Monday, May 08, 2023

05/08 Links Pt2: Will the Munich panel acknowledge the role of Abbas?; U.S. Offers Palestinians $100k to Promote DEI in Arts and Sports; Holocaust Denial: An ongoing attempt to distort History

From Ian:

Will the Munich panel acknowledge the role of Abbas?
The German government has created a commission of historians to study the massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian Arab terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Germany’s Interior Minister has promised that the review will be “thorough” and “rigorous.”

The problem, however, is that a serious and honest study will have to acknowledge that the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, with whom Germany has a friendly relationship, were the ones who organized and financed the attack. Will the commission be willing to name names, even if doing so will be politically inconvenient for the German government?

In 1972, Yasser Arafat was head of the Fatah terrorist organization, and Mahmoud Abbas—the current head of both Fatah and the P.A.—was his right-hand man.

The terrorists who carried out the Munich attack claimed that they were part of the “Black September” group, which supposedly was independent of Fatah. But the myth of an “independent” Black September was shattered many years ago, with the declassifying of a telegram sent by the U.S. State Department to American embassies around the world on March 13, 1973.

The text of the telegram is widely available on the internet. It reveals the truth about the Munich murderers:

“Question of link between Black September Organization (BSO) and Fatah has been subject of much public discussion,” the telegram began. Then it explained Arafat’s lies about his role in Black September: “Fatah leader Arafat has disavowed connection with BSO. … Arafat continues to disavow publicly any connection between Fatah and terrorist operations. Similarly, Fatah maintains its pretense of moderation … .”

The truth about Black September and Fatah was exactly the opposite of what Arafat claimed, according to the U.S. State Department telegram: “USG [United States Government] has information that Fatah is in fact parent body of BSO. … The Black September Organization is a cover term for Fatah’s terrorist operations executed by Fatah’s intelligence organization … For all intents and purposes no significant distinction now can be made between the BSO and Fatah.”

So “Black September” was a fiction—so says our own U.S. State Department. It was just another name for Fatah, led by Arafat and Abbas.
The DEI Threat to Jewish Students - Opinion
A recent study showed that the private social media accounts of DEI officers at university campuses exhibit a remarkable level of virulence against the State of Israel, compared to generally positive feelings towards the People’s Republic of China. The authors noted that “[o]f the tweets about Israel, 96 percent were critical of the Jewish state, while 62 percent of the tweets about China were favorable. There were more tweets narrowly referencing “apartheid” in Israel than tweets indicating anything favorable about Israel whatsoever.

Regarding Israel, the word genocide was associated nine times, the term ethnic cleansing appears seven times, and the accusation that children are specifically targeted appears 27 times. Meanwhile, DEI staffers generally praised China and even wrote glowingly about Chinese efforts to reduce poverty in Tibet, where China is pursuing cultural genocide of the Tibetan people. The report determined that “DEI staff have an obsessive and irrational animus toward the Jewish state.” DEI staffers on university campuses are supposed to be advocates for students, helping them navigate issues of inclusivity and belonging. When DEI staff and administration hold clear animus and bias against the world’s only Jewish state, universities are implicitly and unfairly discriminating against Jewish students.

People are imperfect, so criticism always has a role to play. However, the irrational malice DEI staffers demonstrate against Israel is of a different order. Under the widely-adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is used by the U.S. State Department, examples of antisemitism include “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”; “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”; “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”; and “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” All of these have been demonstrated by college DEI staffers – establishing college campuses as unfriendly and unwelcoming spaces for young Jews.

The average university now employs roughly 45 DEI staffers. These small armies rarely celebrate Jewish identity or work towards our inclusion; far more often, they exclude and marginalize Jews on campus and label them as white privilege, whether or not this matches their self-identity. Some states, notably Texas, are considering legislation that would ban DEI programs at public universities.

In the meantime, a generation of college students is being governed by an ideology hostile to Jews that is inculcating ideas about our community that are very different from the principles that our faith embodies, and the United States purports to champion. If American institutions continue to adopt and reflect extreme DEI ideologies, Jews will stuffer. For as George Orwell presciently wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
U.S. Offers Palestinians $100k to Promote 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion' in Arts and Sports
Amid a fresh wave of terrorism across Israel, the Biden administration is sending $100,000 in taxpayer funds to Palestinian groups that "promote diversity, equity, inclusion," the government announced last week.

