.

As the troops were leaving the camp, Palestinians threw stones and other objects at them, a statement said. A “terrorist” also arrived on a motorbike and shot at the troops, who returned fire and “neutralised” him, it added.”

The BBC’s description of the Border Police as “paramilitary” is clearly misleading to most readers. The portrayal of the incident does not adequately clarify that the person who got off the scooter to fire at the Israeli security forces with a pistol was Nader Rayan. The BBC’s account does not name the arrested suspect and does not make any mention of the photographs of Rayan with weapons circulating on social media. No mention is made of the appearance of Fatah gunmen at Rayan’s funeral even though the main photograph heading the article depicts that event.
MAC Montreal Panel Discussion Features Speaker Tied To Banned Terrorist Organizations
Canadians should be alarmed to learn that Montreal’s Museum of Contemporary Art, MAC Montréal, recently produced an event featuring a speaker connected to banned Palestinian terrorist organizations.

On Sunday, March 13, MAC Montréal, which is funded by the Canadian Government, the Province of Quebec and the Canada Council for the Arts, hosted a virtual panel discussion as part of its ongoing exhibit, Terror Contagion.

MAC organized an international panel discussion on the NSO Group, under its annual Max and Iris Stern Symposium. Watch a segment of the event here or immediately below:

MAC Montreal panel discussion features speaker tied to banned terrorist organizations

To recall, HonestReporting Canada previously critiqued MAC Montréal for hosting an exhibit which was produced by the anti-Israel organization, Forensic Architecture, that portrayed Israeli forces as having carried out an “extrajudicial execution” of what it depicts as an innocent Palestinian man, whereas Israel says the Palestinian was a terrorist who deliberately tried to murder Israelis by ramming his car into soldiers at a checkpoint.

As we noted at the time, the creators of the exhibit were Eyal Weizman, an anti-Israel propagandist and Al Haq, a radical Palestinian NGO that was recently branded as a terrorist group by Israel which funded Forensic Architecture’s investigation.

The online panel discussion entitled: “Digital Occupation: From Walls to Firewalls”, was hosted by Shouri Molavi of Forensic Architecture, and featured panelists Alaa Mahajna and Eitay Mack, two Jerusalem-based human rights lawyers, as well as Shawan Jabarin, the Director General of Al Haq Legal Centre in Ramallah. No pro-Israel voices were included on the panel.

Casual viewers would conclude from MAC’s program that Al Haq is an organization “defending human rights in Palestine,” as their website claims, but not only is that far from a full picture, it’s a remarkable whitewashing of the organization’s true face.

In December 2021, Al Haq was designated a terrorist organization by Israel for its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), arguing that the groups are “controlled by senior leaders” of the PFLP.


“He said the Holocaust is a hoax on live TV…it destroyed my heart” Rabbi of Indonesia’s only synagogue on bringing Holocaust education to his country
Rabbi Yaakov Baruch, the rabbi of Indonesia’s only synagogue, Shaar HaShamayim, appeared on the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism to discuss why he feels compelled to create education on the Holocaust for his country.

Rabbi Baruch discussed how, in partnership with Israel’s Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center, he created Indonesia’s first ever Holocaust exhibition. His motivation behind the creation partly stemmed from his desire to commemorate his own relatives who were killed during the Holocaust, stating that his grandmother lost 40 relatives. Rabbi Baruch also wants to educate Indonesians about the Holocaust, which he believes is desperately needed.

Rabbi Baruch said that he believes that many Indonesians are still either ignorant of the atrocities of the Holocaust or think that it may have not occurred at all, with some even posting swastikas and images of Adolf Hitler to their social media accounts. He revealed that many visitors to his Holocaust exhibition thanked him for his work, saying that they never imagined that such events could have taken place. Rabbi Baruch said: “Many Indonesians don’t know about [the Holocaust], and [those] who know the Holocaust know mostly from Holocaust denial groups.”

Rabbi Baruch told our host that during a televised appearance in Indonesia, he was confronted by a Holocaust denier. “When I was on local TV talking about the Holocaust museum…he said that the Holocaust is a hoax on live TV. It so destroyed my heart. But what I can do is, I can tell him that this is not a hoax, that’s why I’m doing this.”

Despite this, however, Rabbi Baruch is pleased that the exhibition has largely received positive feedback from locals of all backgrounds, including the local government, though some Muslim groups had criticised it and accused Rabbi Baruch’s exhibition of attempting to normalise relations with Israel. However, this has not deterred him.

