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Friday, July 14, 2023

07/14 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The real crisis in the west; BDS proponents suffer third consecutive loss in court; Friedman Finally Stumbles onto a Not-Totally-Bad Idea

From Ian:

Interview With Alex Ryvchin, Author of “The Seven Deadly Myths”
Over the years, many books have been written about antisemitism from different perspectives. How is your book different?

Many books have addressed the ‘why’ of antisemitism. Why are the Jews so hated? Why have such things been inflicted on them? Why do they continue to be targeted? This book will go some way to explaining the ‘why’ but my central interest is the ‘how’? How does antisemitism function in practice? How is it transmitted around the world and from generation to generation?

This question of ‘how’ led me to the seven deadly myths. It is through this complex and well-honed mythology that antisemitism thrives. As Isaac Herzog said in reference to my book: By shifting emphasis from the ‘why’ of this puzzling and dangerous phenomenon to the ‘how’ of the mechanics of its transmission, Ryvchin points to the possibility of actually confronting and diffusing it.

You mention in your book that it could be used in the classroom. There is discussion about Holocaust education — and how it has failed, both in making people knowledgeable and in changing attitudes. What do you think are some of the causes for this and how would your book and a curriculum based on it overcome these problems?

Holocaust education is vital and I support it entirely. Within the study of the Holocaust we learn not only about the process by which the European Jews were destroyed, we observe everything of which man is capable of – sadism, cruelty, heroism, strength, apathy and cowardice. But in terms of understanding the hatred of the Jews, the Holocaust answers few questions. In fact, it raises these questions to fever pitch and leaves them unresolved. This is why despite so many admirable endeavors in Holocaust commemoration and education, antisemitism has continued to rise.

Trying to understand antisemitism through the Holocaust is also highly problematic as it positions antisemitism as a historical event and not something in the here and now. It would be like trying to teach anti-Black racism and ending the story with the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. It also falsely positions it as solely a product of race science, fascism and totalitarianism which completely ignores its political and religious sources and manifestations.

This has all contributed to the extremely limited and poor understanding of antisemitism in society, despite it being the most lethal and persistent hatred. This is why it is essential to teach antisemitism itself, what it looks like, how it is expressed, what it continues to do to our communities and wider society.

Why do you think antisemitism persists even after the Holocaust — why wasn’t the world “scared straight” by the murder of 6 million Jews?

Because antisemitism was too ingrained. Antisemitism was soaked into the world’s consciousness through centuries of lies, mythology and propaganda. It emanated from religious sources, nationalist heroes and popular culture. Even the horror of the Holocaust and the most devastating war in history could not dislodge it.

As is often forgotten, Jews continued to be massacred in Europe even after liberation from Nazi occupation. To give one example, the Polish Peasants Party passed a resolution in 1946 thanking Hitler for destroying the Jews and calling for the expulsion of any survivors. Forty-two Jewish survivors were clubbed to death in Kielce, Poland. One of the heroes of the Sobibor Camp Uprising was murdered by nationalists after escaping a camp which had virtually no survivors. So of course, today, when the Holocaust is considered ancient history to many, the same myths and conspiracy theories that made it possible, are resurgent.


Mark Regev: Israel's first ally: The forgotten Paris-Jerusalem alliance
IF THE UK, US, and USSR had no desire to become Israel’s military ally, it was not too long before Paris filled the vacuum. And while France was not one of World War II’s “Big Three” allied victors, for Israel it was the next best thing.

The French were defeated in May-June 1940 and Paris remained occupied by the Nazis until August 1944. Nonetheless, France emerged from the war with an enhanced international status that included an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Like all good international partnerships, the Franco-Israel alliance of the 1950s was founded on common interests and shared values.

The period’s French leadership espoused the ethos of the wartime Résistance and embraced the Jews as Nazism’s ultimate victims.

This affinity was further strengthened by the series of left-of-center governments during France’s Fourth Republic (1946-58), which shared a socialist fellowship with Israel’s like-minded ruling Mapai (Labor) party.

