Pages

▼

Thursday, July 28, 2022

07/28 Links Pt2: Half of All Jews Now Live in Israel and That Is a Source of Strength; Condoleezza Rice: "Israel Is the 800-Pound Gorilla on Technology"

From Ian:

Half of All Jews Now Live in Israel and That Is a Source of Strength
A hundred years ago, in 1922, there were 14,400,000 Jews in the world. The centers of Judaism outside the U.S. were in central and eastern Europe - Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest. There seemed grounds for optimism. In 1922 the League of Nations awarded Britain the Palestine British mandate, which confirmed the legitimacy of Britain's promise in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 of a national home for the Jews. "The wandering Jews will at last have a home," the London Times declared in April 1920.

By 1939, the world Jewish population had increased to 17 million. But Jews on the Continent faced a precarious future with the spread of anti-Semitism and the rise of Hitler. Many sought to emigrate, but most countries closed their doors. And in 1939 the British government in its White Paper severely limited immigration into the national home, proposing to end it entirely.

In Chaim Weizmann's words, the world was now divided between countries in which Jews were not allowed to live and countries which they were not allowed to enter. By 1945, after the Holocaust the world's Jewish population had fallen to 11 million.

Today it is just over 15 million. Jews have not made up the losses of the Holocaust. Between 1939 and 2022, by contrast, the population of the world has increased by 250%. In the absence of the Holocaust, given a natural increase of population, there would perhaps have been a world Jewish population of 40 million.

Following the creation of Israel, the geographical balance of the world Jewish population has altered radically. In Palestine in 1939, there were only 450,000 Jews - 3% of the world's total. Today, nearly seven million Jews, almost 50% of the total, live in Israel. In 1948, Jews emerged from powerlessness to become authors of their own destiny.




Whose Land - Trailer
As the propaganda war against Israel's legitimacy as a modern nation state has increased in intensity and ferocity in recent years, so the need to challenge the misinformation and untruths has also intensified. Whose Land is a Two Part film, directed by Hugh Kitson, which considers the legal right of Israel to exist, under international law, as a reconstituted nation state, within the geographical boundaries of the ancient homeland of the Jewish People.


Anti-Semite Rashida Tlaib: “The Murderers Wear Israeli Uniforms… Apartheid State Of Israel”
Anti-Semite Democrat Representative Rashida Tlaib said, “the murderers wear Israeli uniforms… apartheid state of Israel,” during a press conference on Shireen Abu Akleh on 7/28/2022. Be sure to like, subscribe, and comment below to share your thoughts on the video.(h/t MtTB)




What a ‘MENA’ racial classification would mean for American Jews
‘The Biden administration is considering adding a new “Middle Eastern and North African” racial classification to the US Census. If this classification gets written into law, it will inevitably spread to college applications, civil rights forms, and other documents that ask Americans to indicate their race.

What would this mean for the American Jewish community? Will Israeli Americans be part of the MENA classification? Mizrahi Jews? Ashkenazi Jews who feel closer ties to their Middle Eastern heritage than to their more recent European places of origin? Why add a new classification to begin with?

As discussed in my new book, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, through the late twentieth century, most immigrants to the United States from Arab countries were Christians from Lebanon, along with a smaller number of Muslims and Jews. After some uncertainty early in the early twentieth century, American law and custom ultimately treated these immigrants and descendants as “whites.” For example, actors such as Danny Thomas played “white” roles and co-starred with white leading ladies without controversy–something that would have been unthinkable for black or east Asian Americans.

In the late 1970s, when the federal government created our modern racial classification scheme, Arab Americans were placed in the white classification, along with Iranians, Afghans, Berbers, Jews, Chaldeans, Armenians, and others. This decision attracted no controversy, as the overwhelming majority of Arab Americans self-identified as white.

Nevertheless, in the 1980s, Arab American organizations started lobbying for the US census to recognize a new Arab or Middle Eastern racial category. They hoped enumerating the Arab American population would increase its visibility and political clout, and perhaps plant the seeds for eligibility for affirmative action. Samer Khalaf, national president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, explained, “The MENA category was a bit of a compromise for us. In a perfect world, we’d have an Arab category.”

The lobbying efforts were unsuccessful, in part because of an unresolved debate over whether Israeli Americans would be included in the MENA classification.