“I tell them what we do is nothing to do with the conflict in the Middle East…the Holocaust happened before the State of Israel, before the [creation] of Indonesia, even. I just want to share the history,” he says.
PepsiCo taps Israeli startup N-Drip for drip irrigation tech
US beverage and snack giant PepsiCo has tapped Israeli drip irrigation company N-Drip for a new partnership aimed at helping farmers who grow crops for Pepsi’s range of brands adopt drip irrigation technology for better yield and water conservation, the parties announced this week.

N-Drip’s Chief Sustainability Officer Seth Siegel told The Times of Israel that the partnership was the “result of more than two years running pilot projects in India, Vietnam, and the USA, followed by extensive discussions on how best to scale the implementation across PepsiCo’s supply chain.”

Founded in 2015 by Prof. Uri Shani, a former director of Israel’s Water Authority, with Ariel Halperin and Ran Ben-Or, N-Drip has developed what it says is a system that allows areas that use water flooding for irrigation to use the more precise drip irrigation instead.

Flood irrigation, perhaps the most ancient way of watering crops, is still one of the most commonly used forms of irrigation in the world today. Some 85 percent of agricultural fields globally use this system, in which water is delivered to the field by a pipe or a ditch, and the water simply flows over the ground through the crop. The system is wasteful of both water — it is believed that some 50% is lost to evaporation or infiltration of uncultivated areas — and fertilizer, nor does it produce optimal yields.

N-Drip’s principal target market is those 85% of irrigated agricultural areas in the world, including the majority of agricultural areas in the US, Australia and other countries, where existing drip-irrigation systems are too expensive to use.
Yisrael Medad: The Anti-Semitism of Degas
From A Compulsive Perfectionist by Colin B. Bailey

The most dramatic—and saddest—aspect of Degas in the 1890s relates to his increasingly outspoken anti- Semitism and his reaction to the efforts to rehabilitate Captain Albert Dreyfus, who had been found guilty of espionage in December 1894 and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island.8

As evidence tending to exonerate Dreyfus and implicate the highest echelons of the French military came to light in 1897, Degas’s relations with the Halévy family became more and more fraught. The Halévys’ elder son, Élie, noted in November 1897, “I have a Jewish name, even though I am Protestant.” (Degas also harbored an irrational dislike of Protestants.) The Halévys associated with journalists and intellectuals committed to proving (and publicizing) Dreyfus’s innocence. At their Thursday dinner on November 25, 1897, the day on which Le Figaro published Émile Zola’s first article in support of Dreyfus, Ludovic expressly forbade any discussion of the topic (“Papa was very annoyed, Degas very anti- Semitic”). Although no one knew it at the time, the last family dinner that Degas attended at the Halévys took place on January 13, 1898, the day on which Zola’s “J’accuse” appeared on the front page of L’Aurore. Their ebullient younger guests, whose company Degas usually relished, offended him with their pro- Dreyfusard opinions. He canceled the following week’s dinner on the day itself, writing to Louise:

You will have to excuse me tonight, and I would rather tell you right away that I am asking you to do so for some time. You could not have thought that I would have the heart to continue being cheerful and entertaining. The time for laughter is over. You kindly introduced me to these young people, but I constrain them and they are unbearable to me. Let me remain in my corner. I’ll be happy there. There are many good moments to remember.

The decision must not have been easy for Degas to take. Unaware of this crisis, on the evening of January 20 nineteen- year- old Julie Manet— another anti- Dreyfusard who would contribute funds to La Libre Parole for the repatriation of Jews to Jerusalem— went to Degas’s apartment to invite him to dinner. “We found him so worked up into such a terrible state against the Jews,” she noted in her diary, “that we left without asking him anything at all.” “To live alone, without any family, it is really too hard,” he had confided to Madame Giuseppe De Nittis in May 1877. In his rupture with the Halévys, Degas administered a selfinflicted wound.


Israel ranked 9th happiest country in the world - annual report
Israel was ranked the ninth happiest country in the world in the annual World Happiness Report, coming just one point under Norway and beating out New Zealand.

The ranking is a stark increase from 2021, when Israel came in 11th, and from 2020 when it came in 14th.

Like last year, COVID-19 played a major role in this report as the world continues to grapple with how the global pandemic disrupted and upended society in all sectors.

Overall, the Nordic countries once again dominated the top slots, with Finland coming in as the world's happiest country for the fifth year in a row.

In second place was Denmark, followed by Iceland. Switzerland came in fourth followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg, with the Nordic states of Sweden and Norway coming in after.

At the bottom of the list was Afghanistan, the same placement as last year.

Factors taken into account include GDP, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perceptions of corruption.

This is the 10th anniversary of the release of the World Happiness Report, a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.






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