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Monday, July 11, 2022

07/11 Links Pt2: Why Does the Palestinian Cause Get So Much Attention?; The Liberation of the Arabs From the Global Left; Archaeological Discoveries Confirm Ancient Connection of Israel to the Jewish People

From Ian:

Alan M. Dershowitz: Why Does the Palestinian Cause Get So Much Attention?
Why does the Palestinian cause get so much attention, when there are much more compelling causes around the world such as those of the Kurds, Uyghurs, and other stateless and oppressed people? There are more demonstrations on university campuses against Israel than against Russia, China, Belarus and Iran. Why?

The answer has little to do with the Palestinians, and everything to do with Israel, as the nation state of the Jewish people. It is a political manifestation of international antisemitism. It is only because the nation accused of oppressing Palestinians is Israel.

It has little to do with the merits and everything to do with antisemitism. It calls itself anti-Zionism, but it is only a cover for anti-Jewish bigotry.

A recent example is the decision of Ben and Jerry's ice cream to boycott parts of Israel, while continuing to sell to countries in which far greater abuses occur. When asked why Ben and Jerry's limits their boycott only to Israel, its founders admitted they had no idea.

Who is leading the crowd of antisemitic bigots? The movement to single out the nation state of Israel for boycott, known as BDS, was originated by a Palestinian radical named Omar Barghouti, who does not hide the fact that his goal is the destruction of Israel....

Do the Palestinians deserve a state? Yes, but no more so than the Kurds and other stateless people. Why no more so? Because the Palestinians have been offered statehood numerous times and have rejected it.

Palestinians were offered a state on the vast majority of arable land, as part of a United Nations proposed two state solution; the Jews were offered a state on a far smaller area of arable land. The Jews accepted the compromise two state solution. The Arabs rejected it and went to war against the new Jewish state seeking to destroy it. It was this act of unlawful military aggression that resulted in the Palestinian refugee situation, which they call the "Nakba" ("catastrophe"). But it was a self-induced catastrophe. And many current Palestinian leaders and followers fault their predecessors for not accepting the two-state solution offered by the United Nations 75 years ago.

The Palestinians could have had a state in 1948, 1967, 2000-2001, 2005 and 2008. They still preferred no Jewish state to a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. They can have a state now, if they would negotiate a compromise instead of fomenting terrorism.

I wonder how many of those who demonstrate against Israel have any idea of this history.
The Liberation of the Arabs From the Global Left
Leftist intellectuals such as Judith Butler and Noam Chomsky are therefore not wrong when they declare that Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are part of the international left. A journey of philosophical inversions started from a Hegelian inversion of Christian theology, then a Marxist inversion of Hegelianism, a fascist-Nazi inversion of Leninism, the globalization of European thought, the conversion into Arab nationalism, its fragmentation into Arab Marxism and Palestinian radicalism, and their inversion back into theology, creating an ideological tornado with antisemitism as its vortex. The aggregate result was the gradual decivilization, and moral and social erosion, of entire Muslim and Arab societies, many of which collapsed unto themselves in spirals of self-destruction.

The dissolution of religious thought of otherworldly transcendence into a political transcendence inside history fundamentally transformed and restructured the identity of Islamic religious piety into the piety of struggle. Muslim identity was remolded into an eternal struggle that in its origin is not the jihad of classical texts, but the German dialectic world made by Marx. A religious doctrine of martyrdom and eternal life in the hereafter merged into a cult of the eternal revolutionary glory and hero worship of the Che Guevara type. This is the best explanation one could offer for the peculiar phenomenon of Muslim societies becoming more religious since the late 1970s in a way that only translated into more rage, more rebellion, less moral restraints on violence and sexuality, and conspicuous pagan worship of pain, blood, and misery. This is also the best explanation for why the societies of the Arab Gulf, which did not modernize during the 20th century, seem to have a much smoother transition away from antisemitism into social liberalization and peaceful worldviews.