In the meantime, more Muslims from Arab countries began immigrating to the US. A new generation of Muslim Arab American progressive political activists self-identified as “people of color.” The media generally accepted this designation. For example, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and activist Linda Sarsour, both Muslims of Palestinian Arab descent, have been widely described, and describe themselves, as “women of color.”

In Sarsour’s case, she attributes her “person of color” status despite her pale complexion to the fact that she wears a hijab, which causes others to see her as an outsider to mainstream America. This raises the question of why Haredi Jews do not get “people of color” status based on their more dramatically non-mainstream religious garb. (h/t MtTB)
Unpacked: Are Israelis White? | Zionism Revisited
Throughout history, people have traveled from across the world to make Israel their home. This has created a fundamental Israeli value to encourage and support immigrant absorption.

Immigration to Israel is not without its challenges. While there may be many differences in ideologies, religious and political beliefs, and languages spoken, this vastly multicultural society is what makes Israel the richly diverse mosaic that it is today.


J Street Says Absolutely Nothing About President Biden’s Trip To Israel
Another pro-Israel organization, the Democratic Majority For Israel (DMFI) similarly celebrated the presidential visit to Israel with a press release. It issued a three paragraph statement thanking the president, leading with “From the moment President Biden landed at Ben Gurion airport for the 10th time on Wednesday and declared, ‘You need not be a Jew to be a Zionist,’ we were reminded that his affection for the Jewish state runs, as he likes to say, ‘bone deep.’” It continued:

“Over the three-day visit, the President reaffirmed his administration’s enduring commitment to the U.S.-Israel relationship through new security and technology partnerships, vowed to prevent a nuclear armed Iran, and delivered tangible steps towards advancing peace between Israel and Arab states. His emotional visit to the hallowed ground of Yad Vashem and meeting with survivors of the Holocaust underscored his promise to stand against anti-Israel and antisemitic hatred around the world.

“We applaud the administration’s leadership and steady diplomacy in brokering an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel with the announcement that Saudi Arabia will open its airspace to planes flying to and from Israel. Now, Israel’s nearly two-million Muslim citizens will be able to take charter flights directly to Saudi Arabia to participate in the Hajj. This is an important step towards building a more peaceful and integrated Middle East. We urge the administration to keep up the momentum and continue this vital work.”

This enthusiasm should not be a surprise, as DMFI is not only a pro-Israel group, but focused on the Democratic Party, getting to celebrate a Democratic president visiting Israel.

One cannot say the same for J Street.

While it mislabels itself as “the political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans“, the Jewish progressive group revealed its true mission by completely skipping the Democratic president’s trip to Israel.
Instead of marking the incredible event of this “pro-Israel” (their words, not mine), J Street spoke about Roe v. Wade (not in its tagline), its support of far left-wing congressional candidates (five times!) and lambasting Israel three times, including a call to condition aid to Israel (something Biden said he would never do).

J Street is a far left-wing group masquerading as a pro-Israel organization, which chose not to utter a single positive thing about a Democratic president visiting Israel. Its supporters who care about Israel should shift their donations to DMFI, and those who care about other progressive issues should donate to those specific causes which speak to the donor. Abandon J Street, as it continues to reveal itself as a deceitful front to shield anti-Semites and anti-Zionists.
U.S. diplomat with antisemitic, racist blog still employed by State Dept.
Nearly a year and a half after a U.S. foreign service officer was revealed to be the author of a racist and antisemitic blog, he is still employed at the State Department — and he still posts on the website on a near-daily basis.

Fritz Berggren, who has worked with Afghan immigrants and in Bahrain, runs a website called BloodAndFaith.com that frequently assails the Jewish faith, members of the LGBTQ community and Black Americans, and argues that the United States should be a Christian nation-state. In February 2021, Politico first reported Berggren’s connection to the site, where his name is displayed prominently. (His State Department affiliation is not listed on the website.)

“Mr. Berggren is still a department employee,” a State Department spokesperson told Jewish Insider this month. “We cannot comment on individual personnel matters,” the spokesperson said, but added that “allegations that an employee has violated a law, regulation, or department policy are taken seriously.”