The State Department will make available $100,000 for Palestinian government and non-profit groups through its "American-Palestinian Arts, Culture, and Sports Initiative." The funding is meant to "improve American-Palestinian relations" at a time when terrorists are wreaking havoc across Israel, including a series of rocket attacks this week by the Iran-funded Hamas militant group.

The State Department says it can help ease tensions by boosting engagement with the Palestinians and funding a range of programs that promote peace. "Special consideration" for the latest grant program "will be given to proposals that demonstrate how the program advances diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or accessibility with respect to race, ethnicity, religion, income, geography, gender identity, sexual orientation, and/or disability," the grant reads.

Those seeking to cash in on the funds will also have to demonstrate how they can "positively address issues of conflict resolution, mental health, resiliency, or trauma therapy through arts, culture, and/or sports."

The program is raising eyebrows among some former U.S. officials who say the Biden administration should not be rewarding the Palestinian government as terror factions murder Israelis in the streets and launch missiles at the Jewish state. Palestinian terrorists have gunned down several Israelis in the past month, including a British-Israeli family. Gaza-based militants also stepped up their operations this week, firing dozens of rockets into Israeli communities.

"The timing of the release of the grant opportunity is a bit tone deaf," said Bonnie Glick, former deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department organization that oversees funding in the Middle East.

Glick said all funds to Palestinians should be withheld to create an incentive for the government to end its support for terrorism.

"Withholding funds ... might allow Palestinian leaders to rethink their priorities and control, rather than incite, their restive population," Glick said.


Holocaust Denial: An ongoing attempt to distort History
In order to deny the Holocaust occurred, deniers use a myriad of strategies to convince the uninformed that the Germans did not murder six million Jews.

One argument they advance, is that if the Holocaust actually happened, the information would have been extensively known during WWII. It would have been as well-known as D-Day, the Allied invasion of the Normandy on Tuesday June 6, 1944.

The problem is that D-Day did not become commonly known until after the invasion was underway. For obvious reasons, D-Day remained a secret. The same was with the Holocaust. The camps were veiled in secrecy to hide the inhuman treatment to which prisoners were subjected, including physical beatings, starvation rations, lice infestations, constant hunger and cold, and wholesale murder. The camps were not casually discussed in normal conversation between fellow Nazis.

The Severe Penalty for Disclosing what Occurred at the Camps
As Albert Speer, a German architect and a close ally of Adolph Hitler, who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production during most of World War II, wrote in his Spandau Diary: December 9, 1946. “It would be wrong to imagine that the top men of the regime would have boasted of their crimes on the rare occasions when they met. At trial we were compared to the heads of the Mafia. I recalled movies in which the bosses of legendary gangs sat around in evening dress chatting about murder and power, weaving intrigues, concocting coups. But this atmosphere of back-room conspiracy was not at all the style of our leadership. In our personal dealings, nothing would ever be said about any sinister activities we might be up to.”

As an example of this, SS guard Theodor Malzmueller described his introduction to the concept of mass murder upon arriving at the Kulmhof (Chelmno) extermination camp: “When we arrived we had to report to the camp commandant, SS-Hauptsturmführer [captain]Bothmann. The SS-Haupsturmführer addressed us in his living quarters, in the presence of SS-Untersturmführer[second lieutenant] Albert Plate. He explained that we had been dedicated to the Kulmhof [Chelmno] extermination camp as guards and added that in this camp the plague boils of humanity, the Jews, were exterminated. We were to keep quiet about everything we saw or heard, otherwise we would have to reckon with our families' imprisonment and the death penalty....”
Can AI help hasbara?
After we identify where our efforts are best spent, AI can help us generate content. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can assist individuals with crafting a response to an inaccurate or hateful post with a comment that disputes the wrong claims and offers alternative points of view. AI can pick on many nuances that an average human being might not, such as the best tune and style of language to use in accordance with the audience (ex. the followers of the page), as well as the optimal length of the response.