In parallel, Paris was a magnet for Israeli writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, who gravitated toward the French capital for inspiration.

Augmenting the cultural and ideological affinity was solid realpolitik. From November 1954, France was conducting an increasingly bloody counterinsurgency against nationalist rebels in Algeria.

Inspired by the Viet Minh’s May 1954 victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, the pro-independence Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) launched an armed revolt against French rule.

But unlike Vietnam, Paris saw Algeria not as a foreign colony, but as an integral part of France, a claim buttressed by the presence of some one million European settlers – the pieds-noirs.

The Algerian revolution received vigorous ideological, diplomatic, and military backing from Cairo, with Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser championing the expulsion of all European colonialists from the greater Arab homeland.

Israel, the enemy of France’s enemy, thus became Paris’s best friend.
Melanie Phillips: The real crisis in the west
Over the past six months, the mass protests in Israel over judicial reform have elicited loud cries in the West that Israel is "in crisis." In its eagerness to identify such crises, however, the West looks everywhere but in the right direction.

Three years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron said, "Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today."

In a video interview conducted in 2022, which has now gone viral following the latest riots in France, Mohammad Tawhidi, an Australian Shiite cleric and Islamic reformist, pointed out that, in general, the Muslim world is doing rather well. The crisis is in the West.

While the extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood cannot operate in Muslim countries like Bahrain and Oman, said Tawhidi, they are operating in Britain, France, Canada, and Washington, DC.

The West imported the "garbage" promoted by jihadis whom Muslim countries were attempting to neutralize, he said. By allowing in this "filth" and even amplifying or glorifying it, the West had made its bed and must now lie in it.

This grim assessment was amply borne out by the riots in France. The violence broke out after a 17-year-old Muslim boy with a criminal background who was wanted by police was shot dead by a police officer during a traffic stop.

This triggered rioting on an unprecedented scale. For five days, Muslim youths torched large numbers of buildings and vehicles. Jewish businesses and institutions were targeted, including kosher restaurants and food shops. Terrified Jews barricaded themselves into their homes as rioters screamed: "Death to the police," "Death to France" and "Death to the Jews!"

Order was restored only when the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic drug barons called the youths off the streets.

People can see that the French president is no longer in control of his own country and that the scale of Muslim population increase means that France is losing the battle to remain recognizably France. Similar demographic trends are changing the face of other European countries such as Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Italy, Spain and the U.K.

With indigenous Europeans failing to have enough children to reach replacement rate, there are fears that within a few decades, European civilization will be lost.


Israeli embassy slams German scholar for calling occupation 'apartheid'
The German embassy defended Muriel Asseberg, a German scholar who has been under fire for calling Israel’s presence in the West Bank apartheid, in a tweet Thursday morning.

Referencing a video that the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu published of a man yelling at Asseberg in the streets, German Ambassador to Israel Stephen Seibert criticized the methods of disagreement.

“Muriel Asseburg is a serious scholar,” German Ambassador to Israel Stephen Seibert wrote in a tweet. “You can share her views or not. If you don’t, debate her and give counterarguments. Harassing her in the street with outrageous insults is unacceptable and should be condemned all around.”

The numerous spats around a German scholar's comments on Israel and apartheid
Seiberts’ tweet is the latest in a series of spats between the Israeli embassy to Germany, in Berlin, and German officials who have defended Asseberg.

Last week, the Israeli embassy blasted the scholar for supposedly justifying terrorism against Israelis and comparing the war in Ukraine to Israel’s occupation of Palestine in the West Bank.

The embassy also accused Asseberg of propelling conspiracy theories – such as Israel controlling the Bundestag – during an interview she did with German podcast Jung & Naiv two weeks ago.

“Two and a half hours of Israel basing and wild conspiracy fantasies,” the embassy wrote of her interview. “Muriel Asseburg never misses an opportunity to insult Israel, and yet she has the chutzpah and cheek to present herself as a friend of Israel.”

During the lengthy discussion, Asseburg compared the standards the West used to assess conflict in Ukraine versus in Palestine.