A year ago, 70 Jewish State Department employees wrote a letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken demanding that Berggren be fired. Blinken, who has sought to champion diversity within the department, responded by saying that employees who are investigated for discriminatory behavior could face disciplinary action “up to and including separation when warranted,” Foreign Policy reported.

“We can’t build lasting diversity without first building an environment where all people are valued,” Blinken said in an April 2021 speech announcing the appointment of Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as the department’s chief diversity and inclusion officer. “That’s the foundation. Laying it is going to be hard work, but I consider it one of my greatest responsibilities as secretary of state.”

The spokesperson would not say what Berggren’s current posting is, or whether he has been disciplined for his conduct. “The department does not take such [disciplinary] actions lightly and must comply with all required procedures before doing so,” the spokesperson said.
CAMERA Op-Ed: FIRE misfires on the IHRA definition of antisemitism
Earlier this year, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) published a piece explaining its opposition to the legislative adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism.

Unfortunately, FIRE’s position appears to be based on an understanding of the IHRA definition that is directly contradicted by what the definition actually says.

Writing in the context of the American Association of University Professors’ statement opposing the adoption of the definition by the state of Florida, FIRE states: “While the AAUP consistently opposes legislation restricting how race and sex can be taught on college campuses, its opposition to legislation that defines anti-Semitism to include any criticism of Israel is a new and welcome development”.

The claim that any criticism of Israel is considered antisemitic under the IHRA definition is false. The definition itself makes this very clear. In part, it reads: “Manifestations might include the targeting of the State of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic”. The Florida law adopting the definition includes virtually identical language.

As the IHRA further explains, the “overall context” of a statement about Israel must be taken into consideration when assessing whether it crosses into the realm of antisemitism.
Human rights rules protect against all forms of hate speech in New Zealand – except antisemitism
In recent years, human rights issues have become an increasingly important item on the agenda of Western countries. In New Zealand, this is no different – the country’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) is entrusted with “advocating and promoting an appreciation of human rights” and “promoting racial equality and cultural diversity,” among a host of other functions.

The New Zealand HRC can list a series of important achievements to its credit, including countering abuse of Maori councilors and tackling Islamophobia in New Zealand. However, on one particular issue, it has sometimes remained conspicuously silent – antisemitism. Several egregious incidents of Jew-hatred have occurred in New Zealand in recent years with little to no comment or action from the country’s foremost human rights body.

For example, an investigation by the Israel Institute of New Zealand (IINZ) found that several ostensibly “pro-Palestinian” groups in New Zealand regularly post antisemitic comments indistinguishable from that espoused by the far-right on their social media feeds. One group in particular, Kia Ora Gaza (KOG), included antisemitic content that would be clearly designated as antisemitic by the International Holocaust Remembrance of Antisemitism (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, including posts blaming Israel for the 2014 disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, posts referring to Jews as “dogs,” and posts comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

Most shockingly, at one point, the group’s membership numbered four members of Parliament, including Prime Minister Jacinda Arden – though she has since distanced herself from the group and maintains that she was added to the group without her knowledge.

In another incident, a Labor member of parliament, Dr. Duncan Webb, was found to be a member of the Facebook group “Aotearoa Standing with Palestine” (ASWP), which also promotes blatant antisemitic rhetoric, including Holocaust denial. An IINZ investigation revealed that Webb was an active member of the group – posting material and liking comments. He also spoke at the group’s annual meeting and supports their events. When Webb was presented with examples of the ongoing and egregious racism, he refused to disassociate from the group.


StandWithUs Condemns Hayward Unified School District Contract With “Liberated” Ethnic Studies Group
StandWithUs strongly condemns a contract signed by Hayward Unified School District (USD) and the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC). LESMCC and its leadership have a record of promoting antisemitism, anti-Israel narratives, and other forms of bias. The contract was unanimously approved at a Hayward USD Board of Education meeting on July 27th, 2022.

"Giving taxpayer funds to LESMCC sends a message that the district does not care about the well being of Jews, Israelis, or anyone who values critical thinking," said Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs. "Ethnic studies courses should help build understanding of marginalized communities, fight racism, and empower students to make our society better for everyone. Unfortunately, LESMCC has repeatedly taken the opposite approach, fueling hatred and division across California and beyond."

