Monday, June 26, 2023

06/26 Links Pt2: Senator Cruz: 'Joe Biden is pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel'; Challenge to Georgia BDS Law Loses; Robbie Keane joins Maccabi Tel Aviv as coach

From Ian:

How to Combat Anti-Semitism
Analyzing the White House’s newly released strategy for countering anti-Semitism, and maintaining “an appropriate skepticism of government programs and their tendencies to create unwanted and unintended consequences,” Tevi Troy looks for concrete policies that would in fact make American Jews safer and more secure. First and foremost, Washington should stop exacerbating the problem:

[T]he American government does not intentionally target Jews, and even tries to combat anti-Semitism. Yet several government-funded programs could be subsidizing anti-Semitism anyway.

Many if not most of these funds are given to anti-Semitic individuals and programs in educational institutions, including anti-Semitic professors, extremist anti-Israel speakers invited to campus, and public universities that form hostile environments for Jewish students. Title VI of the Higher Education Act provides funds to anti-Israel Middle East Studies programs, academic departments that have issued extremist anti-Israel statements, and public institutions that pay membership dues to the virulently anti-Israel Middle Eastern Studies Association. At the K-12 level, federal funds may go to public schools that assign textbooks containing anti-Semitic materials, encourage anti-Jewish attitudes through ethnic studies or anti-Israel programs, or pay for anti-Semitic critical-race-theory training.

In addition to these education-related expenditures that may have the unintended impact of increasing anti-Semitism, we should also consider cutting off certain types of foreign aid that have a similarly destructive effect. These include contributions to the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, UNRWA, and any funds that go to programs that subsidize anti-Semitic textbooks or Palestinian terrorism.

Eliminating these programs would not only save taxpayers money and reduce funding to those who purvey anti-Semitism but also send the strongest possible signal that the federal government does not tolerate this animus, whatever its source may be.


Senator Ted Cruz: 'Joe Biden is pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel'
United States Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, released a statement on Sunday after the Biden administration reinstated a boycott against scientific and technological cooperation with Jews living in Judea and Samaria.

“Joe Biden and Biden administration officials are pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel. Since day one of their administration, they have launched campaigns against our Israeli allies that are granular, whole of government, and done in secret," the Senator stated.

“This new boycott of Israeli Jews is yet another example. The State Department is telling the entire US government not to cooperate with Jews in Judea and Samaria. And, of course, it was sent to Congress in secret and only revealed because reporters found out," he added.

According to Cruz, “The Biden administration defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re discriminating against and banning cooperation with Jews based on where they live."

The Senator concluded: “I will do everything possible to reverse this decision and prohibit such antisemitic discrimination by the US government in the future.”


Challenge to Georgia BDS Law Loses on Qualified Immunity Grounds
I think they are facially constitutional, and Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip (8th Cir. 2022) (en banc) was correct in upholding them (see also Prof. Michael Dorf's, Prof. Andrew Koppelman's, and my amicus brief on the subject, as well as Prof. Dorf's follow-up post). At the same time, they, like other antidiscrimination laws, might be unconstitutional as applied in certain situations, perhaps including selection of speakers at an academic conference (though the question is complicated when the government is acting as contractor). But yesterday's Eleventh Circuit decision by Judges Wilson, Branch, and Luck in Martin v. Chancellor avoids the question:
Abby Martin appeals the district court's dismissal of her 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit … on the grounds of qualified immunity. She argues that the district court erred in dismissing her claim that Defendants violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by refusing to contract with her to speak at an academic conference unless she signed a clause, required by Georgia law, promising she would not participate in a "boycott of Israel" for the duration of the contract. Specifically, Martin argues that, because it was clearly established that Defendants should have known that Georgia's law requiring the clause violated the Constitution, they are not entitled to qualified immunity.