The Ukrainians are currently experiencing something that the Palestinians are familiar with, she said: “Attacks, bombing, occupation, actions that violate international law.“

She also said that often, Palestinians are bothered because resistance from Ukrainians and Palestinians is perceived in different ways; for Palestinians, it is terrorism, but for Ukrainians, it is defense.

Asseburg, in the interview, clearly made a distinction between resistance against civilians, which she said was terrorism, and resistance against armed forces.

The Israeli embassy in Germany also criticized Asseberg for accusing Israel of controlling the Bundenstag, Germany’s federal parliament.

During the interview, Asseburg spoke about Israel’s influence in Germany’s 2019 resolution to describe the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement as antisemitic.
BDS proponents suffer third consecutive loss in court
The movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel took another legal system loss this week. On July 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans dismissed a lawsuit that challenged a Texas state law that withholds state contracts from businesses that boycott Israel.

The case of A&R Engineering v. Scott, which was filed in 2021, concerns a provision in a Houston renewal contract offered to A&R Engineering and Testing that prohibits boycotting the Jewish state. Rasmy Hassouna, a Palestinian-American executive at A&R, who is from the Gaza Strip, brought the suit.

A&R requested that the city eliminate the provision, but Houston officials refused. That set the lawsuit in motion, with a subsequent district court injunction favoring the plaintiff. While Texas appealed the injunction, Houston agreed to move forward with a contract sans boycott provision.

The Fifth Circuit sided with Texas on the appeal, concluding both that A&R lacked standing to sue and that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to issue the injunction. The court decided the latter since the boycott law has “textually unenforceable language,” and “the attorney general hasn’t taken any action to suggest he might enforce the provision even if he has such power.”

Joseph Sabag, executive director of the Israeli-American Coalition for Action and an attorney, told JNS that the lifted injunction is a win for the anti-BDS movement even though the appeals court avoided analyzing the case on constitutional grounds.

“It was not a merit-based ruling,” Sabag, who helped draft the Texas anti-BDS law, told JNS. “Ultimately, the Fifth Circuit declared that the plaintiff had a lack of standing in order to bring the suit. He ended up obtaining the contract, and therefore he didn’t have the ability to claim harm.”
BDS Fails, July 2023 (Stories you won't read in the UK media
Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series of posts documenting BDS fails – stories of Israeli success that are rarely covered by British media outlets. Political BDS fails

British MPs vote to ban public bodies from boycotting Israel
MPs have voted to ban public bodies from boycotting Israel and other countries, despite scores of Conservative MPs not backing the bill, some of whom said the ban was illiberal and others that it would hamper action against China.

The bill will ban public bodies such as local councils from imposing economic sanctions on countries that are not sanctioned by the Westminster government, singling out Israel as particularly worthy of protection.

Michael Gove, the communities secretary, said during the Commons debate on Monday: “[The bill] protects minorities, especially Jewish communities, against campaigns that harm community cohesion and fuel antisemitism.”

Another US state passes anti-BDS law
New Hampshire Governor Christopher Sununu signed on Thursday an executive order prohibiting the Granite State from investing in or contracting with companies and commercial entities that boycott Israel and its trade partners.

The announcement, made in the presence of Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, marks New Hampshire as the 37th state to enact regulations against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement


Response to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times
I have never liked Thomas Friedman. He is quick and liberal with his views and comments sitting in his ivory tower far away, but since his stint as NYT bureau chief ending in 1988 he has not had to face and probably never did face what Israel faces every single day.

As former ambassador Yoram Ettinger wrote in 2022, "Friedman’s pro-Palestinian stance dates back to his active involvement, while at Brandeis University, in the pro-Arafat radical-left Middle East Peace Group and Breira organizations. It intensified during his role as the Associated Press’ and New York Times’ reporter in Lebanon. There, he played down Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas’s rape and plunder of Lebanon, and their collaboration with Latin American, European, African and Asian terrorists, while expressing his appreciation of the PLO’s protection of foreign journalists in Beirut (who responded in kind)."