LESMCC was created by writers and supporters of the deeply problematic and widely criticized first draft of California's Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). Its leadership has smeared the ADL as a “white supremacist” group and attacked California's Legislative Jewish Caucus. Its website has targeted other mainstream Jewish organizations as well, and promoted the false narrative that Zionism is a “colonial ideology,” erasing 3,000 years of the Jewish people’s history in their ancestral home.

In January 2022, LESMCC and like-minded organizations announced a National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition (NLESC).Three (out of eleven) coalition members were groups that focus on promoting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to end Israel’s existence and strip away Jewish rights to self-determination. The executive director of one of these groups, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), is on record saying that “bringing down Israel really will benefit everyone in the world.”
NGO Monitor Sends Letters to European Countries Regarding PFLP-Linked NGOs
On July 25, 2022, NGO Monitor sent letters to the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Ireland, which had issued a joint statement rejecting Israel’s designation of six Palestinian NGOs as terror organizations. According to the European countries, “No substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy towards the six Palestinian NGOs on the basis of the Israeli decision to designate these NGOs as ‘terrorist organizations.’”

In the letters, NGO Monitor emphasized that the European countries “did not refer to the open source information, including data confirmed by an independent investigation in the Netherlands and in NGO Monitor reports. These show substantial ties between the designated NGOs and the PFLP, which is recognized by the EU as a terrorist organization.”


Graduate sues uni after essay is failed because it didn't blame Israel
A Jewish graduate is suing Leeds University for wrongly failing her sociology degree because she did not criticise Israel, the JC can reveal.

Danielle Greyman claims her essay about crimes committed by Hamas against Palestinians was failed because it did not pin blame on the Jewish state.

After a review, an external examiner recommended that her assignment mark be improved, giving it a passing grade instead of a fail.

Ms Greyman, who had never before failed an essay at university, was forced last year to resit the module, which she subsequently passed.

However, because she had to wait almost a year for the result of her appeal, the student was unable to take up a place on a Master’s course at Glasgow University.

Her lawyers have now issued a legal claim against Leeds University for negligence, discrimination and victimisation.

Ms Greyman told the JC this week: “It’s been massive emotional damage. I almost had a complete breakdown over this.”

One of the original markers of Ms Greyman’s failed essay was academic Claudia Radiven, who signed a petition defending David Miller after he was fired by Bristol University for claiming that Jewish students were being used as “political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime”. The petition condemned “concerted efforts to publicly vilify our colleague Professor David Miller” and declared: “Professor Miller is an eminent scholar”.


Facebook continues to allow hate speech in ads, latest test reveals
Facebook is letting violent hate speech slip through its controls in Kenya as it has in other countries, according to a new report from the nonprofit groups Global Witness and Foxglove.

It is the third such test of Facebook’s ability to detect hateful language — either via artificial intelligence or human moderators — that the groups have run, and that the company has failed.

The ads, which the groups submitted both in English and in Swahili, spoke of beheadings, rape, and bloodshed. They compared people to donkeys and goats.

Some also included profanity and grammatical errors. The Swahili language ads easily made it through Facebook’s detection systems and were approved for publication.

As for the English ads, some were rejected at first, but only because they contained profanities and mistakes in addition to hate speech. Once the profanities were removed and grammar errors fixed, however, the ads — still calling for killings and containing obvious hate speech — went through without a hitch.

“We were surprised to see that our ads had for the first time been flagged, but they hadn’t been flagged for the much more important reasons that we expected them to be,” said Nienke Palstra, senior campaigner at London-based Global Witness.

The ads were never posted to Facebook. But the fact that they easily could have been shows that despite repeated assurances that it would do better, Facebook parent Meta still appears to regularly fail to detect hate speech and calls for violence on its platform.
BBC correspondent alludes to previously unreported terror attack
Readers may recall that the BBC failed to report the April 29th terror attack in Ariel in which 23-year-old Vyacheslav Golev was murdered.

In the days and weeks that followed, BBC audiences did not see any coverage of subsequent events relating to that attack, including the claim of responsibility by Hamas, the arrests and indictments of the suspected perpetrators and a family member suspected of helping them or the High Court’s rejection of appeals against the demolition of their houses.

However, when those demolitions – and related rioting – took place on July 26th, the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Tom Bateman did find that particular news worthy of communication to his thirteen thousand Twitter followers.

Bateman’s use of the word “punitive” suggests that he did not familiarise himself with the High Court ruling on the matter.

“In his ruling, Justice Yosef Elron said the demolition of houses was meant to prevent future attacks and save lives and was thus acceptable.

“The demolition of the appellants’ homes is not meant to punish them for the actions of the terrorists or as means of ‘revenge,’ but to save the lives of others, and to prevent other families from experiencing the terrible anguish inflicted on Vyacheslav Golev’s family,” Elron said.”

Notably, the source of the information promoted by Bateman in his first Tweet – ‘Gaza Press’ – does not appear to meet the standards laid out in the BBC’s editorial guidelines on accuracy.

“3.3.13 Material supplied by third parties, including news providers, needs to be treated with appropriate caution, taking account of the reputation of the source.”

‘Gaza Press’ appears to be something of a one-man show run by a person named Amin Khalaf based in the Gaza Strip. If Tom Bateman did indeed take into account “the reputation” of that source before promoting its Tweet then he must be aware of the fact that it glorifies terrorism, as shown for example in Tweets concerning the attacks in Be’er Sheva and Bnei Brak in March.
Yad Vashem chair: Orban’s race comments evoke ideologies behind Holocaust
Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan strongly criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday over the premier’s remarks earlier this week that Hungarians “do not want to become peoples of mixed race.”

In the statement, Dayan labeled Orban’s comments “all too reminiscent of ideologies associated with the horrible atrocities of the Holocaust.”

He added: “Yad Vashem calls on the Government of Hungary to honor its declared commitment to genuinely remember the Holocaust and effectively combat antisemitism and racism.”

Orban defended his comments to reporters on Thursday, saying they represented a “cultural” standpoint: “It happens sometimes that I speak in a way that can be misunderstood… the position that I represent is a cultural… standpoint.”

Orban sparked a storm of criticism after he warned against mixing with “non-Europeans” in a speech in Romania’s Transylvania region, home to a Hungarian community, on Saturday.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in a joint press conference with Orban that the issue had been “resolved… amicably and in all clarity,” adding his country “strongly condemned… any form of racism or antisemitism.”
A French University Confronts Its Nazi Past
When Germany annexed the Alsace region of France in 1940, it poured in money and resources to transform the University of Strasbourg into a model Nazi institution. From 1941 to 1944, professors on the medical faculty forced at least 250 people from concentration or death camps to undergo experiments, some involving chemical weapons like mustard gas or deadly diseases like typhus. 86 Jews, brought from Auschwitz, were murdered at a nearby camp for a planned skeleton collection meant to exemplify the Nazi ideology on a hierarchy of races.

In May, the university released a 500-page report stating that the medical crimes its professors committed were extensive, and that the school had worked closely with the nearby Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, the only one on French soil. A dozen highly qualified international scholars worked meticulously for five years on the report.
Jewish Man Attacked on NY Subway
“This Jewish man was violently attacked for no other reason than being identifiably Jewish, and the perpetrator told him he’d have killed the Jewish man if only he had a gun,” former NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind tweeted on Wednesday, and followed with this interview with the victim:

The victim was sitting on the E train when a group of Black youths stormed the train car, and one of them did a flip and stepped on the victim’s foot. The victim groaned, and the Black youth told him, “Stop recording me, give me the phone you Jew.” And then he punched the victim in the face without a warning, with the results you can see in the image above: a bleeding lip.

According to the victim, none of the dozen or so passengers in the train car said anything, much less try to defend him. And when he was leaving, the Black assailant informed his victim: “If I had a gun, I would shoot you.” Hikind noted that “this man was violently attacked yesterday on the NYC subway because he’s Jewish just hours after Americans Against Antisemitism had released its damning report showing that NYC DAs are derelict in their duty to prosecute violent criminals.”

The report followed 118 cases in which Orthodox Jews––who looked the part––were assaulted or taunted with antisemitic slurs, and concluded: “When it comes to anti-Jewish hate crimes in NYC, there are practically no serious consequences to be had or severe punishments to be faced by very violent and hateful criminals who’ve caused significant physical, emotional and psychological damage to their victims.”