The court disagreed with Martin's position; here's an excerpt:
While Martin argues that Waldrip was erroneously decided, she misses the point—even if it was erroneously decided, the fact that a sister circuit distinguished [Claiborne] and held that a law similar to O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85 is constitutional reinforces the reality that [Claiborne] did not establish with "obvious clarity" that the implementation of such anti-boycott clauses into contracts is unconstitutional.}

So, while Claiborne did find that the plaintiffs there were engaged in a constitutionally protected activity with regard to their boycott, it did not speak to a state's ability to regulate anticompetitive behavior by state employees via statutes like O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85. Thus, it did not craft a "broad principle" that established with "obvious clarity" that Defendants would know that "every objectively reasonable government official" implementing their state's anti-"boycott of Israel" laws, as Defendants did so here, were violating federal law in doing so….

Finally, Martin argues that "Defendants' conduct was so obviously unconstitutional that no specific case is needed to establish it." We disagree.


What Bernard Lewis Taught, and Learned from, World Leaders in a Lifetime of Conversations
In his long career as the preeminent scholar of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis was consulted by numerous heads of state and high-ranking officials, including from Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, the Israeli prime ministers Golda Meir, Yitzḥak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Moammar Ghaddafi, and, most famously, Dick Cheney. Martin Kramer describes and analyzes many of these encounters, and reflects on the relationship between scholarship and the wielding of political power.




JNS TV: Bahraini Journalist: It's time for the Palestinians to take responsibility | Our Middle East
What do the Palestinians need to do in order to join the normalization happening throughout the region? In this episode of “Our Middle East,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs President Dan Diker has on Bahraini journalist Abdullah Junaid, Deputy Director of MENA 2050. MENA2050 is an organization led by a big cross-generational group from across the Middle East & North Africa Region working together on an agreed vision for the region in 2050.

They discuss
- What do Palestinians need to do in order to make peace
- A "warm peace" with Jordan and Egypt
- The attitude that Israel and the Gulf States should have towards to the United States.


Ahmed found the answer
Ahmed is a dentist living in Australia.

His life began as a Palestinian Arab in Jericho thirty years ago. The best student in his school, he concentrated on his studies refusing to run around the streets with his classmates. At age seventeen he left home, crossed the border and enrolled at the University of Jordan. Upon graduation he migrated to Australia.

Life is good for Ahmed. His wages are high. He drives a BMW and in three years has already placed a deposit on his own house. Next month he will be travelling to Europe for a holiday. He is now essentially an Australian Arab. I asked him a while ago if he would be going back to Jericho to visit and he quickly answered: “Never!”

This young man has found a solution for himself, an answer for one person to the Palestinian Arab conflict with Israel where death is preferred to life. The issue that he has solved is the opposite to the one where a whole population of Palestinian Arabs grow old with no prospects. These people have been hoodwinked by the United Nations which chooses to perpetuate a refugee problem generation after generation, using generous worldwide donations to fund UNWRA , The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East. UNWRA has funded schools, provided food, medical attention and paid wages to keep millions of unsettled so-called "refugees" in camps in Israel, Lebanon and Syria for generations.UNWRA is basically interested in perpetuating itself and its employees.

At the same time these people are backed by leaders who are anti-Israel, teaching PalestinianArab children hate through their school curriculum, providing military equipment and encouraging warmongering. Even though they live within Israel in what they call "Occupied Palestine" they ally with Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and Lebanon and as a group their stated aim is to destroy the Israeli State. This is written into their constitution.
Emily Schrader: ‘Internet is number one entry door for antisemitism in our living rooms,’ says EU antisemitism czar
European antisemitism is nothing new – but many of its modern manifestations are. From Holocaust denial and distortion to the rise of the far right to online antisemitism, bigotry against Jews is on the rise in new and unfortunately creative ways.

Katharina von Schnurbein, the EU’s envoy for combating antisemitism, announced a new approach being rolled out by the EU during her recent visit to Israel where she addressed the Israel Council on Foreign Relations (ICFR), a project of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), and spoke about the importance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, among other new collaborative initiatives from the EU.

A reactive and proactive approach
The new strategy from the EU includes not only a reactive approach, along with a considerable budget, to fight antisemitism but also a proactive approach to bolster Jewish life within Europe today.

“The strategy has about 100 different actions in it. Some of them we implement on our own…many others we implement together with member states, together with Jewish communities, with civil society actors, with cities, with international partners,” says von Schnurbein.

For example, von Schnurbein describes how the EU and her office responded to the recent controversy over kosher slaughter in Belgium as well as the discussions of banning kosher slaughter in Finland, bringing together the communities impacted and investigating the impact of such legislation.

“It's really about the stigmatization and being put into a corner, being seen as cruel towards animals. This was one of the very concrete initiatives that we had in the strategy and implemented immediately together with international partners,” she says.

Beyond dealing with practical issues on the ground in Europe, the strategy also focuses on a number of initiatives geared towards social media and the online world, including developing educational tools, promoting Holocaust remembrance and education in creative ways to teach future generations, as well as collecting data on incidents of antisemitism.

Recently, the EU held a two-day conference with Jewish organizations from across Europe, where they can mutually support each other and even team up to request EU funding for the campaigns and efforts of the organizations that align with the agenda of the EU.

“We really want to support those organizations, mainly Jewish, not only Jewish, that address these issues and have been addressing them for many years against all odds, and to support them in this…”


Brandeis University under fire for ‘anything but orthodox’ ad
A page on the Brandeis University website’s about section refers to “Our Jewish roots.” Founded in 1948, the school “is animated by a set of values that are rooted in Jewish history and experience,” it states.

That includes revering learning, emphasizing critical thinking and “the Jewish ideal of making the world a better place through one’s actions and talents,” the Waltham, Mass. school states. “Brandeis is committed to making its community truly inclusive by seeking students, faculty and staff of all backgrounds, cultures, religions and experiences.”

A recent Brandeis advertisement in The New York Times Magazine, however, is drawing criticism for its lack of commitment to being inclusive of all.

“Brandeis was founded by Jews. But, it’s anything but orthodox,” reads the ad, which runs across a two-page spread. (The headline was in all capital letters, so it wasn’t clear if Brandeis meant “orthodox” or “Orthodox”; the comma appeared to be an error.)


“It’s a natural mistake to make,” the ad added. “After all, Brandeis was founded by American Jews in 1948, including Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews. But when we say that Brandeis is anything but orthodox, we’re referring to its character.”

The ad—evidently part of a broader branding campaign—concludes: “Needless to say, Brandeis is still unorthodox. And rest assured, we have no intention of converting.”

The ad drew criticism from prominent Jewish scholars and writers on social media.

“In this ad, ‘Orthodox’ clearly means rigid, antiquated, monolithic, and unevolving. Since Orthodox Jews would reject these adjectives in their self-definition, this line is problematic,” tweeted Malka Simkovich, chair of Jewish studies and director of the Catholic-Jewish studies program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
US Gov Launches Probe into Florida University For Alleged Anti-Palestinian Discrimination Against Student Who Compared Israel to Nazi Germany
The US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened a formal investigation into alleged anti-Palestinian discrimination at at Florida State University against a student with a history of derogatory comments towards Jews and Israel, a pro-Palestinian nonprofit announced last week.

Ahmad Daraldik, a Palestinian-American student at Florida State University (FSU) who spent much of his childhood living in the West Bank, filed a complaint in April 2021 against the university alleging anti-Palestinian discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Two years later, the Education Department is now launching a probe to examine whether FSU allowed a hostile environment to form on campus and reinforced such a climate in violation of Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

Palestine Legal, which is providing legal support to Daraldik, describes itself as an organization that helps “college students, grassroots activists, and affected communities who stand for justice in Palestine.”

FSU and the Education Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.

Daraldik alleges he was subjected to repeated discrimination at FSU. According to the 2021 complaint, he received anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim messages such as “you stupid Palestinians,” “deport him to Gaza,” and “dumb ass monkey a** piece of Arab s***.”

According to Daraldik’s complaint, such comments contributed to a hostile environment in which people felt free to discriminate against him.

In 2020 Daraldik wrote numerous comments on his social media profiles of an antisemitic nature, including “f*** Israel” and “stupid Jew.” He also compared Israel to Nazi Germany.


Breaking The Media’s Unhealthy Reliance on Breaking The Silence
Hebron Propaganda Tours
In spreading its anti-Israel message, Breaking the Silence has focused much of its efforts on its tours to the West Bank city of Hebron in which BtS activists claim to expose the “harsh consequences of the policy of separation and the military presence in the city.”

As HonestReporting has previously noted, however, such tours have distorted the reality of life within the contested ancient city, which holds significance for Jews, Muslims and Christians.

One of the most egregious misrepresentations that BtS makes about Hebron is that it is some kind of ghost town, despite it being a bustling sprawl that is home to more than 200,000 people. Breaking the Silence concocts this image by taking tour participants to the few city streets that have restrictions on Palestinians using them due to repeated outbreaks of violence against the city’s 700 Jewish residents.

The Hebron tours have also been criticized for only showing participants the Israeli-controlled part of the city, which accounts for just 2o percent of the land, while the other 80 percent is under the control of the Palestinian Authority. While IDF soldiers are permanently deployed within the Israeli-controlled side, there is no Israeli presence in the PA-controlled areas.

The overall impression of Hebron that Breaking the Silence gives is that the hostility between Muslims and Jews is a recent development — that is, something occasioned by the rise of Zionism. However, impressionable tour participants are not given information about Hebron’s dark history as the site of centuries of anti-Jewish persecution, except for one brief reference to the 1929 massacre in which 67 Jews were murdered.

Breaking the Reliance on Breaking the Silence
Breaking the Silence is one of a handful of Israel-based NGOs that are dedicated to demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state using any and all means available, including furthering the demonstrably-untrue apartheid libel and defending the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Despite repeatedly revealing its chronic anti-Israel bias and unreliable evidence, the media continues to treat Breaking the Silence as an irreproachable source.

In supposedly reputable publications like The New York Times and Washington Post, BtS is regularly featured in articles that pertain to Israel and Gaza, without any mention of the group’s ideological leanings and profoundly anti-Israel agenda.

Breaking the Silence may like to masquerade as a credible authority on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but news organizations have a duty to their readers to give the full facts. And the fact about Breaking the Silence is that it is not as trustworthy as it purports to be.
Polish-language, Canadian newspaper ‘doubles down’ on antisemitism
The Ontario-based, Polish language newspaper Goniec has “doubled down on antisemitism,” per a B’nai B’rith Canada investigation.

The paper “regularly engages in Holocaust distortion by using language such as the ‘Holocaust Enterprise’ to describe attempts by Jewish groups to provide enhanced Holocaust education and awareness,” according to B’nai B’rith.

The publisher of Goniec, Andrzej Kumor, has been arrested in the past for publishing antisemitic content. He was released and offending materials were deleted from the paper’s website, but Kumor has taken to publishing antisemitic content again.

“The publication of these articles demonstrates that Kumor is not concerned with hatefully targeting the Jewish community of Canada,” stated Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada. “An arrest and a warning from the police against the continued promotion of hate has not deterred Kumor from this behavior.”
New York Times’ Editorial Ideologues Conjure Israeli Elected Autocracy
In what imaginary world do political surprises and firsts coexist with electoral authoritarianism, in which the results are always, reliably and forever preordained? In an elected autocracy, how does the opposition beat out the coalition, only itself to become the opposition once again, all within the space of some 20 months?

The extreme dissonance between Israel’s thriving democracy and the New York Times’ “elected autocracy” allegation indicates that when it comes to the Jewish state, the paper’s opinion journalists informed by longstanding anti-Israel values as opposed to expertise, research or debate. Actual research by Freedom House, for instance, which appears to have been published this past March, ranks Israel as a free country. Its 2022 report states: “Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a multiparty system and independent institutions that guarantee political rights and civil liberties for most of the population.” On electoral process, Israel scored top marks, with Freedom House consistently ranking the Jewish state 4/4 for all of the relevant questions:
Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?

Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?

Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies?”

“[E]lections are typically free and fair,” Freedom House said of Israel, adding:
The Central Elections Committee (CEC), is responsible for ensuring the fairness of elections. It is composed of delegations representing the various political groups in the Knesset, supported by a professional staff, and chaired by a Supreme Court judge. Elections are generally conducted in a peaceful and orderly manner, and all parties usually accept the results.

Freedom House concluded: “The conduct of the 2022 elections was generally perceived as fair and successful.”

If only the The New York Times’ editorial board would perform so well.
CAMERA Op-Ed The Washington Post Misfires at Palestinian Islamic Jihad
In a May 12, 2023 report, The Washington Post asked: “What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the militant group Israel is targeting in Gaza?” But after reading the 1,294-word backgrounder on the terrorist organization, Post readers are likely left with more questions than answers.

The newspaper’s look at Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is timely. The terror group has attacked Israel with growing frequency, hatching additional plots at the behest of its chief benefactor, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Israel has responded by “mowing the grass”—a term for carrying out short-term, highly surgical operations aimed at severely handicapping PIJ. A May 2023 operation, dubbed “Shield and Arrow,” provided the basis for the Post’s backgrounder on the group.

Yet it is striking what Post reporter Miriam Berger omitted. Indeed, despite the report’s length, she failed to mention a key fact: PIJ isn’t a “militant” or “extremist” group as the Post claims. Rather, it is a U.S.-designated terrorist group that calls for Israel’s destruction and a genocide of Jews. That seems important.

Indeed, instead of noting PIJ’s ambitions, the Post echoes language used by the terror group. PIJ, the Post asserts, is “committed to armed resistance against Israel, a self-described Jewish state established in 1948 on land Palestinians claim.” But as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has noted, “armed resistance” is a euphemism for terrorism.

PIJ’s real objective is to murder Jews and destroy Israel. Its leaders routinely say as much—and open-source English-language translations of their rhetoric are readily available. It is both curious and pathetic that none of these statements from PIJ leaders made it into a backgrounder on the group.

Nor was PIJ established to achieve Palestinian statehood.
Reviewing BBC News website reporting on the Eli terror attack
On the evening of June 20th the BBC News website published a report concerning a fatal terror attack which had taken place several hours earlier at a service station just outside the town of Eli.

The first three versions of that report were headlined “Four Israelis shot dead near West Bank settlement” with no mention of the identity of the perpetrators, despite the fact that in the text of the third version and in a tweet put out by a locally based reporter it is clear that the BBC was aware of the fact that the terrorists were Palestinians:
“Four others were wounded, one of them seriously, when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a petrol station and restaurant on a highway outside Eli.”

Some four and a half hours after the report’s initial appearance its headline was amended to read “Four Israelis killed by Palestinian gunmen near West Bank settlement”.

In line with the selectively applied BBC editorial policy, the only mentions of terrorism in the various versions of that report come in the form of quotes attributed to Israeli officials and politicians.

“Defence Minister Yoav Gallant described the shooting as a terrorist attack.” (Version 3)

“Israel’s military said the assailants were “Hamas-affiliated terrorists”. […] Israel’s prime minister said “all options are open” in response to what he called the “shocking and abhorrent terrorist attack”…” [Version 4]

“Israel’s prime minister said “all options are open” in response to what he called the “shocking and abhorrent terrorist attack”…” [Version 5]

From the third version onwards the reports are credited to David Gritten and all promote linkage between that terror attack in Eli and incidents which took place the previous day, with the latter two versions amplifying messaging from Hamas but without clarifying that it stopped short of taking responsibility for the attack even though it did claim the perpetrators as members:


PreOccupiedTerritory: Hundreds Of Palestinian Attacks Per Week Not Newsworthy Until Israel Reacts (satire)
Media outlets based in Israel’s financial and commercial hub may continue not to report on the dozens of attempted murders by Palestinians each day, editors confirmed today, provided that no retaliation takes place, but if it does, the IDF, police, or private citizen actions to counter or prevent those attempted murders must become the story.

News organizations reiterated their guidelines this week amid concerns that some correspondents or stringers might let their professional standards slip, as almost happened several times last month. On those occasions, reporters filed stories about Palestinian firebomb, shooting, stoning, and other attacks on Israeli motorists in disputed territory, and the tone of those stories came too close for editors’ comfort to making the focus the Palestinian attack and not the implied brutality of the Israeli response.

CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and several other major international news outlets sent memoranda to their bureaus in Israel this week to order a refresher on the editorial guidelines, under which the daily rock barrages on Israeli motorists by Palestinian youths, plus the occasional Molotov cocktail, deserve no coverage unless added as background detail to a story about IDF soldiers shooting at Palestinians.

Those editorial rules required little reinforcement until recently, according to a source in the NY Times Jerusalem Bureau office. “Most of us knew it intuitively, or it was part of the culture,” she recalled. “But of late, personnel turnover, plus some residual rustiness from the way of doing things during the pandemic, made some lower-level writers forget to center Palestinian grievance in every story and give perfunctory, if any, acknowledgement, to Israelis rights or humanity.”


EU financial arm to invest €900m in Israel, including Western Galilee desalination
Israel stands to get up to €900 million worth of investment in the form of funds and loans from the lending arm of the European Union, to help finance a renewable energy-powered desalination plant in the Western Galilee and the Tel Aviv rail project as well as climate-focused business projects.

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the financial arm of the European Union, announced Sunday that it will invest €150 million into a seawater desalination facility planned for the Western Galilee. The project, Israel’s seventh such desalination plant, is estimated to cost about NIS 1.5 billion to build.

The world’s largest international public bank has also entered into a strategic cooperation agreement with Bank Leumi for the provision of a €500 million credit line to small and medium-sized companies across Israel, to encourage new investment in green and environmental business projects. In addition, the EIB is in the advanced stages of an appraisal to project finance the Tel Aviv green line light rail with an investment of €250 million.

“Whenever I travel within the region, whether it is to Israel and or in the Middle East, I always say that water is life,” Gelsomina Vigliotti, vice president of the European Investment Bank responsible for the Middle East, told The Times of Israel. “Access to water is relevant, especially at a time in which water scarcity is becoming an even more pressing urgency.”

“Developing a tech project, like the Western Galilee desalination project here in Israel, is not only a way to share expertise, but also to learn and make use of these best practices that we can develop through being involved in such relevant projects to also use this practice in another part of the region,” Vigliotti added.
Israeli discovery could help brain block urge for highly addictive fentanyl
Research conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences and published Monday has unveiled insights into the brain’s potential ability to regulate the urge to consume the highly addictive opioid fentanyl and could provide a path to treatment.

The timely discovery comes as countries around the world struggle with public health crises caused by addiction to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Fentanyl is the main contributor to more than 100,000 annual drug overdose deaths in the US alone.

Israel also faces an opioid crisis fueled in recent years by fentanyl, which is at least 50 times stronger than heroin and highly addictive. The country leads the world in per capita prescriptions of opioids as a result of many physicians having seen them as a magic bullet for treating pain without knowing enough about the potential for abuse, dependency, and addiction.

The Hebrew University study, published in the peer-reviewed Current Biology journal, highlights the role that the claustrum plays in the brain’s response to fentanyl consumption.

The study was conducted on mice in neuroscientist Prof. Ami Citri‘s lab, where work is focused on how the little-understood claustrum supports the selection of relevant sensory information, and then how the brain encodes experiences that form the basis of habits, compulsions, and drug addiction. Dr. Anna Terem and Yonatan Fatal also contributed to the research.

“The claustrum is a thin sheet, or curtain, of neurons that sit under the cortex. It is very thin and communicates with almost all of the cortex, but mostly with the frontal regions, which have to do with rationalization, decision making, and self-control,” Citri said.
Ex-Ireland, Tottenham soccer star Robbie Keane joins Maccabi Tel Aviv as head coach
Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team announced Monday that former Ireland and Tottenham Hotspur striker Robbie Keane was joining the club as head coach on a two-year deal.

“I am delighted to take on this challenge at Maccabi,” Keane said in a statement. “My team and I look forward to beginning work and we have confidence in our ability to do what is necessary to prepare the team for the coming season.”

Team owner Mitch Goldhar welcomed Keane, saying he has the attributes the team needs.

“Robbie brings the mentality, character, energy and focus of a winner, traits he exhibited everywhere he played. These characteristics now combined with ambitions to succeed as a coach are aligned with our objectives at Maccabi,” Goldhar said.

Maccabi Tel Aviv said that Keane would arrive with his team in the coming days to start preparations for the upcoming season.

According to the Ynet news site, he will earn $400,000 per season.

Striker Keane was the captain of the Republic of Ireland’s national team for ten years, becoming its top goal-scorer and most capped player.
Israelis bring home 25-medal haul from Special Olympics in Berlin
Israel’s Special Olympics delegation is returning from the games in Berlin with a haul of 25 medals, up from 19 at the last games in 2019.

The 35 athletes representing Israel won nine gold medals, eight silvers and eight bronze medals across all eight disciplines in which they competed at the international competition, which wrapped up on Sunday.

“As promised, we are coming back to Israel with a multitude of medals,” said Sharon Levy-Blanga, CEO of the Special Olympics Israel organization, in a statement on Sunday. “Victories in competitions and podium placements in the highest levels of competition – these are phenomenal achievements for our athletes, who have been training tirelessly for months.”

Levy-Blanga called on Israelis to welcome home and celebrate the Special Olympics athletes in same the way they do other Israeli medal winners: “Only by doing so can we truly embrace the spirit of inclusion and recognition of the immense potential within each individual.”

Runner Ron Beck, 16, brought home a gold medal in the 3000m men’s race. He also won a silver medal in the 5000m and – alongside Adi Madmon, Saar Buchbinder and Pele Abudy – brought home a bronze for Israel in the mixed 4x400m relay.

Buchbinder, 30, also took home two gold medals, in the 5km and 10km races, while Madmon won a bronze medal in the women’s 100m.
Three famous rabbis’ tombs discovered in Tetuan
The tombs of three famous 18th century rabbis have been discovered in the Jewish cemetery of Tetuan. Adafina, which researches Jewish geneaology in Morocco, is undertaking a fundraiser to restore them.


During Purim 2023, the tombs of Rabbis Jacob Marrache, Hasdai Almosnino and Jacob Benmalka were discovered in the Jewish cemetery of Tetuan.

Tombstone restoration is underway in the cemetery, a World Heritage site. It is believed to be the largest Jewish cemetery in Morocco. The number of tombs is estimated to be between 10,000 and 35,000. Only 3,000 have inscriptions. Unique to the cemetery is the number of anthropomorphic stones, carrying symbols such as Stars of David or the Flower of Life.

Few of the graves are named. Except when a woman or man died childless, it was the responsibility of the family to remember where their loved one was buried. The location of the three Rabbis’ tombs was known until the community dwindled in the 1960s and was confirmed to visitors, although it is not known which tomb belongs to which rabbi.
Web of biblical cities depicts King David as major ruler, says Israeli archaeologist
A network of fortified cities around Jerusalem has been dated to the time of King David, more than 200 years earlier than previously thought, offering support to the theory that King David ruled over a complex and large kingdom. The proof, however, wasn’t freshly excavated from the earth, but rather came to light after an archaeologist spent years digging through old archaeological publications.

In a new academic paper, Prof. Yosef Garfinkel of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University claims he has found evidence of urban settlement in organized cities dating to around 1,000 BCE, during the reign of King David.

His article, published Monday in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology, a peer-reviewed publication of Hebrew University, supports the theory that King David ruled over a well-developed kingdom, complete with roads connecting between cities. This runs counter to the belief of some scholars from the minimalist school of thought who have previously suggested that since there is scant evidence of cities during King David’s reign, his position as a ruler of a great kingdom as written in the Bible could be exaggerated.

“What is a kingdom?” countered Garfinkel. “You need cities and roads and military power and economic power and writing.”

Garfinkel’s paper, “Early City Planning in the Kingdom of Judah: Khirbet Qeiyafa, Beth Shemesh 4, Tell en-Naṣbeh, Khirbet ed-Dawwara, and Lachish V,” explores evidence of King David’s rule in five cities that were between half a day and a day’s walk from Jerusalem.

“If you take all these sites, they have the same urban concept, they are all sitting on the border of the kingdom and sitting where you have a main road leading to the kingdom,” he said. “These cities aren’t located in the middle of nowhere. It’s a pattern of urbanism with the same urban concept.”




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2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee

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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