Let’s assume I’m correct, and Islamists got this idea by way of a global revolutionary culture that got it from Lenin who got it from Marx who got it, not by way Plato as Popper assumed, but by way of rediscovery through inverting Hegel’s inversion of Christian theology. Doesn’t this theory naturally fall right back into the religious dogmatism that is associated with Marxist intellectuals? Raymond Aron rightfully thought so in his Opium of the Intellectuals. Theory then reverts into a theology that becomes a political religion waging religious wars, schisms, ancestral worship, and textual fanaticism. Theology made philosophy by Hegel, philosophy made politics by Marx, and then politics was made into a religion. So naturally, Qutb’s and Khomeini’s conversion of the Marxist inversion reverted back into theology. But what does theology lose by this double inversion and what does it gain? Much. It becomes a religion of atheistic politics. It loses all its basis of religious justification and with it its entire moral structure and becomes an immanentist atheistic theology that leads to no redemption, no transcendence, and nowhere.

I want to emphasize what this article is not saying. I’m not saying that any form of Islamic fundamentalism could be attributed to modern revolutionary thought. Indeed, all religions have their own forms of modern fundamentalism as a response to modern liberal social organization. But Islamic fundamentalism proper means a rigid and ultra-conservative social ethos that is resistant to social change, as best exemplified in the Salafism that until recently dominated the Arab Gulf.

What the union of imported European ideologies like Marxism, Nazism, and existentialism with Islam accomplished was to profoundly alter the entire conceptual scheme and epistemological foundations of Arab societies so that even Islamic fundamentalism, unbeknownst to itself, could no longer provide a pre-revolutionary reading of Islam. European moral philosophical traditions and their language managed to make a tectonic shift that resulted in the development of a modern Islamic political theology that is totalitarian, dystopian, and revolutionary. The Islam of Iran, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaida is simply a regional variant of progressive Western revolutionary thought.

Yet I am not saying that the West is to blame for this development. For if this article seeks to affirm anything it is that the West-Islam dichotomy is not only meaningless but delusional. Cultural and moral relativism are meaningless when the foundation of all our modern moral and political thinking comes from the same place. Europe has managed to create a truly global human culture that no longer has ideational barriers and in which fashion, style, fads, and ideas form global mimetic contagions.

This is a story of a global nightmare constructed by intellectuals from all religious and national backgrounds. The Enlightenment and its aftermath are now just as solidly a part of Islamic intellectual makeup as they are in Western cultures, and if the Muslim world is to move forward it would be through the recognition and not the denial of this fact. If the moral and social destruction of the region resulted from incompetent Arab intellectuals sleepwalking in the orbit of a global culture, the solution is competence. The exploitation of the intellectual, social, and political energies of impoverished and pre-modern societies for use as cannon fodder in the great ideological battles of the Western left has had disastrous effects on the social, economic, and political development and progress of many Arab and Muslim societies. In this regard, the Western left’s theology of how the West destroyed other societies has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, from which it is now our duty and obligation to liberate ourselves.
Jerusalem bridge displays Japanese flag in solidarity after assassination of ex-PM
Jerusalem’s Chords Bridge was lit up to show the Japanese flag alongside the Israeli flag on Sunday evening as a sign of solidarity with the Japanese people following last week’s assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.

“The city of Jerusalem sends its condolences to the Japanese people and mourns the death of a friend of Israel, a great leader of his people and the entire world,” Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said in a statement.

Abe was shot from behind minutes after he started a speech Friday in Nara in western Japan. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital.

The 67-year-old Abe was Japan’s longest-serving leader before stepping down for health reasons two years ago. He served in 2006-2007 and again from 2012 to 2020.

Israeli leaders were quick to express their shock and condolences on Friday at the assassination of the former Japanese prime minister.