AI can also be used to create engaging multimedia content. For instance, companies like Lumen5 have developed AI-powered video creation tools that can take written content and automatically generate engaging videos. The infamous graphic design tool, Canva, recently launched new AI tools including a text-to-image generator (It's super cool, try it for yourself). The platform also uses machine learning to suggest design elements, fonts, and colors that will work well together.

These technologies can be especially useful for non-profit organizations and individual advocates with varying degrees of influence that want to create compelling videos and graphics to educate and inspire their followers but may not have the resources to hire a professional.

The potential of AI to fight antisemitism and promote Israeli advocacy is significant, and it is the duty of the Jewish people, including our allies to treat the millennia-old sickness that is antisemitism with the most advanced tools at our disposal. AI can assist advocates like myself and my peers to detect online hate, categorize it, generate effective responses, and present them in a compelling matter. However, it is important to ensure that it is used ethically and effectively. This means developing AI tools that are accurate, reliable, and transparent, and for countries to explore the possibility of establishing a regulatory body to monitor and regulate the development and use of AI, and encouraging collaboration between AI developers and non-profit organizations. Only then can we harness the full potential of AI to combat online Jew hatred.
Indonesia said to fear it could lose World Beach Games over calls to bar Israel
Senior Indonesian officials are reportedly concerned their country could be stripped of hosting the World Beach Games at Bali this summer over the local governor’s refusal to let Israeli athletes compete.

According to a report in the Sunday Times of London, top officials fear the Association of National Olympic Committees — which is organizing the tournament in August — could remove Indonesia as host if Bali Governor Wayan Koster will not end his boycott.

Koster and Ganjar Pranowo, who heads the nearby province of Central Java and is a candidate in the 2024 presidential elections, advocated banning Israel from the Under-20 World Cup that was slated to be held in Indonesia later this month, whereupon FIFA pulled the tournament from there and relocated it to Argentina.

Fearing a similar outcome, the British newspaper said Indonesia’s national government and sports federation were trying to negotiate with Koster to reconsider, but he will not budge.

“I remain consistent in refusing the Israeli team’s participation in the 2023 World Beach Games in Bali,” he was quoted as saying.

The head of the ANOC has so far dismissed calls to bar Israel as “noise in the media” and pointed to Indonesia’s pledge to grant entry to athletes from all qualifying countries.

“So far we have not been approached at all, so we continue to prepare as if nothing is happening and hopefully nothing is happening,” Gunilla Lindberg said.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Man Who Dismisses US Urban Violence As Sensationalized Afraid To Visit Israel Because Of Media Reports (satire)
A suburban resident of the Tri-State Area known to downplay journalists’ accounts of unrest, mayhem, and murder in various big cities across the country has also expressed reservations about traveling to see Masada, Jerusalem, the Galilee, and various pilgrimage and tourist sites, given the frequent journalist accounts of terrorist attacks in the Jewish State.

Local friends and acquaintances noted that Alan Crawford, 50, of Norwalk, Connecticut, has commented with derision on multiple occasions that media stories of violence in San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Chicago, and New York itself paint a false picture of the situation, which in reality features only small amounts of violence in otherwise-peaceful settings, and that those stories serve a political agenda. In discussing possible travel destinations with friends and family, Mr. Crawford has shied away from committing to destinations in Israel, because he fears the political violence that media have reported there, making it seem that a stabbing, shooting, automotive, or rocket attack lurks around every street corner.

“Those reports are all sensationalized,” stated Crawford, a floor manager at an area Home Depot, in reference to items in his social media feeds about major store chains closing their branches in the San Francisco Bay area amid the city’s refusal to prosecute or deter shoplifting, and an epidemic of car burglaries there. “It was also true with the so-called riots in Portland a few years ago – you had to go looking for the trouble, when most of the city was cam and peaceful. It’s agitators who want you to be scared, because scared people are easier to control.”
Exposed: NPR Deliberately Misrepresents Israeli Interviewee to Imply Anti-Arab Racism
Just how far will some journalists go to imply that Israeli Jews are anti-Arab racists or bigots?

According to an NPR report titled “Palestinians weigh in on Israeli street protests“:
Palestinians have largely been absent from the historic demonstrations in Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis are protesting plans by the right-wing government to weaken the courts. NPR’s Daniel Estrin explored why Palestinians are rarely in the crowd.”