In his NYT opinion article this week,, Friedman wrote that he has "no doubt that the U.S. president will arm the Israeli president [Isaac Herzog] with the message – with sorrow, anger – that when the interests and values of a U.S. government and an Israeli government diverge this much, a reassessment of the relationship is inevitable." Friedman added that the White House considers Israel's government's actions "unprecedented radical behavior – under the cloak of judicial reform."

Continuing, he wrote that "to get just a whiff of the tension between the U.S. and this Israeli cabinet... consider that hours after Biden mentioned to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria just how 'extreme' some of Netanyahu’s cabinet members were, one of the most extreme of them all, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told Biden to butt out — that 'Israel is no longer another star in the American flag.'"

It is amazing how things catch on and then expand and grow and it is almost impossible to stop them. So it is with Smotrich and Ben Gvir. They have at times said things they should have kept to themselves in their initial naiveté as ministers, but I have been aware of a maturing as the burden of their responsibilities weighs down on them and they substitute action for words..

Friedman, never really a great friend of Israel in my view, quickly picked up on this and expanded on it. Obviously he has the ear of Biden, hardly a genius.
Amid Falsehoods and Fantasies, Tom Friedman Finally Stumbles onto a Not-Totally-Bad Idea
What Friedman leaves out is that the U.S. has provided more than $39 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022. Friedman leaves out America’s military costs to fight the war to defend South Vietnam, the war to defend South Korea, the war to defend Afghanistan, and the costs of defending Western Europe and Japan during the Cold War. Helping Israel to defend itself is a bargain at the price, especially because much of the money is spent on purchasing weapons from American defense contractors. It’s misleading to depict Israel as somehow an outlier in terms of being expensive to protect; what’s unusual is that Israel, unlike many other American allies, bears a large share of its defense burden through widespread military service and with a robust defense budget.

So what else is new this time around with Friedman’s unfulfilled fantasy of a U.S.-Israel rupture? For once, he has a policy recommendation that might actually make some sense.

Friedman writes, “If Netanyahu’s government is going to behave as if the West Bank is Israel, then the U.S. will have to insist on two things. First, that the visa waiver agreement Israel wants from the U.S. — which would allow Israeli citizens entry into the U.S. without a visa, including the more than 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank — should apply to all 2.9 million Palestinians of the West Bank as well. Why not?”

Good question. Friedman assumes that this would be opposed by Israel. But if the Palestinian Authority wants a visa waiver for West Bank residents, why would Israel stand in their way? The more Palestinian Arabs in Detroit and Dearborn, the fewer of them in Jenin, Jericho, and the Jordan Valley. Let them come to America, as Seth Lipsky once argued for the Wall Street Journal. So long as the Palestinians aren’t inaccurately mislabeled as Israelis, why not? So long as they don’t pose a security threat to Americans—and most of them wouldn’t—welcome them here in the United States. There is plenty of room, especially in Northern and Midwestern cities. Many American businesses are facing a shortage of labor. Even the perennial wrong Friedman occasionally stumbles onto a not-totally-bad idea.
Wall Street Journal Flouts Ethics with Israel Child-Killer Charge
Killing children is terrible, as everyone knows. It follows that leveling false charges of child-killing against a nation in an influential newspaper is also reprehensible and should be forthrightly corrected to set the record straight. In two stories on July 5 and July 6, 2023 Wall Street Journal reporter Stephen Kalin injected that libel in his coverage of Israel’s military action in Jenin, citing a Palestinian Health Ministry source. But the Journal has thus far failed to correct the false claims.

Kalin asserted (in “Residents Return to West Bank Camp as Israel Ends Two-Day Assault” and “What Is Happening in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza? What to Know about the Conflict”):
Twelve Palestinians, including militants and at least five children, were killed during the operation and 140 wounded, including 30 in serious condition, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

In fact, there were no “children” killed according to the normal understanding of what a child is and according to the depictions of those killed in these events in other mainstream publications. Most people would assume “children” are 5- or 10-year-olds, not 16 and 17-year-old teenagers, affiliated with US-designated terrorist groups who were killed in violent clashes with Israelis. Photos of the young men show some sporting the headbands of the terrorist groups they’re affiliated with and all holding guns.