“On behalf of the government and people of Israel, I send my condolences to the Japanese people and their government on the tragic death of former prime minister Shinzo Abe,” Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement. “Abe was one of the most important leaders of modern Japan, and a true friend of Israel who brought about flourishing and prosperous relations between Israel and Japan.”


The Modern Bullier of Anne Frank
In a truly progressive society, privilege would be seen as the possession of the bigot who thinks this is their world - not the minority who has to try and duck and weave and avoid that bigotry.

Progressives don’t even comprehend that their entire perception of reality is shaped by what we should call Gentile Privilege. When it comes to minorities, why are Jews almost sigularly prosecuted with notions of privilege? Because the court room of the world is a gentile one. Other minorities could just as easily be accused of having privileges which the Jews DON’T possess. No one takes to twitter and says to black people, you have: “not being accused of running the world” privilege. No one tells Indian people to “sit this one out and shut up” because they have: “not being accused of controlling the media” privilege.

The architects of the privilege debate don’t even realise how privileged they are to be born Gentiles in a Gentile World. They are utterly clueless about what it is to be a Jew. They know nothing of what it is to be a Jew living today or in Anne Frank’s time.

Please don’t mistake this with me having any regrets about being a Jew. Being Jewish is fucking brilliant irrespective of the nonsense we have to put up with from those with Gentile Privilege.

When it comes down to it, those who say Jews are white and those who say Jews aren’t white simply think sneaky Jews are getting away with something and that we need to have our masks pulled off to reveal our true colour. And this colour will be white or non-white depending on what is most negative in the eyes of the observer.

Know this: whether you are left or right, part of a dominant demographic or member of another minority, discussing the skin colour of Jews will always be squalid. Calling us white is historically illiterate, wildly innacurate and undertaken by those who believe they’re so superior to Jews that they’re uniquely entitled to ajudicate on who we are, invariably so as to diminish us in some way.

Jews aren’t white. Jews aren’t black. Jews aren’t brown. Jews are Jews. We are one Tribe. Our origins are indigenous to Israel and the Middle East. We thrive when rejecting the non-Jewish world’s attempts to control and define us. And we will continue to thrive for as long as we live proudly in accordance with our own time-honoured and road-tested values of Jewish Peoplehood.

Am Yisrael Chai.

The People of Israel live.


It’s time to de-normalize ‘Palestinianism’
The BDS campaign has used intersectional Palestinianism to great effect. BDS Boston tweeted: “Imperialism, racism, militarism & Zionism are systemically connected in our communities.” The mappers spoke of “highly militarized forces that share resources and information to enforce the intersecting systems of white supremacy and capitalism.”

Now that the Mapping Project has thoroughly unmasked anti-Zionism as blatant anti-Semitism, will this mark a turning point in the endless battle to “de-normalize” Israel? Unfortunately, no. The map is still up, and most national media haven’t even bothered to cover it.

The FBI is reportedly monitoring the project, although they have yet to find “any direct threats of violence” stemming from the map. On June 21, a bipartisan group of 37 House members urged federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the potential use of the project—which it called “dangerous incitement”—by extremist groups, though it is unclear whether such an investigation will take place.

But clearly, the Mapping Project is just the latest—if especially blatant—manifestation of a stream of virulent ideas that is connected to the staggering rise in actual anti-Semitic attacks.

What needs to happen is a de-normalization of “Palestinianism.”
Honest journalists, professors and politicians need to begin pointing out that there was never a country called “Palestine.” Israel is not a “settler, colonial” state occupied by “white Europeans.” Jews hail from Judea and are indigenous to the land of Israel. Despite centuries of persecution, we have remained a people, a nation, an ethnicity—which is not “white,” European or “privileged.”

In fact, before 1948, the term “Palestinian” referred to Jews. In the 2nd century, the Romans crushed a Jewish revolt, colonized Jerusalem and Judea and renamed the country “Syria-Palaestina”—a name probably taken from the Philistines, an Aegean people historically totally unconnected with Arabia. Because of a continual Jewish presence and connection to the land, up until the State of Israel’s rebirth the Jews living in the region were still called “Palestinians.” In the 1950s, however, the KGB and, later, the Egyptian Yasser Arafat fabricated a “Palestinian” Arab people as a tool to destroy Israel. It was “academically” formalized by Columbia University Arab professor Edward Said in the 1970s.

And now, finally, disastrously, this “Palestinianism” has reached its pinnacle via Woke ideology.

Jews have no desire to compete in the Woke victimization Olympics. But our identity will no longer be erased. At “White Rose Magazine,” we have created the Judean Ethnicity Project to reclaim Judean identity as well as our indigenous ties to the land of Israel. Will this end the hatred and persecution that Palestinianism has fomented? Sadly, no. But it will give every Judean a reason to fight for our land and our people.
Web platform targeting leading Jews ‘is digital Protocols of Elders of Zion’
A sinister internet platform spouting antisemitic conspiracy theories and targeting notable Jews in the UK and worldwide amounts to a modern version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, experts warn in a new report.

Called “Project Nemesis”, the site has many thousands of viewers and uses elaborate precautions to prevent its creators being identified.

It claims that Jews and non-Jewish supporters of Israel profiled on its blacklist have shown themselves to be “Zionist, and consequently racist”, and to have “incited violence or hatred towards Palestinians, anti-Zionists or supporters of Palestine”.

The UK section of the blacklist includes dozens of prominent figures, among them former No10 chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, Lord Mandelson, philanthropist Leonard Blavatnik and former Labour MP Joan Ryan. The site also names targets in the US, Israel, France, Australia, Russia, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.

The site claims they have all “violated the personal safety of Palestinians or pro-Palestinian activists” and are linked to organisations such as Mossad.

It declares that the platform is a “call to political action”. In a barely concealed threat, it adds: “Project Nemesis does not bear responsibility for any consequences stemming from measures taken on the basis of information provided by the project.”

The credo boasts: “This is Project Nemesis, where we document the Networks of Zion.”

It claims: “Israel is not a mere illegitimate occupation, but the result of a vast international network which enables its economic, political and cultural persistence.
Why I'm Giving Up Tenure at UCLA
I've been a professor in the Anthropology Department at UCLA since 1996; I received tenure in 2000. For decades, anthropology has been notorious for conflict between the scientific and political activist factions. In recent years, militant faculty members came to comprise the department's most influential clique and recruited even more militant graduate students to work with them.

Typical of elite U.S. universities today, UCLA is awash in Jew-hatred thinly disguised as anti-Zionism. In May 2019, one of my colleagues, Kyeyoung Park, invited a guest lecturer, San Francisco State University professor Rabab Abdulhadi, to her class to proclaim that Zionism is a form of white supremacism.

Park was celebrated by the faculty and administration as a courageous, embattled exponent of academic freedom. The Anthropology Graduate Students Association chimed in with a resolution agreeing with Abdulhadi. More recently, the Asian-American Studies Department posted to its website a statement accusing Israel of settler colonialism, racial apartheid, and so on.

Irrespective of the content, doesn't it infringe on the academic freedom of individual professors for an academic department to take a political stand on behalf of all its members? Several other Jewish faculty and I have made that case to UCLA and the University of California leadership to no avail.

A 2019 article by Liel Leibovitz, titled Get Out, argued that the increasingly open hostility of American universities toward Jews is inseparable from the universities' rejection of two values that, during the 20th century, made them into places where Jews could thrive: meritocracy and free debate.

In 2019, I thought Leibovitz was exaggerating. Everything that's happened since has shown that he was spot on. That's it: I'm getting out.
‘I do support BDS’: Yuh-Line Niou lays out her Middle East policy approach
Yuh-Line Niou, a state assemblywoman who is among the most prominent progressives in Albany, has quickly established herself as one of the top candidates of choice for left-leaning Democrats in the crowded primary for a House seat in New York’s redrawn 10th District, which encompasses parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The 38-year-old lawmaker supports the Green New Deal, universal single-payer healthcare and abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other causes championed by the party’s activist wing.

In a recent interview with JI as well as a brief email exchange, Niou positioned herself far from the Democratic mainstream on Middle East foreign policy, which she has not addressed as a state legislator. Most notably, Niou expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel — a position that holds significantly less appeal at the congressional level than the range of domestic proposals she hopes to prioritize.

“I believe in the right to protest as a fundamental tenet of western democracy, so I do support BDS,” Niou said in an email to JI on Friday afternoon, shortly after a phone conversation in which she had refrained from explicitly clarifying her own personal stance on the movement.

Niou’s position, however carefully worded, is likely to draw scrutiny in the district and could possibly reverberate beyond the race, which national pro-Israel groups have been monitoring for weeks. Only a small handful of House Democrats — including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — support the movement. Last year, a former Florida state legislator, Omari Hardy, drew fierce backlash from Jewish voters as well as one powerful pro-Israel group after he came out in favor of BDS while competing in an open-seat House race that had drawn nearly a dozen Democratic primary candidates. He lost by a wide margin.

But even if BDS is largely unpopular among federal elected officials, it remains to be seen whether Niou’s stance will diminish her chances for the nomination in one of the most progressive districts in the country.


PCUSA slanders the State of Israel
We at Presbyterians for Middle East Peace are angered by the decision of the 225th General Assembly to slander Israel as an apartheid state. This decision does not reflect the view of the membership of the PCUSA, as most members will be stunned and angered when they return home from vacation to find out about this action. They will hear from their Jewish neighbors, “Why is PCUSA so antisemitic?” PFMEP finds comfort in knowing that an overwhelming percentage of the members of our denomination will disagree with this action, and like most actions of the GA, ignore it and continue with the fine work they are doing to spread the Gospel.

Over the last twenty years, we have witnessed our once proud denomination of three million with strong theological and academic standards with well thought out policies on social justice, where the GA was a must-see event and a fertile ground for new ideas and spiritual growth, become a denomination hovering around one million, where presbyteries have to search for people willing to serve as commissioners, a GA watched by fewer than 400 people at any time, and its actions controlled by a small group of committee members and staff in Louisville. At our next General Assembly in 2024 in Salt Lake City, our numbers will likely have dropped below one million. Our GAs are doing little to help fuel spiritual and membership growth in local congregations. The intensive, ongoing theological and academic work needed to feed our people is absent.

The action taken by the GA to slander Israel with apartheid fits into this narrative. A highly controlled process, created to respond to Covid, instead became a means to silence outside groups and stifle dissent. Nary a Jewish voice was heard at the GA, experts offering countering opinions were not allowed to speak, only a select few of the Louisville staff had standing. Following in the example of the stated clerk, they disparaged the Jewish community and the State of Israel at every turn. The committee heard from three pro-overture advocates and not one overture opponent before it started its debate. No overture opponents were allowed to speak. Committee members also did not receive the deep background materials they have received in the past from advocacy groups on all sides of the Israel-Palestine issue. In short, committee members began their debate after hearing one side of the issue and without adequate background preparation.

During the plenary, once again voices opposed to the overture were silenced and the committee leaders took advantage in the introductory time to mislead the commissioners. After two very strong statements against the apartheid overture, debate was shut down. Again, voices of dissent were silenced. It saddens us that this action took place during a GA plagued by technical difficulties in which voices and motions were not recognized. How can the denomination move forward to support actions made under questionable circumstances?
Britain's Chief Rabbi Urges Methodist Church to Drop BDS Stance
The Chief Rabbi has called on the Methodist community to reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel after the church affirmed its support for parts of the campaign.

Writing online, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “I am deeply disappointed and saddened to learn that The Methodist Church Conference has again voted in favour of BDS, a move which further seriously erodes relations with the Jewish community in this country and abroad.

“BDS does not in any way advance the cause of peace. I call on the Methodist community to invest its efforts instead in constructive engagement with Israel and its society.” Rabbi Mirvis’s Facebook post came after delegates at the Methodist Church conference in Telford were presented with a motion to support BDS.

Much of the motion text was based on Cry For Hope, a controversial statement released by Palestinian Christians and recommended for “prayer and study” by last year’s Methodist conference.

In their official reply to the motion, the Methodist conference notes that since 2010 the Church has endorsed aspects of the BDS programme, and continues to endorse a boycott of goods from settlements in the occupied territories. It does not support the boycott of goods from other parts of Israel.

Since 2021, following a report from the Methodist Council, the Church has pursued a policy of divestment from firms operating in settlement areas.


BDS FAIL (JULY 2022), CHUNKY MONKEY EDITION
Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series of posts documenting BDS fails – the ubiquitous examples of Israeli success that often aren’t covered in the British media.

Political BDS Fails
Ice Cream for Everyone! The End of Ben & Jerry’s West Bank Boycott (newsweek.com)

“Tzedek, tzedek tirdof. Justice, justice you shall pursue,” commands the Bible.

In 2022, we learn that sometimes the long fight for justice flows through a cup of an iconic ice cream.

On Wednesday morning, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder, and CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, received a call. On the other end was Alan Jope, the CEO of Unilever, who personally told Hier that Unilever is standing against antisemitism. Not only would Unilever denounce antisemitism, but Jope told Hier that Unilever was taking action to end the boycott of parts of the West Bank by one of its companies — Ben & Jerry’s.

Ice cream lovers in Jerusalem, the West Bank and beyond — Jews and Arabs — will continue to enjoy their favorite ice cream and even decipher the Hebrew and Arabic containers to confirm how many calories they are ingesting.

BDS begins to eat their own

Appeals court upholds Arkansas’ no anti-Israel boycott pledge law
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld Arkansas’ law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel, finding the restriction is not an unconstitutional violation of free speech.

The full 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a 2-1 decision last year by a three-judge panel of the court that found the requirement to be unconstitutional. The Arkansas Times had sued to block the law, which requires contractors with the state to reduce their fees by 20% if they don’t sign the pledge.

“(The law) only prohibits economic decisions that discriminate against Israel,” Judge Jonathan Kobes wrote in the court’s opinion. “Because those commercial decisions are invisible to observers unless explained, they are not inherently expressive and do not implicate the First Amendment.”

New Zealand joins the IHRA observer group


Adbusters Magazine Compares Convicted Palestinian Terrorist to Nelson Mandela


BBC presenter objects to description of BDS as antisemitic
On June 30th – the day after Unilever had announced a new business arrangement for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in Israel – BBC World Service radio’s ‘World Business Report’ aired an item that was presented in its synopsis as follows:
“Unilever has sold the ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s to an Israeli licensee, opening the door for the dessert to be sold in the Palestinian territories. Ben & Jerry’s has criticised its parent company for the decision. We speak to Michael Dickson, the executive director of Stand With Us – a pressure group that campaigns against boycotts.”

The introduction from presenter Vivienne Nunis (from 18:53 here) likewise gave listeners the mistaken impression that the ice cream is not currently being sold in Judea & Samaria whereas in fact, the boycott had not yet come into effect. In addition, Nunis portrayed disputed territory as “the Palestinian territories” despite the fact that negotiations to determine the final status of Area C have yet to take place.

Nunis: “Unilever, which owns Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, has sold the brand to an Israeli licencee. The move means the snack food can be sold in the Palestinian territories. Previously Ben & Jerry’s leaders had banned sales in the West Bank, stating that doing business there was inconsistent with the company’s values. The reversal by Unilever has been welcomed by Israel but Ben & Jerry’s criticised its parent company’s decision to sell off the brand Israeli business and made this statement on Twitter.”

Listeners then heard a reading of those Tweets.

As we all too often have cause to note, for many years the BBC has reported BDS related stories without adequately clarifying to audiences in its own words that what that campaign ultimately seeks to achieve is the end of Israel as the Jewish state. Moreover, in August 2015, we learned that the BBC considers the provision of such crucial background information “not our role“.
'Shoot a Jew in the head' graffiti suspect arrested in Toronto
A suspect believed to be responsible for graffiti inciting to shoot Jews in the head and a series of other hate-motivated acts of vandalism in Toronto's York University area was arrested by police on Tuesday, according to statements by the NGO Stop Antisemitism and the Toronto Police.

The suspect has been charged with 8 counts of hate-motivated crimes — seven counts of mischief damage of property under $5000 and breaking and entering —in connection to a number of buildings that "were vandalized by writings in spray paint" with text that targeted race and religious communities between April and June, according to the police report.

"Jews in Canada continue to disproportionately be the victims of hate crimes."
Bnai Brith Canada

In June, graffiti was discovered that depicted a dead Jew with a kippa and sidelocks in a gun scope's crosshairs. Next to the cartoon, the text "shoot a Jew in the head" was scrawled on the wall.

"Nice to see an antisemite being held responsible for his actions," Stop Antisemitism tweeted on Friday.
Israeli study: Chemical heals wounds twice as fast, could be antibiotic alternative
Israeli scientists say they have used a natural chemical to make pigs’ wounds heal twice as fast as they otherwise would. They hope to be able to develop the substance for human use, and claim it could also become “an antibiotics alternative of the future.”

Diindolylmethane (DIM) is found in broccoli, cauliflower, and other vegetables. A Ben Gurion University research team studied its impact on bacteria in lab conditions, and found that it harms their ability to function.

The scientists took pigs, each with several wounds, and treated their wounds with either antibiotics or with a synthetic form of DIM. The wounds treated with antibiotics took 10 days to fully close on average, while the wounds treated with a DIM-based ointment took five days.

Prof. Ariel Kushmaro and his colleagues published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Pharmaceutics, and are working on developing the chemical into an ointment for animals. They are also exploring whether it has health benefits as a food additive for animals.

“What we saw in our experiment was that wounds healed faster when treated with DIM,” Kushmaro told The Times of Israel.
Israel Delivers Nine Tons of Medicines and Supplies to Ukraine
The humanitarian cargo of medicines and consumables weighing 9 tons was collected and delivered to Kharkiv by the Israeli partners of Ukraine. The Embassy of Ukraine announced this on its Facebook page.

«The Embassy expresses its gratitude to the Israel-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Israel Forum of International Humanitarian Aid IsraAID, which on July 6 delivered to the city of Kharkiv a humanitarian cargo of medicines with a total weight of 9 tons (ligatures, bandages, hemostatic agents, occlusive dressings, surgical packs, hygiene kits, diapers)», - the message says.

At the same time, the Embassy emphasized: «This cargo will help save the lives of Ukrainians who are suffering from the horrors of the Russian invasion».
Bahraini ambassador introduced to Nazareth's high tech hub
Bahraini Ambassador to Israel His Excellency Khaled Al Jalahma paid his first visit to Nazareth last week, where he was introduced to the city's high tech sector and plans to develop STEM ecosystems in other Arab Israeli cities.

Hosted by Tsofen, a Jewish-Arab nonprofit dedicated to expanding the high tech industry in Arab Israeli towns, Al Jalahma toured Nazareth's Industry Park, where a number of Israeli R&D centers of global tech firms are located, and visited the offices of Amdocs and Galil Software.

The ambassador called his visit "exposure to important work carried out by civil society."

"I believe we can find a way to support the important mission of building high tech in Arab society, while also developing the technological industry in Bahrain and contributing to Israel's economy – all in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, towards warming the relationship between the two countries and societies," Al Jalahma said.

While in Nazareth, Al Jalahma met with Tsofen's leaders, Chairman of the Board Dr. Ramzi Halabi and co-chairs Revital Duek and Maisam Jaljuli, who introduced the envoy to the Tsofen model for integrating Arab engineers in the local high tech industry, and developing STEM ecosystems in Arab Israeli cities.

Revital Duek called Al Jalahma's visit to Nazareth "an encouraging sign" and said it "strengthens the message we carry out throughout our work every day."
Millionth Tourist of 2022 Touches Down in Israel, Just Four Months After COVID Restrictions Lifted
Israel on Sunday welcomed its millionth tourist of 2022, just over four months since pandemic-related travel restrictions were lifted on March 1, according to a statement released by the Israeli Tourism Ministry.

The tourist, Belinda Desoyo Lee Marcelo, 53, a resident of the United Arab Emirates, was greeted by Israeli Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov and ministry representatives, according to the statement.

“At first, we thought and hoped that the president of the United States, Joe Biden, would be the millionth tourist to arrive in Israel in 2022, but once again, we have beaten the forecast. Here we are, welcoming the millionth tourist to enter Israel this year,” said Razvozov.

Biden is slated to visit Israel on July 13 as part of a regional trip.

While severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s incoming tourism figures are now exceeding forecasts, the ministry said. Incoming tourism reached 244,500 entries in June 2022, only 33 percent less than the record set in June 2019, prior to the onset of the pandemic, the statement continued.


New Archaeological Discoveries Confirm Ancient Connection of Israel to the Jewish People
The State of Israel might only be 74 years old, but the Land of Israel contains thousands of years worth of history inside it. Every year, archaeologists working at digs around the country discover ancient sites and artifacts that help us better understand the rich history of both the land and its inhabitants.

The following is a list of the top 10 archaeological discoveries from June 2021 until today:

1. Mosaic Depicting Deborah and Yael Defeating Canaanite King Sisera
Discovered at the site of a 5th-century synagogue in the Galilean town of Huqoq, this mosaic portrays the Biblical account of the defeat of the Canaanite king Sisera at the hands of the prophetess Deborah, the military leader Barak, and the ancient heroine Yael.

Unearthed by a team led by UNC Chapel Hill professor Jodi Magness, this is the latest mosaic to be discovered at the ancient synagogue site. Previously discovered mosaics include depictions of Jonah and the whale, the Israelite spies in Canaan, Noah’s Arc, and the parting of the Red Sea. According to Magness, these mosaics “attest to a rich visual culture as well as to the dynamism and diversity of Judaism in the late Roman and Byzantine periods.”

2. Remains of a Medieval Mosque Found in the Northern Negev Desert
While excavating in the northern Negev Bedouin city of Rahat, Israeli archaeologists uncovered a Byzantine-era farmhouse near a group of estate buildings that included a mosque. The 1,200-year-old rural mosque, which featured a wall facing Mecca, was large enough to hold up to dozens of Muslim worshipers.

Archaeologists point to this site as proof of the shifting demographics of the Negev region that accompanied the Arab conquest of the region, with the largely Christian population being slowly replaced by Muslims arriving from the Arabian Peninsula.

3. 2,000-Year-Old Hasmonean Aqueduct in Southern Jerusalem
In Jerusalem’s Armon Hanetziv neighborhood, Israeli archaeologists excavated a 40-meter-long segment of a 21-kilometer Hasmonean aqueduct that was used to bring water from the Solomon’s Pools area near Bethlehem to the Temple Mount. Built around 100 BCE, this aqueduct was in use for almost 2,000 years, until the advent of the electrical water pump at the beginning of the British Mandate.

Operated throughout the history of Jerusalem, this aqueduct was defined by one Israeli archaeologist as “a real historical monument of the city.”




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