Introducing the story about “Palestinians” is misleading given that one of the two Arabs interviewed is an Israeli Arab citizen while the other happens to be a former spokesperson for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.

Clearly, there is a significant difference in how Arab citizens of Israel relate to the country and the demonstrations, as opposed to Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza who do not hold Israeli citizenship. However, this is not something that Estrin addresses.

He says: “Palestinian political activist Nour Odeh is following the protests from where she lives in the West Bank, where Israel maintains a military occupation, and there is no democracy.”

Estrin fails to point out that the lack of democracy in the West Bank is primarily a symptom of the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to hold elections, the last of which took place for the parliament in 2006 and for the presidency in 2005.

But more seriously, Estrin claims (at 1 min 20):
Some Israeli Jewish protesters say they don’t want Arab citizens in the streets protesting with them.”

To back up this assertion, Estrin interviews one of the protesters:
ZOHAR DVIR: Let’s say, keep it clean…
ESTRIN: Zohar Dvir a retired deputy police commissioner.
DVIR: …Not, you know, to see Palestine flags.”

But did Zohar Dvir really say that he did not want Arab citizens protesting alongside him?

We tracked down Major General (ret.) Zohar Dvir, who happens to be a fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University, Herzliya, and asked him to clarify what he had actually said to NPR some weeks prior to the publication of Estrin’s report.


CBC Radio One Promotes Anti-Israel “Nakba” Event
On the April 28th broadcast of the CBC Radio One program Let’s Go hosted by Sabrina Marandola, a brief segment was aired which repeated problematic anti-Israel propaganda.

During the segment, intern Vanna Blacksmith spotlighted an art exhibition hosted by the Palestinian Youth Movement organization, taking place in downtown Montreal.

Blacksmith told listeners that following the exhibition, “A 1948 nakba survivor will be doing an open panel about their experience.”

When Marandola asked Blacksmith, “What is nakba?” Blacksmith responded that it “Refers to what they call Palestinian catastrophe…back in the 1947/49…during that period, three quarters of Palestinians were forced to move from their homeland because of that war.”

While Blacksmith is correct that the term “nakba” means catastrophe in Arabic, she failed to give listeners any context. Following Israel’s proclamation of independence in 1948, it was immediately invaded by surrounding Arab states, who intended to destroy the newly reborn Jewish State. While Israel was able to successfully defend itself during the War of Independence that was thrust upon it, it came at a high cost: roughly one percent of Israel’s Jewish population died during the war.

It’s also true that a large number of Arabs who were living in pre-state Israel were displaced as a result of the war. However, because Blacksmith provided no additional context as to why they left or who encouraged them to do so, they could be left with the false impression – widely propagated by anti-Israel activists – that Israel was the culprit who forced Arabs out of Israel.
BBC website coverage of an operation against Hamas in Nablus
The report also promotes the talking points of unnamed “human rights groups” and briefly mentions a topic on which BBC audiences have not seen any in depth reporting: the PA’s failure to meet its security obligations under the terms of the Oslo Accords in parts of the territory it administers.
“The Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), seen by many ordinary Palestinians as weak and ineffective, has lost security control to the groups in much of the northern West Bank. US-backed attempts to strengthen the PA’s grip appear so far to have failed, while human rights groups criticise Israel for repeatedly using excessive force in civilian areas targeting militants.”

The later versions of the report go on to mention a stabbing attack that took place on May 4th:
“In a separate incident on Thursday just to the south of Nablus, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian woman after she allegedly stabbed an Israeli soldier in the town of Hawara. The IDF said the soldier suffered minor injuries.”

The reason for that qualification is unclear: the woman stabbed the soldier in his shoulder.

The later versions of the report close with the BBC’s now standard unhelpful portrayal of casualties:
“Since the start of this year, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Eighteen Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed in attacks by Palestinians.”

As ever, the BBC fails to inform its audiences that the majority of the Palestinians killed since the beginning of 2023 (January and February here, March here) were members of terrorist organisations and/or males involved in violent activity at the time.

Of the twelve Palestinians killed during April (see here, here, here and here), six were carrying out terror attacks at the time. At least six had links to terrorist organisations and three were members of the Palestinian Authority security forces.

That information is freely available in the public domain. It is hence unclear why – as it has been doing for well over a year – the BBC continues to promote generalised statements about the numbers of Palestinians killed which actively hinder audience understanding of the issue.
Economist hurls false 'fascism' charge at Zionist leader
An article in the Economist (“How Zionism has evolved from a project to an ideology”), which appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the April 29th print edition, included the following, in the context of arguing that the current controversy concerning judicial overhaul points to a broader debate over the country’s future:
Today’s tensions over Israeli democracy would have been familiar to many of [Theodor] Herzl’s followers. Some were secular, even assimilated Jews, whose imaginations were fired by the birth of nationalism across Europe. For those who were born into religious families, however, Zionism encapsulated the thrice-daily traditional Jewish prayer: “May our eyes behold Your return to Zion.”

As Herzl’s Zionist movement grew in the years leading up to Israel’s founding in 1948, it was dominated by secular Jews who divided into two main camps. Their imprint is still felt on Israeli politics today. One camp was led by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a right-winger who drew heavily on European nationalism, and in some cases fascism. He argued for “one flag”, meaning a single-minded focus on establishing a Jewish state. He believed this should encompass not just Palestine but also modern-day Jordan. Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party is the ideological heir of this “Revisionist Zionism” camp.

The myth that Ze’ev Jabotinsky, one of Zionism’s founding fathers, was a fascist has been discredited many times by serious scholars of the Zionist leader, and, in fact, Jabotinsky, though not a socialist like many of Zionism’s early leaders, was a (small L) liberal. As the Israeli historian and political scientist Avi Shilon wrote, he “never lost his commitment to classical liberalism”.
Islamist Antisemitism in the United States
While the US has focused its discourse in recent years on the rise of right-wing extremism, discussion of Islamist extremism has been relegated to elements of the far-right, mainly by those who frame it in the context of so-called “anti-sharia” activism. This framing, in addition to increased discourse on minority rights, has effectively stifled the possibility of having any proper discussion of the issue in relation to antisemitism. The unprecedented 75% surge in antisemitic incidents throughout the US in the weeks during and following the 2021 Gaza conflict (Matza, 2021) confirms the need for such a discussion.

Over the past few years, the role of both political Islam and Islamist groups and their ideologies in preventing or promoting radicalization has been at the core of European discourse. In the US, however, this has not been the case. This difference, in part, can be attributed to a successful “rebranding” of Islamist groups in the US, which were previously perceived as connected to extremist entities. Additionally, over the past decade, American Islamist groups, such as those affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, have developed “red-green” alliances with American progressives and left-wing movements to recast themselves as advocates of human and minority rights organizations or as advocates of reform. While our focus is on Islamists in the US – who frequently purport to be the 'voice' of the Muslim community -- it should be noted that Islamists do not represent the majority of American Muslims. A 2011 Gallup poll demonstrated that when shown a list of national Muslim American organizations, 55% of male and 42% of female Muslim American respondents stated that “no national Muslim American organization represents a large percentage of the community” (Gallup, 2011). A 2017 Pew study revealed that the majority of American Muslims do not attend mosque weekly, and, in contradistinction to the ideology of Islamists, 64% believe that there is more than one way to interpret Islam, and 52% believe that traditional understandings of Islam must be reinterpreted (Sciupac, 2017). To date, there have been no mainstream surveys specifically measuring antisemitic attitudes of Muslim Americans toward Jews.

A recent study based on two questions put to 5000 Muslim American respondents from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape survey of US voters found that “Muslim Americans display higher levels of antisemitism than non-Muslims, but many Muslims harbor little or no negativity toward Jews” (Cohen, 2022).
Bigot chucks rock at Jewish man outside NYC synagogue in drive-by attack
A bigot in a graffiti-covered van chucked a rock at a Jewish man as he entered a Queens synagogue over the weekend, police said early Monday,

The 23-year-old victim – wearing traditional religious garb – was walking into the Bais Yosef D’Ulem on 72nd Road near 141st Street in Kew Gardens Hills just after 9 a.m. Saturday when the hate crime suspect flung a small rock at him, striking his leg, cops said.

The suspect did not say anything as they targeted the unsuspecting victim in the cowardly drive-by attack, police said.

The tagged-up white Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van then continued heading west on 72nd Road toward 139th Street, cops said.

No arrests have been made. Police released a photo of the vehicle in hopes of tracking down the hateful suspect.

The suspect said nothing during the attack, which is being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force.

The victim was not hurt and refused medical attention on the scene.


Israel’s Sonovia to help Gucci mother co. Kering reduce environmental harm
An Israeli company could be en route to revolutionizing the technology industry by reducing energy, water use and chemical waste.

Israel's Sonovia and Italian denim developer PureDenim recently announced a partnership with French fashion leader Kering, the firm responsible for brands like Gucci and Saint Laurent, to incorporate its chemical-free indigo yarn dyeing technology into its denim production line.

Kering aims to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 40%.

Sonovia became known for its ultrasonic antimicrobial textiles during the COVID-19 pandemic when it produced the popular Sonomask.

"This agreement with Kering, one of the most recognized luxury brands in the world, is confirmation that Sonovia's indigo dyeing technology is the future technology for the textile industry," said Sonovia's Chief Business Officer Roy Hirsch. "The agreement will revolutionize the textile industry and increase sustainability in the fashion world."

How does Israel's Sonovia help the environment?
Israel's Sonovia said its D(y)ENIM indigo yarn dyeing ultrasound technology reduces water and hazardous waste in production by more than 85%, from as many as 20 baths and 60,000 liters of water to as few as three. Moreover, according to Hirsch, the process reduces energy consumption by more than 50% and eliminates contaminating chemicals, such as hydrosulfite, that are known to be hazardous to the environment.
US and Saudi Arabia Discuss Mideast Railroad Project: Report
Hints and speculations surround the latest meeting of top US, Saudi, Emirati, and Indian officials in Saudi Arabia. A major joint initiative would connect Arab countries in the region with a network of railways, also connecting India through ports in the Gulf, according to Axios.

When White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced his trip on Thursday, a hint could be found in what he said: “A more integrated, interconnected Middle East empowers our allies and partners, advances regional peace and prosperity, and reduces the resource demands on the US in this region over the long term.”

According to the Axios source, the railway project will be one of many topics discussed during the visit, as well as the normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Sullivan previously said, “ultimately, getting to full normalization is a declared national security interest of the United States. We have been clear about that.”

“Now as a sign of my seriousness about how much we’re focused on this, and how seriously we are taking this,” he concluded, “I am not going to say anything further lest I upset the efforts we are undertaking on this issue.”

Other than the speculations of Israel-Saudi relations, and pushing back on China’s influence in the region through an initiative to compete with the Belt and Road project, the four countries released a statement on retaining the Yemen Truce, and efforts to calm the violence in Sudan.
US chip giant Qualcomm to buy Israeli road safety tech startup Autotalks
US chipmaker Qualcomm announced on Monday that it is buying Israeli startup Autotalks, a developer of smart vehicle communication systems designed to improve road safety and help prevent car collisions.

The chip designer said it entered into a definitive agreement through its subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies to acquire Autotalks for an undisclosed sum. Estimates in the Hebrew press put the price tag at between $350 million to $400 million.

The Kfar Netter-based startup develops chipsets based on sensor technology, which allows vehicles to communicate or “talk” with one another and connect to road infrastructure. The sensor can “see” around corners and through any obstacle or obstruction within a radius of up to one mile for the early detection of hazards, the startup says.

Founded in 2008, Autotalks has raised more than $150 million in total via a number of funding rounds. Investors in the Israeli chipset maker include South Korean automotive manufacturer Hyundai Motor, Japan’s Toyota and Samsung, and venture capital funds Gemini Israel Ventures and Magma Venture Partners.

The vehicle-to-everything (V2X) system developed by Autotalks uses connected car technology to warn other vehicles and their drivers of hazards before they can be seen with the aim of increasing road safety.
i24NEWS English: Nearly 1,300 representatives attend Baha'i convention in Israel
A unique gathering is held once every five years in Haifa, Israel: Nearly 1,300 delegates representing 176 Countries arrived for the 13th World Congress of Baha'is


Emily Schrader: World's oldest journalist reflects on Jewish community's greatest struggles
The world will commemorate Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) on Monday, May 8, a day that honors veterans from Allied Forces of the United States, United Kingdom and former Soviet Union who fought against the Axis powers of Nazi Germany.

While there are many stories of bravery and heroism, one of the most unique is that of the Guinness World Records' oldest working journalist, Walter Bingham – a 99-year-old man who escaped the Holocaust, and is a decorated veteran of the British army and a proud Israeli Zionist.

But those descriptors only touch the surface of the fascinating life of Walter Bingham, who sat down with Ynet this week to discuss his journey to Israel and the historic events he was a part of in the 20th century.

Bingham was born in January 1924, to a religious Polish Jewish family living in Germany. He told Ynet that everything seemed fine while living under the Weimar Republic during the first three years that he attended school, but that rapidly changed as the Nazis came to power. Even as a schoolboy, Bingham experienced horrendous antisemitism.

“Things in school were not very nice … we sat two by two at a desk, and the other boy, a German boy, sat next to me, copied from me. ... He got good marks and I got bad marks. When I lifted my finger to try and answer one of the teacher's questions, I wasn't called on … I wasn't called anymore because the teachers couldn't take the chance that the Jew knew something a German didn’t.” This type of antisemitism carried on until the Jews were ultimately kicked out of schools in Germany.

The situation only escalated from there. Bingham personally witnessed the burning of books by the Nazis.

“We saw book burnings in early 1933. I saw that, where they threw German culture onto the fire,” he said.

But while many German Jews were not alarmed yet, Bingham and his parents were acutely aware of how grave the threat was early on.
Bill Farley’s Band of Brothers
Bill Farley lost his innocence, not in battle like the hero of Stephen Crane’s novel The Red Badge of Courage, but rather in a movie theater watching a war film. He was not yet a teenager. “I had a few relatives who died when I was a kid, but their deaths didn’t touch me in a deeply emotional way,” he says while sipping chai tea in a cafe in San Francisco, where he lives and works. “When I saw John Wayne get shot in the back in the World War II pic The Sands of Iwo Jima, I couldn’t get out of my seat. I experienced a profound sense of death and loss.” The documentary filmmaker adds, as though shocked all over again, “Wayne was supposed to be immortal.”

Seventy-eight years after the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945—since celebrated as “Victory in Europe” or “VE” Day—the real, rather than the celluloid conflagration, still haunts Farley. Twenty-first century Europe, specifically Ukraine, wasn’t supposed to be the site of bombings, attacks on civilians, and the kind of brutal industrialized warfare depicted in Farley’s sobering, 88-minute documentary, I Wanted to Be a Man With a Gun. But that’s what Ukraine is today, as shown in the graphic images from Kyiv to Donetsk. Appropriately, Farley’s doc begins with a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he become a monster.”

The film—which was first released last year and will be available to stream in June— tells the stories of three American soldiers, Paul Mico, Harold Kozloff, and Leo Litwak, who talk candidly and in their own words about fighting and killing Germans on the battlefields of Europe in the 1940s. Bruce Jenkins, the former curator of the Harvard Film Archives, conducts the interview with Farley and rekindles his memories.

For years, Farley met veterans of WWII who said they couldn’t remember the war, or didn’t want to. Then he found his star subjects, who seemed as though they’d been waiting all their lives to relive their experience in uniform.

Farley begins the doc as the three soldiers are drafted into the army and go through basic training. He follows them as they’re sent to Europe, march toward Berlin, engage in house-to-house combat, take part in the liberation of Paris, and the liberation of prisoners in concentration camps. In Paris, they drink champagne, smoke cigarettes, and connect with French women.

Farley punctuates his documentary with newsreel footage from the 1940s, and also with U.S. army propaganda from the time in which not a single American soldier on screen is a person of color. Yes, Blacks fought in World War II, but in segregated regiments. If antisemitism was rife in the army, as all three of Farley’s subjects attest, so too was racism. Not until 1948, when Truman ordered the integration of the military, did Black and white GIs fight side by side.

Farley ends the doc with the last days of the war, peace and homecoming; everything has changed and yet nothing has. Lives return to a semblance of normality.






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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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