The New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters and other mainstream media did not refer to “children” killed. Indeed, Reuters termed the dead teens “fighters,” which they were.

WAFA, the main Palestinian news agency and a frequent outlet for information from Palestinian Authority institutions, including the Health Ministry, reported the casualties, citing five who they termed “minors,” not children. This raises a question regarding what document, press release or spokesman Stephen Kalin was referencing at the Palestinian Health Ministry for identifying the young men with guns as children?

Did editors at the Journal review the reporter’s source in the context of considering whether to publish the child-killing charge against Israel?

One of the most disreputable global outlets, Al-Jazeera, did join the Journal in referring to the young Palestinian gunmen as children. The state-owned Qatari network is well-known, obviously, for its extreme antipathy toward Israel and its unreliability as a news source.

It’s notable too that Kalin refers to “militants and at least five children” – underscoring his distinguishing the “militants” from the alleged children. Yet four of the five 16- and 17-year-olds killed were members of US-designated terrorist groups, according to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The groups boasted of the young men’s membership.


Setting the Record Straight on Francisco Franco and the Jews
From the beginning of his rule in 1936 until the end of World War II, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s sympathies unquestionably lay with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, yet he assiduously maintained Spain’s neutrality during the war. A number of Jews, moreover, found refuge from the Nazis in Spanish territory, and as many as 35,000 crossed through Spain on their way to safety. As a result of these facts, he has developed a reputation as a vaguely benevolent figure in Jewish history. A new book by Paul Preston tells a very different story. Robert Philpot writes:
Despite the fact that Spain’s Jewish population numbered no more than 6,000 in 1936, the fiction that the country’s Catholic civilization was under assault from a conspiracy, directed by Jews and carried out by Communists and Freemasons, was the central justification for the Civil War that Franco prosecuted [in the 1930s].

As he slaughtered his way to victory, Franco repeatedly assailed the Jews. The crimes of the “red hordes,” he declared, were inspired by “the limitless cruelty of an accursed race.” Spain had been torn apart by “Judaizing freemasonry.” And, as he finally took Madrid in May 1939, he spoke of the need to “extinguish . . . the Jewish spirit that facilitated the alliance of big capital with Marxism.”

The new regime’s racial policy was clear from the outset: Jews (with the exception of those who had proved their “loyalty to the Movimiento Nacional”) and those who had a “marked Jewish character” were to be barred from entering Spain; the identity papers and residence permits of Jews were stamped with the word “Judío” in red ink; and, as late as 1957, police personal dossiers were referring to individuals as dangerous because of their “Israelite origins.”

Jews who arrived illegally [during the war years] and didn’t have onward visas were detained in squalid camps such as Miranda de Ebro. Others were turned back at the border. And Franco also allowed the Nazis to seize German Jews and return them to the Third Reich.
Belgian security personnel receive antisemitism training in Israel
In a significant effort to combat antisemitism and enhance security measures, the Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism Ministry brought a delegation of security personnel from Belgium to Israel.

The delegation, consisting of 35 members from the Belgian security forces including high-ranking police officers, participated in a specialized training program aimed at equipping them with the necessary tools to effectively handle attacks with an antisemitic background.

According to Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, this initiative aims to address the pressing concern of antisemitic incidents and strengthen the connection between security forces responsible for Jewish community safety. Chikli stated, "We recognize the need for improved training among security and emergency personnel who hold critical positions responsible for the safety of Jewish communities."

Accompanied by Jean-Luc Bodson, Ambassador of Belgium to Israel, and Bart De Wever, Mayor of Antwerp, the delegation embarked on a visit to significant sites, including the Old City of Jerusalem and Yad Vashem.

Fighting for the safety of the diaspora
The training program encompassed theoretical and practical components, covering a wide range of topics, and Chikli emphasized that "the program equips participants with knowledge and skills required to combat antisemitic acts of violence effectively."

This marks the third delegation organized by the Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism Ministry in 2023, following successful collaborations with security personnel from the Baltic states and Brazil. The ministry's efforts aim to foster a deeper understanding of the Zionist narrative and ensure the security and well-being of Jewish communities worldwide.
New Jersey Teenager Who Planned Synagogue Attack Pleads Guilty
A teenager whom the Department of Justice charged with communicating a threat to attack synagogues in New Jersey has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced later this year.

19 year old Omar Alkattoul of Sayreville, New Jersey was arrested in November after posting and sending a manifesto about attacking Jews and synagogues, which caused FBI Newark to issue a state-wide alert warning the Jewish community of an imminent threat.

In the manifesto, which Alkattoul titled “When Swords Collide,” he wrote, “Good jews do not exist unless if [sic] they convert to Islam” and discussed the attack in the past tense, i.e., as if it had already taken place.

During questioning by the FBI, Alkattoul claimed that his issuing the manifesto was “live action role playing.” His sentencing will take place on Nov. 14, and he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

“This defendant admitted using social media to send a manifesto containing a threat to attack a synagogue based on his hatred of Jews. This prompted a state-wide alert and put the community on edge,” US Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said in a statement on Wednesday. “Alkattoul will now face sentencing for his crime, and we intend to seek a sentence that will hold him accountable. No one should be targeted for violence or with acts of hate because of how they worship. Protecting our communities of faith and places of worship is at the heart of this office’s mission.”

“I am a Muslim with so many regrets but I can assure you this attack is not one of them and Insha’Allah many more attacks like these against the enemy of Allah and the pigs and monkeys will come,” Alkattoul wrote. “I will discuss my motives in a bit but I did target a synagogue for a really good reason according to myself and a lot of Muslims who have a brain.”
Mississippi man arrested for threatening Pennsylvanian Jewish businesses, synagogues
A Mississippi man was arrested on felony charges accusing him of targeting Pennsylvanian synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses by calling them — some as many as 15 times — and making antisemitic threats.

Donavon Parish, 28, of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, was charged on June 27 with cyberstalking and communicating interstate threats in an indictment unsealed Thursday, the US Department of Justice announced.

Parish could be sentenced to up to 50 years in prison and a $2.5 million fine if convicted. A defense attorney wasn’t listed.

Parish used voice-over-internet-protocol technology to call three businesses and three synagogues in April and May 2022, according to the indictment. A federal grand jury determined that he intentionally selected those locations because of the perceived and actual religion of the people there, and made comments about killing Jews when they answered the phone.

Parish called one business 15 times, and one synagogue he called at least twice also housed a preschool and kindergarten, the indictment states.
Arizona Hotel Cancels Booking for Far-Right Nick Fuentes Event
A hotel in Prescott, Arizona has cancelled an extremist right-wing student event at which white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was scheduled to deliver the keynote address.

According to numerous public statements, College Republicans United (CRU) — not to be confused with the Republican National Committee affiliated “College Republicans” — allegedly misrepresented the event at the Hassayampa Inn.

The hotel said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner it had only booked a “college students awards ceremony,” and added, “this event will no longer be held” on its grounds.

A local Republican group, Pima County Republican Party, said, “We never agreed to speak at or support this event.” Even so-called “QAnon Shaman” Jake Angeli-Chansley, who is himself a known alt-right extremist for spreading conspiracies and participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, has said he was not apprised of Fuentes’ involvement in the event and that he was reconsidering his decision to participate in it.

Fuentes, who became a widely known public figure after joining Kanye West for dinner at the Florida home of former President Donald Trump, is notorious for promoting Holocaust denialism, the racial inferiority of blacks, and casually using racial slurs to demean liberals, conservatives, and public figures of all identities. As leader of the “Groyper Movement,” a neo-Nazi adjacent group that aims to subvert and overthrow the government by infiltrating the Republican Party, Fuentes has, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said “I love Hitler” and, Southern Poverty Law Center reported, in a document describing his activities, said rape is “not so big a deal.”


N7 Initiative pushes regional free trade deal with Israel, