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Monday, July 18, 2022

07/18 Links Pt2: How To Get Away with Killing Americans In Terrorist Attacks: One Father’s Chilling Story; Matti Friedman: What We Talk About When We Talk About Israel

From Ian:

PodCast: How To Get Away with Killing Americans In Terrorist Attacks: One Father’s Chilling Story
King Abdullah has the power to override a court's decision, according to experts. However, it is also likely to spark outrage in the streets of the Hashemite Kingdom, where 70 percent of its population is of Palestinian descent. And Jordan has carved extradition exceptions in years past. For one, Jordan allowed Washington to extract Eyad Ismoil, a Jordanian national, to stand trial over his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Furthermore, the US is Jordan's largest donor, providing over $1.7 billion in bilateral foreign assistance and over $200 million in Department of Defense funding to the ten-million-person country each year.

Tamimi is still listed on Washington’s radar – although next to nothing has been done to move the needle in seeking justice for the slain US national, the Roth parents proclaim.

US Representative Greg Steube (R-Fla.) hopes to change that.

In April, weeks before Jordan’s King Abdullah II was scheduled to meet with President Biden at the White House; he introduced the Recognition of the 1995 Jordan Extradition Treaty with the US Act to limit US assistance to Jordan until the Kingdom of Jordan recognizes the validity of the 1995 extradition treaty between the two countries.

“Our US tax dollars will not continue to flow to a country harboring a Hamas terrorist with American blood on her hands,” Congressman Steube stated. “The Government of Jordan fails to comply with a 1995 treaty that requires them to extradite individuals like Ahlam al Tamimi who face trial for terrorism under US law. My legislation will ensure our foreign assistance to Jordan is abruptly halted until Jordan complies with our extradition treaty.”

The Roths are subsequently calling upon lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle to support the proposed legislation. But thus far, due process is failing. Still, their relentless legal battle isn’t only focused on Washington.

“Malki was born in Australia, as was I. In the past four years, I have made three rounds of efforts to speak to the country’s top-level politicians in Canberra, requesting Australian intervention by them asking the Jordanian ruler to do the right thing, to comply with the treaty and to send the savage who killed an Australian-born girl to face trial in Washington,” Roth tells me wearily. “Australia has had excellent relations with Jordan for decades, and its society, as I know from long experience, respects fair play and decency. But this hasn’t worked.”

Compounding the grief, in recent years, Tamimi and her family are urging the Jordan King to “close the file” on the US demands.

However, for the grieving Roth parents, giving up will never be an option. Appeals continue to be made to governments, Congress, the State Department, and the American public.

“The unrepentant murderer’s freedom and celebrity status sends a deplorable message: that in some societies, blood-drenched terrorists who execute cruel and inhumane acts of murder of innocents can evade justice,” the Roth parents state on their Change.org petition, appealing to the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to take action. “Our call to action is that the United States must apply necessary and unforgivably.”

The Roths remember every detail about their daughter: her zest and talent as a classical flutist, the tender way she cared for children with disabilities, including her baby sister, Haya, and her love of walking hand-in-hand with her mother even as a teenage girl.

“Malki has been gone for longer than she was us. A young woman who didn’t reach her sixteenth birthday, she made herself loved and admired by a remarkably large circle,” Roth recounts. “Most people who knew her will speak of her warm and constant smile. Some will recall how she was always on the lookout for ways to help people in all kinds of ways. But what stood out was her specific passion for embracing, supporting, and engaging with children with special needs, starting with her own youngest sister, who is blind and profoundly brain-damaged and whom Malki adored.”

The road to some sort of accountability is bitter, but Arnold refuses to surrender in the fight.

“The doing of justice ought never to be left to politicians. Justice is a core value, not a tactic and certainly not a partisan strategy,” he adds. “When members of the US Congress stand with Jordan’s Abdullah, as so many of them do, that’s what they are supporting. And long-overdue justice for Malki and the other victims of Tamimi’s barbarism is what they obstruct.”
The Mutation of Antisemitism Back Into the Mainstream – Opinion
Antisemitism as an ancient, toxic, resilient virus, mutated over millennia, in accordance with guiding social pillars or constructs of each century: from religion to race to nationality, now full cycle back to religion. It is the mainstreaming and normalization of this ancient hatred that is most alarming.