Neo-Nazi Marine plotted to attack Jews and others in ‘rapekrieg,’ federal prosecutors say
A former Marine who belonged to a neo-Nazi group that counts willingness to murder Jewish children as a membership requirement has been arrested on charges stemming from a federal investigation into his plot to commit mass murder, including against Jews.

Matthew Belanger was an active Marine while conspiring online with members of a hate group called Rapekrieg, according to a July 14 court filing by federal prosecutors arguing that he should remain in jail while awaiting trial.

Together with others from his Long Island, New York, hometown, Belanger had “procured weapons, uniforms, and tactical gear, and discussed committing attacks on a synagogue, Jewish persons, women, and minorities,” according to the court document, which Rolling Stone was first to report on Tuesday.

The investigation and arrest come amid mounting concerns about neo-Nazi and white supremacist activity within the U.S. armed forces. Many of the insurgents at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had military ties, and a filing in one case related to Jan. 6 revealed that a Marine had been discharged and sent to prison for plotting to blow up a synagogue.

Belanger was also discharged because of his extremist activity, according to the court filing, which offers a window into how online conversation among extremists can translate into real-world activity — a trajectory taken by a number of mass shooters in the United States, including the man who killed 11 Jews in their synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
Burnley Football Club decides not to change stand named after former Chairman who claimed Jews “run TV”
Burnley Football Club has rejected calls to rename a stand after a former Chairman who made an antisemitic remark in public.

The Bob Lord Stand is dedicated to the late local businessman who ran a chain of butcher shops before becoming Chairman of Burnley Football Club.

However, in 1974, Mr Lord spoke at a variety club dinner and said that “We have to stand up against a move to get soccer on the cheap by the Jews who run TV.”

This prompted many of the guests to leave the dinner early and a complaint from Bryan Cowgill, Head of BBC Television Sport, and his television counterpart, Bill Ward, to Sir Andrew Stephen, Chairman of the Football Association, and Len Shipman, President of the Football League,

Mr Lord later issued a partial apology, saying that: “If I have hurt anybody’s feelings. I apologise.”

However, the issue has recently come to light after some members of the Jewish community expressed their concerns, pressuring the Club into potentially renaming the stand.

Burnley went on to launch a six-month-long investigation into the incident, which included consultations with Jewish representatives and advisers, but concluded that the Club did not need to take any further action.

A spokesperson for the Club said that Burnley had officially adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.
Israeli Scientists Develop Two-Day Warning to Predict Devastating Earthquakes
Scientists agree that it’s important to be able to predict earthquakes well before they hit.

But they don’t agree on the best method for detecting earthquake “signatures.”

It’s not yet possible to forecast earthquakes by seeking signals in the Earth’s crust.

“State-of-the-art forecasting systems today are mostly based on numerical models, and these are unable to accurately describe the physical processes leading to earthquake events,” say researchers from Ariel University in Israel.

A more promising method may be to look for signatures in layers of Earth’s atmosphere, caused by both acoustic and gravity waves.

The scientists report in the scientific journal Remote Sensing that by studying changes in the ionosphere layer, they can make a positive prediction of a strong earthquake up to 48 hours ahead with 80% accuracy and a negative prediction (where an earthquake will not occur) with 85.7% accuracy.

These experts from the fields of physics, geophysics, civil engineering and computer science developed a machine learning support vector machine (SVM) technique. It uses GPS map data of ionospheric total electron content to calculate that layer’s electron charge density.
Condoleezza Rice: "Israel Is the 800-Pound Gorilla on Technology"
Relations between Israel and a number of Gulf nations have improved in part because of regional interest in Israel’s technology sector, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday.

“Think about Israel and the Gulf states and what is developing there,” Rice said during a panel at the Aspen Security Forum alongside former National Security Advisors Tom Donilan and Stephen Hadley. “Think about the fact that you could actually be at a place where the Arabs end the state of war against Israel — really end it. And why? Not because they’ve learned to love the Jewish democratic State of Israel, but because the smarter of them have realized that in order to modernize their own economies and not be completely dependent on oil, that they’re going to have to deal with the 800-pound gorilla on technology in the region, and that’s Israel.”

Rice served as former President George W. Bush’s national security advisor from 2001-2005 before assuming the top position at the State Department for the duration of Bush’s second term.

She praised President Joe Biden’s recent trip to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia, calling the trip “a very good thing,” while noting she disagreed with Biden’s stance toward Riyadh during the primary, during which time he pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state, a pronouncement made after the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“I think the problem was the first position, because who isn’t going to go to Saudi Arabia?” Rice said. “Name an American president who is not going to go to Saudi Arabia at some point. So don’t say that you’re not going to go to Saudi Arabia. You’re going to go to Saudi Arabia, because of economic reasons and because of stability in the Middle East.”
Saudi Investor Becomes Largest Shareholder in Israeli Autotech Company
Saudi Arabian company Mithaq Capital has increased its small holding in Israeli autotech company Otonomo Technologies (Nasdaq: OTMO) and has now reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it has a 20.4% holding. Otonomo share price has fallen 90% since it completed its SPAC merger last August and began trading on Nasdaq.

Mithaq is now a party at interest in Otonomo and entitled to discuss strategy, governance and business with the Israeli company's representatives. Mithaq says it may increase or reduce its stake in Otonomo but at this stage has no plans to raise its holding above 25%.

Mithaq is already the biggest shareholder in Israeli ad-tech company Tremor International (Nasdaq: TRMR; LSE: TRMR), led by CEO Ofer Druker, with a 22% stake.

Otonomo was founded by CEO Ben Volkow. The company provides a platform and commercial arena for data gathered from connected cars and is currently traded on Nasdaq with a market cap of $93 million, after it began trading last August with a company valuation of $1.26 billion. Otonomo's market cap is less than the $197 million in cash that it has in its coffers.


Rock the Casbah: Algeria’s deep Jewish connection
Like many Jews, I like visiting old synagogues, which may or may not still be home to living communities. Prague is nice, Budapest and Krakow too. Been there, done that – I even lived for 18 months in Hungary. Qirmizi Qesebe – the world’s last remaining Jewish town, outside of Israel? In Azerbaijan, in case you didn’t know. Well, I got that t-shirt too, back in 2013. So how about Algeria? Anyone been there? Probably not.

That’s unfortunate.

Algeria has a long — if troubled — Jewish history. Jews flourished in the 19th century. In 1870, the Cremieux decree awarded Jewish Algerians with French citizenship. While the community suffered in the Second World War under the Vichy regime, it was during the subsequent struggle for independence that Jewish life in the new independent country came to an end. Nationalists saw Algerian Jews as “French” and more than 130,000 left the country by 1962, with most taking residence in France.

Today, no Jewish communities exists in Algeria, and just a handful of Jews are thought to remain. The North African country is not part of the Abraham Accords, and indeed remains hostile to them, in particular to the participation of neighboring Morocco. At a time when Moroccan King Mohammed VI has recognized his country’s Jewish community as “a component of the rich Moroccan culture,” the contrast is stark with Algeria. Don’t expect flights from Tel Aviv to Algiers opening up any time soon.

Back in 2014 my friend Nicolas and I (both then living in Luxembourg) began planning a trip to Algeria. Nicolas grew up outside Paris and was interested in exploring his Jewish family roots – his great-great-grandfather left Algiers at the end of the 19th century. For me I was happy to accompany him and have an adventure. Clearly there were reasons why people didn’t go to Algeria and were warned against going there, but I hoped that my British passport would provoke less hostility than a French one. And neither of us had obviously Jewish surnames, which might help. But unfortunately for one reason or another, life got in the way and our plans to Rock the Casbah never came to fruition.

This year, Nicolas decided to take the plunge. He traveled alone to Algeria. Rabbis are not vicars, but vicariously I was able to enjoy the trip too, through his frequent updates and photographs. He spent time in Algeria’s three largest cities: Algiers, Constantine, and Oran, and in each place explored the remnants of the country’s Jewish past.
VR at Israel Museum: Aleppo synagogue brought back from the past
Correspondent Erica Jackson is at The Israel Museum in Jerusalem to see how the past can be relived through the power of virtual reality. A tour of the destroyed Aleppo synagogue has been brought to life by historical photos.

The sacred site was destroyed during riots following the announcement of the formation of the State of Israel.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 

at