For antisemitism can be seen as a predictive example for other forms of hate and racism, rendering the tracking, understanding and addressing of its unique mutation important not only for Jews or their nation state, Israel – as a proverbial canary in the mineshaft – but for all concerned and committed to identify and combat all forms of hate and racism.

The intersection between religion and universal values of human rights – developed as a secular religion – harbors the opportunity and responsibility for vital collaboration in the 21st century: to identify and combat the appropriation and weaponization of those universal principles for political ends. Such appropriation and weaponization undermine the very commitment of “Never Again” that the international-rules-based order was intended to ensure and secure, even as, instead, we face the devastating reality of “Again and Again” – in Iran, China, Ukraine, etc.

The “mapping project” of the Greater Boston area, recently released by Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activists, provides anecdotal evidence demonstrating the viral, insidious mutation of antisemitism, on- and off-line. The interactive “liberation map” is not only an attack threatening Boston’s Jewish community.

Mapping the ties between Jews and the broader community, it invokes antisemitic tropes, suggesting that there is something inherently sinister in Jews wanting to work with non-Jews. It constitutes an attack on foundational democratic principles of justice and freedom that should shock and concern all those cherishing them.

Singling out Jews and those affiliated with them, the map rips open and exposes mutated forms of ancient wounds harkening back to dark times in history, endangering Boston’s Jewish community in the present day, and threatening the very foundations of American democracy. Possibly in an effort to mask outright antisemitism while exposing just how deep it runs, the mapmakers added an absurdly broad web of guilty by association allies. The threshold for inclusion on this list is very low; any organization or public figure with even the slightest connection to Israel is tracked on the map.
NGO Monitor: Al-Haq’s Antisemitic Submission to the UN’s Permanent COI
The government funders – including Spain, Sweden and Norway – have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Yet, they continue to fund NGOs, such as Al Haq and the others, that blatantly reject those fundamental principles. Similarly, the EU – whose parliament adopted a June 2017 resolution calling on member states to adopt IHRA – also funds some of the signatories to this submission. (Recent media reports suggest that the EU intends to renew funding to Al-Haq, following a year-long freeze over terror-financing concerns.) Al-Haq’s Assault on Israel’s Right to Exist

In this COI submission, Al-Haq and its allies make a series of claims and demands, categorizing Israel’s very existence as illegal, and labeling Zionism as a form of racism (all quotes taken directly from the submission, all emphases added):

1. Israel is Inherently Illegal
“Colonised Palestine refers to the self-determination unit of the Palestinian people and territory of Mandate Palestine (prior to 1948), and which today constitutes the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and the territory recognized as the State of Israel in 1948.” (pg. 1)

“The 1948 Territory refers to the territory of the settler-colonial State of Israel, established by the displacement and dispossession of the vast majority (around 80 percent) of the indigenous Palestinian people during the Nakba and the maintenance of a settler colonial and apartheid regime over the Palestinian people since its creation.” (2)

“The Palestinian people argued that the incorporation of the Balfour Declaration was illegal.” (11)

“The partition of Palestine, as it stood at that time, violated sacrosanct principles of international law.” (13)

“This is notwithstanding that the UNGA does not have the power to enforce its recommendations, specifically over a persistent sovereign objector to its proposal. In disregard of the wishes of the indigenous Palestinian people, the UN partition plan was adopted as a resolution, and it normalised the erasure of the Palestinian people and the continuation of a settler-colonial project in a so-called sui generis paradigm.” (13-14)

4. Justifying Terrorism
“Israel’s violent suppression, criminalization, and/or terrorization of Palestinian resistance must be understood within the wider context…. People under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, have the right to pursue their right to self-determination and freedom by all available means.” (emphasis added)

“The Unity Intifada [including the May 2021 conflict during which Palestinian terrorist organizations launched thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians] was sparked in Jerusalem during April 2021… the Palestinian people, across colonised Palestine, and Palestinian refugees in exile, mobilized in unity in an outpouring of demonstrations against Israel’s almost century long colonisation and apartheid, and their subjection to an ongoing Nakba since 1948.”

5. Opposition to IHRA’s Definition of Antisemitism
“Further attempts to further limit the already shrinking space for civil society around the world and limit the rights to freedom of expression, opinion and association” is the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of Anti-Semitism. The definition lists criticism of the State of Israel, and claiming its existence a racist endeavour, as manifestations of anti-Semitism. As condemned by more than 40 Jewish groups, the IHRA definition is worded in a way as to ‘intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.’” (40)


Matti Friedman: What We Talk About When We Talk About Israel
The arc of a covenant aims to convince critics who imagine undue Jewish influence on American politics—but also many Jews who have embraced the story that Israel was wrought by their own skill and dedication. That story may be empowering, Mead thinks, but it’s mostly wrong. One classic example, which I took to be true until this book forced me reluctantly to let it go, is about a famous intervention at the White House by Harry Truman’s Jewish friend and former business partner, Eddie Jacobson of Kansas City, Missouri, on the eve of Israel’s declaration of independence in the spring of 1948. Jacobson is said to have swayed the president toward supporting Israel’s creation over the opposition of the State Department. But as Mead shows, Jacobson and the Jews were secondary to the game that Truman was playing against his powerful domestic opponents, foreign allies like the British, and the Soviets. Jewish Zionists, despite both their own self-image and the dark fantasies of their enemies, have never been able to manipulate the political ocean’s currents. They’ve been washed this way and that like everyone else, and have survived by producing some talented surfers.

The fascination with Jews always has a dark side: The same Increase Mather who longed for a Jewish return to Zion, Mead reminds us, also wrote that the same people “have been wont once a year to steal Christian children and to put them to death by crucifying.” If Jews are symbols and not real people, they can be a symbol for all kinds of things, and this, too, remains a part of American intellectual life. The shooter who murdered 10 Black Americans in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in May left a manifesto identifying Jews as villains engineering the erasure of white America; this view, known as the “Great Replacement” theory, is common on the far right. On the left, meanwhile, the American international-relations scholar David Rothkopf suggested in a tweet and an op-ed that the shooter’s motivations actually had something to do with “the same kind of racism and closely linked political forces” present in Israel. None of this is rational, but neither was the American Colony or the sermons of Increase Mather. This kind of thing will only grow as the sanity of the American body politic continues to erode, and as many on the right and the left abandon the grubby field of reality for a simplistic battle between good and evil.

“Americans are usually optimists; our history has made us so,” Mead writes. “The belief that history is ascending toward a future of more freedom, more justice, more abundance, and higher spiritual values is one of the foundations of American thought.” In this impressive and timely volume, this was the only sentence that struck me as possibly wrong or out of date; it might have actually changed in the decade that Mead tells us he spent writing The Arc of a Covenant. A kind of apocalyptic pessimism seems to have taken hold, and the way this plays out will dictate the next chapters of the story Mead is telling. In keeping with their religious and political DNA, Americans will continue to explain themselves to themselves with stories about a country and a people called “Israel.” From my table at the American Colony, whose founders were certainly optimists, it seems clear that as long as America’s future seems bright, Israel might appear as part of that shining horizon. But when things seem dark, some will find refuge in another kind of fantasy, and the arc might get bent into a different shape altogether.
David Harris republishes ‘I am a Forgotten Jew’
Fifty-five years ago last week, David Harris’s wife, Giulietta, then 16 years old, together with her parents and seven siblings, fled their native Libya. At the time, some Jews were murdered in pogroms, while others hid until they could get safe passage out of the country, never to return. Harris is distributing this essay, originally published in The Times of Israel, in commemoration of his wife’s family and their forced departure from their native land, Libya. Giuletta herself wrote this eloquent account of her life and expulsion from Libya.

I am a forgotten Jew.
My roots are nearly 2,600 years old, my ancestors made landmark contributions from North Africa to the Fertile Crescent — but I barely exist today. You see, I am a Jew from the Arab world. No, that’s not entirely accurate. I’ve fallen into a semantic trap. I predated the Arab conquest in just about every country in which I lived. When Arab invaders conquered North Africa, for example, I had already been present there for more than six centuries.

Today, you cannot find a trace of me in most of this vast region.

Try seeking me out in Iraq.

Remember the Babylonian exile from ancient Judea, following the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE? Remember the vibrant Jewish community that emerged there and produced the Babylonian Talmud?

Do you know that in the ninth century, under Muslim rule, we Jews in Iraq were forced to wear a distinctive yellow patch on our clothing — a precursor of the infamous Nazi yellow badge — and faced other discriminatory measures? Or that in the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, we faced onerous taxes, the destruction of several synagogues, and severe repression?

And I wonder if you have ever heard of the Farhud, the breakdown of law and order, in Baghdad in June 1941. As an American Jewish Committee (AJC) specialist, Dr. George Gruen, reported:

“In a spasm of uncontrolled violence, between 170 and 180 Jews were killed, more than 900 were wounded, and 14,500 Jews sustained material losses through the looting or destruction of their stores and homes. Although the government eventually restored order… Jews were squeezed out of government employment, limited in schools, and subjected to imprisonment, heavy fines, or sequestration of their property on the flimsiest of charges of being connected to either or both of the two banned movements. Indeed, Communism and Zionism were frequently equated in the statutes. In Iraq, the mere receipt of a letter from a Jew in Palestine [pre-1948] was sufficient to bring about arrest and loss of property.”
UK's Labour Party under fire for using Holocaust memorial as campaign backdrop
A campaign video posted by UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer ignited controversy over its use of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as its backdrop without referencing it.

The video showed Starmer speaking with prominent left-wing politicians in Germany, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, making the case that the UK could benefit from having the Left in power just like Germany is supposedly in better shape thanks to Olaf's socialist policies as the head of the ruling party SPD.

In the minute-long video, Starmer walks in Berlin, including near the parliament and its nearby Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and at one point the video shows him touring the memorial and speaking of the war in Ukraine. He also says in that part of the video that his party should "follow in the footsteps of the SPD."

This apparent politicization of the memorial, struck many in Britain as odd, especially in light of Starmer being a pro-Israeli leader and a polar opposite of his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, whose tenure was marred by many cases of antisemitism within Labour, which led to scathing reports and contributed to his ultimate ouster.

Joe Glasman, head of political and government investigations at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: "It is a matter of decency and long-established convention in Germany that you never stoop to using the Berlin Holocaust Memorial as some kind of a prop. But to incorporate the Memorial as the backdrop for a political clip that does not even mention the Holocaust is an insult."


"Ben and Jerry’s of Palestine"
Since Ben & Jerry’s brand integrity now requires ostracizing Israel and bringing about its dissolution through a “right of return,” a lawsuit is a fairly pedestrian and unimaginative response from a board of directors that describes itself as “a (very!) independent B.O.D. that’s empowered to protect and defend Ben & Jerry’s brand equity and integrity.”

I suggest the board put its money where its mouth is and show some ingenuity by creating a new line of Ben & Jerry’s branded products designed exclusively for sale to Palestinian Arabs, by Palestinian franchises, throughout all Palestinian Authority territories. The taste maker-activists could then show off their legendary branding creativity selling Intifada Ice Cream™ as "Ben & Jerry’s of Palestine".

Some of Ben & Jerry’s popular woke flavors, like “Change Is Brewing” and “Empower Mint,” might appeal to Palestinian Arab customers, but new ones like “Al-Aqsa Martyrs Marshmallow” and “Resistance Rocky Road” are sure to be hits.

Perhaps a line of Gaza-specific flavors, like “Yassin Toffee Explosion,” and “Nakba Nut Crunch” would do well.

And why not ice cream on a stick? “Fedayeen Fudgsicles” or, shaped like rockets, “Qassam Creamsicles.”

In keeping with the tradition of honoring celebrities with products like “Cherry Garcia” and “Colin Kaepernick’s Change the Whirled,” Ben & Jerry’s of Palestine can offer flavors named for Palestinian heroes and allies, like “Roger Watersmelon,” “Nabih Berry,” and “Vanilla Bean Laden.”

The “very independent” members of Ben & Jerry’s board of directors describe themselves as “mover-shakers and difference-makers who really know their stuff.” I’ll believe that when I hear that Palestinian Authority Arabs are enjoying the silky smoothness of “Terror-Misu” and “Fatah Fudge” – plain & (Ara) fat-free.
Biden Enables Anti-Semitism on College Campuses
President Biden is similarly aware of the scourge of anti-Semitism on campuses and opted to delay action until after mid-term elections.

Shortly after Biden took office in February 2021, Kara McDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, embraced the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. She said “we must educate ourselves and our communities to recognize antisemitism in its many forms, so that we can call hate by its proper name and take effective action. That is why the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, with its real-world examples, is such an invaluable tool.”

It was the logical and appropriate time for Biden to follow through on Trump’s EO 13899 and the federal government’s efforts to apply the IHRA definition to Title VI. Title VI “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity that receives Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance.” As most colleges receive federal funds and would collapse without them, and the fact that Jews do not fall neatly into “race, color or national origin,” Jews were counting on inclusion in the Title VI clause together with the working definition of anti-Semitism.

But Biden decided to postpone a decision on the Title VI matter until December 2022, after mid-term elections.

Biden Fears the Far-Left Anti-Zionists
While Biden was willing to champion the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, he fears members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) within his party and the threat that they will primary incumbent party centrists out of office. The IHRA definition has several references to Israel including “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel“, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” These anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic statements often come from the mouths of Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Cori Bush (D-MO), members of the DSA. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), a leading shrill voice of the DSA, has stated plainly that her squad will come after centrists if the Democratic leadership doesn’t bend to their extremist policy demands, including lambasting Israel. Biden doesn’t want to anger the squad and risk his party’s slim majority.

While studies have shown that “much of the antisemitic activity [on college campuses] was perpetrated by anti-Zionist students and student groups” at schools with “faculty academic boycotters,” and the federal government has a clear pathway to clamp down on the Jew hatred, President Biden has chosen to place party politics ahead of the safety of the young adults of the most persecuted minority in America.


StandWithUs' Noam Koren on Video Game | Fursan al-Aqsa (I24NEWS)

Thomas Friedman Knows Nothing About Israeli Democracy
In a recent article in The New York Times, the columnist Thomas Friedman promotes a plan to save Israel as a Jewish democracy: “Only Saudi Arabia and Israeli Arabs Can Save Israel as a Jewish Democracy.” His point is that only the Israeli Arabs (Palestinians in Israel) and the Saudis can pressure the Israelis into making the concessions needed to arrive at a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I have to question whether Friedman has any idea what the global situation looks like when it comes to democracy.

Since 2006, the influential British news and business magazine The Economist, has published a comprehensive annual Democracy Index, which analyzes in detail the democratic processes that operate in nearly 170 countries around the world. The Index is based on 60 numeric scores and rankings grouped in five different categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Countries are categorized as one of four regime types; full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.

For 2021, only 21 countries (including the Nordic countries, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), are listed as full democracies (down from 23 in 2020). Fifty-three are flawed democracies, 34 are hybrid regimes, and 59 are authoritative regimes. The US, labeled a flawed democracy (along with countries such as France, Italy, and Portugal), is ranked 26 while Israel, a flawed democracy as well, is ranked 23, just barely missing the numerical value needed to be ranked as a full democracy.

Of the 20 countries in North Africa and the Middle East, Israel’s 2021 score and ranking is far above that of any other country in this region. Tunisia, ranked 54 in 2020, has been downgraded from a flawed democracy to the hybrid category and is ranked 75. The rest are either hybrid regimes, or, even more likely, authoritarian ones. Turkey, also described as a hybrid regime, ranked 103.

Since its inception in 2006, the Index treats the Palestinian Territories as a separate state. The Jewish settlers in the West Bank vote in Israeli elections and there are no Jews in Gaza. Elections in Gaza and the West Bank have been few and far between in any case and the 2021 Index places “Palestine” in the authoritarian category, ranked 109.
The BBC – Way past its sell by date
So genocides and atrocities in Africa command no BBC attention but an ugly teenage kid with body odor and halitosis who slaps an Israeli and calls herself Palestinian, commands six months news coverage on numerous BBC platforms.

As at the time of writing, a BBC news item on the Israeli-Palestinian situation has just been aired and the reporter is the utterly incompetent, intellectually backward and bigoted BBC Muddled East correspondent Jeremy Bowen. He repeats the mythology of Israel being an apartheid state and the lie regarding the death of an Al Jazeera journalist blaming Israel. Bowen’s bias is paralleled only by his imbecility. Just another anti-Jewish State Muppet employed by the Bigoted Biased Corporation.

Very recently in the United Kingdom a story which should have received saturation news coverage was all but ignored by the BBC, reported quickly, inadequately and untruthfully and hidden, just like the Balen Report as soon as it was realistically possible to do so. The story exposed decades of pedophilia perpetrated on white, working class and underprivileged girls by Pakistani gangs in several locations within the UK. Police and social services within those towns had been aware of these atrocities for decades. The BBC are historically expeditious to expose police inadequacies, especially white police men and women, but not in this case. The industrial scale of the sexual abuse crimes committed were beyond appalling and have led to several victim deaths and suicides.

There was something else very sinister about how the BBC reported on this story. The BBC referred to the Pakistani pedophiles not as Pakistani but Asian. There were no Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Malayan, Taiwanese nor Thai men involved – only Pakistani. This was not made apparent and the generalization of the collective terminology did not explain the culture nor agenda of the responsible ethnicity. Pakistani men who were the perpetrators were not exposed but Asian men were. Why?

The BBC has a problem with the truth. The BBC has a problem with the Jewish State of Israel. The BBC has a problem with conservative ideology. The BBC has a problem with blacks and Christians slaughtered by Muslims. The BBC has a problem with exposing pedophiles when the pedophiles are Pakistani.

The war in Syria has claimed over half a million deaths including thousands of Palestinian Arabs butchered by Assad with help from Russia and Iran and yet no BBC reporting on this. This may appear odd given the obvious BBC sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs. Why no reports on this subject given decades of pro-Palestinian saturation coverage?

Don’t be fooled – it is not sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs but hatred for Israel. No one cares in the BBC about Syrians, Russians and Iranians killing 5000 plus Palestinian Arabs in the last five years as a direct consequence of the Palestinians supporting the Syrian opposition. There is no anti-Jewish state story here hence no reporting.

The BBC is unfit for purpose, it is morally indecent, has biased staff eagerly promoting certain agendas and is way past its sell by date.
BBC exploits Biden visit for more promotion of unproven Abu Akleh claims
Bateman did not bother to remind listeners that it was the Palestinian Authority which refused to hand over the bullet it claimed to have removed from Shireen Abu Akleh’s body for nearly two months or that a visit to the “crime scene” would at this point be useless.

Bateman: “And it was May the eleventh…ahm…it’s over, you know, two months now. How has life been for you?”

Abu Akleh: “You know, I…I tried to go even back to work. I went for three weeks and I couldn’t. Today, you know, we would see her covering Biden’s visit and every…every event that happens or takes place, I expect to see her reporting or doing a report or live on TV but now she’s gone.”

Bateman: “The army maintains Shireen Abu Akleh could have been hit by militant gunfire but the evidence doesn’t support this.”


Failing to clarify to listeners in the UK and worldwide exactly which “evidence” does not support the possibility that the shot that killed Abu Akleh could have been fired by members of local terrorist groups who regularly use weapons and ammunition stolen from IDF bases, Bateman moved onto another topic.

Despite the absence of conclusive proof that the fatal shot came from the gun of an Israeli soldier, the BBC is clearly quite happy not only to promote that theory as fact, but also to amplify the entirely unevidenced claim that it was done deliberately. While the Abu Akleh family and others may well be dissatisfied by a US investigation which did not yield the conclusions they wanted, there is no excuse for a media organisation supposedly committed to accurate and impartial reporting to continue to generously promote what remains a completely unproven version of events.
Italian Israeli Journalist Defines Modern Antisemitism in ‘Jewish Lives Matter’
For starters, see if you can find yourself in the forward to Fiamma Nirenstein’s new book, Jewish Lives Matter – Human Rights and Antisemitism (PDF) published online today by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

“More than it is a book, this is an open letter that expresses my utter bewilderment,” she writes. “I was angry and taken aback while pouring out these words, surrounded by a heap of scattered papers and books written by myself and others, who like myself have dealt with antisemitism throughout the years. Years in which antisemitism should have disappeared, but has instead increased and now is a huge phenomenon. We have failed!

“My anger is fueled by pain: I have already explained extensively how antisemitism has turned into hatred of Israel, but this is the first time I see my own friends falling prey – slowly and without realizing it, because they are decent people – to an alien antisemitic spirit. A spirit that has worked its way into their mindset precisely in the name of the good things in which they believe, that is, human rights.

“I never thought that those whom I deemed friends could have been gripped by such an instinctive repulsion for the most important manifestation of the Jewish people, Israel. Instead, this hostility is strong and completely shameless, which is also a new phenomenon. Therefore, I sat down and wrote in order not only to respond to the accusations, but also to accuse.”


Fiamma Nirenstein (born in Florence in 1945) is an Italian-Israeli journalist, author, and politician. Her father, Alberto Nirenstein, came to Italy as part of the Jewish Brigade and met his future wife Wanda Lattes, a partisan. Fiamma grew up in a leftist political environment, but her views began to change after the Six Day War. During the war, she was a volunteer in Kibbutz Neot Mordechai, in northern Israel. In 1993 and 1994 Nirenstein was the director of the Cultural Institute in the Italian Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Israeli Startup Helps Teenagers Tap Into Tech During Soccer Games
As Israel’s Maccabiah Games continue, and thousands come to Israel for what is widely regarded as “The Jewish Olympics,” companies like Playermaker have a chance to highlight the growing relationship between sports and technology. The company has developed a light device that wraps around the heels of soccer players, tracking their performance and providing them with insights to help improve their games on the pitch.

“We want to bring performance data and insights and make it available and accessible for everyone across the universe,” explained Guy Aharon, CEO and Co-founder of Playermaker. “We are very purpose-driven. The purpose is the data that can create something so that the coach can coach better… a 16-year-old today is flooded with so much exciting stuff on Roblox or Instagram — and classic sports sometimes fail to provide them with the same experience.”

Aharon joined CTech a few hours before the Maccabiah Games’ opening ceremony in Jerusalem. For the first time since 2017, more than 10,000 athletes from 61 countries attended the event which celebrated sportsmanship in the Jewish world. Over the next two weeks, there will be 30,000 competitions at 150 venues hosting 78 tournaments for 42 different sports. In total, there will be 250 football matches.

Playermaker says it is “super proud to support athletes of all ages” during the Maccabiah Games and Aharon calls the device “the great equalizer” among both professionals and amateurs who may want to analyze insights into their performance. Despite not having GPS capabilities, the devices can track movement and pressure on the feet allowing players and coaches to easily learn and adapt their strategies via an app. Today, Playermaker is used by European Premier League teams and academies such as Leicester City, Manchester City, and Liverpool, and it has partnered with Rangers, Hull City, and Fulham FC. It is understood that the Israeli under-16 girls’ team will be using Playermaker during the Games.
Fluorescent Glow of Deep-Sea Corals Helps Lure Prey, Israeli Researchers Find
Israeli researchers say they have explained one of the ocean’s most beautiful and striking scientific mysteries: glowing coral in the depths of the sea.

A recent study by researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat found that marine organisms swim towards fluorescent colors, suggesting that corals glow in order to lure their prey. Published last month in Nature’s Communications Biology journal, the paper sought to resolve the debate over the biological role and function of coral fluorescence.

“Many corals display a fluorescent color pattern that highlights their mouths or tentacle tips, a fact that supports the idea that fluorescence, like bioluminescence (the production of light by a chemical reaction), acts as a mechanism to attract prey,” said Yossi Loya, of Tel Aviv University. “The study proves that the glowing and colorful appearance of corals can act as a lure to attract swimming plankton to ground-dwelling predators, such as corals, and especially in habitats where corals require other energy sources in addition or as a substitute for photosynthesis.”

The glowing phenomenon is common in reef-building corals, but its biological role has long been the subject of debate, with proposed functions including protection against radiation, facilitating photosynthesis, or attracting symbiotic algae.

In new study, researchers initially tested whether plankton — small organisms that drift in the sea along with the current — are attracted to fluorescence, both in the laboratory and at sea. They used the crustacean Artemia salina, or brine shrimp, as food for corals. In the lab, the crustaceans were attracted to fluorescent cues when given a choice between a green or orange fluorescent target versus a control target. Similar results were observed when using a native crustacean from the Red Sea, the researchers said.
Bahrain ambassador visits Bnai Zion Medical Center for new collaboration
The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to Israel Khaled al-Jalahma met with Bnai Zion Medical Center's CEO Dr. Ohad Hochman on Monday as part of a collaboration between medical centers in Bahrain and Bnai Zion.

Al-Jalahma was visiting the medical center as part of its 100th-anniversary celebrations that were being held by Bnai Zion's Friends Association.

During his meeting with Hochman, which was initiated by Executive Director of the Friends' Association Tom Alexandron, the two discussed various ways the collaboration could be expanded like mutual delegations, conferences and knowledge exchange.

Touring the medical center
Throughout his visit, al-Jalahman was taken on a tour of the facilities together with his wife Nof. The two were shown the protected new emergency department which is set to open soon, the innovative robot pharmacy and the Kinneret research data cloud that collects information from Israeli governmental hospitals.

Hochman expressed appreciation for the visit and hope for the future of the collaboration. Al-Jalahma, in turn, invited Hochman to visit Bahrain in order to further promote the collaboration.
MDA App Praised for Fastest Emergency Response
Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s paramedic service, last week was presented with an award for its innovative use of geographic information system (GIS) technology, which MDA uses as the foundation for its world-renowned computer-assisted ambulance dispatch system.

The award was announced by Jack Dangermond, founder and president of Esri, one of the world’s largest providers of GIS technology, at the company’s annual users conference in San Diego. The company cited MDA among more than 100,000 companies and organizations that use GIS systems.

“The GIS technology touches virtually every aspect of our work and is a key reason we can reach the scene of a medical emergency faster than any other EMS organization in Israel,” said Ido Rosenblat, chief information officer for MDA.

On average, MDA ambulances or first responders get to medical emergencies before other emergency medical services more than 91% of the time, according to a time analysis the organization conducted earlier this year.

MDA has also used this technology to create dispatch systems for other emergency organizations, including Israel’s Fire and Rescue Service, the Philippines Red Cross, and Hatzalah South Florida in the US.

“MDA’s goal is to have the best-trained and best-equipped EMTs and paramedics in the world and provide them with the best technology to reach the scene more quickly and better informed about the emergency,” Rosenblat said. “If you can do that, you’re going to have an impact on patient outcomes and save even more lives.”






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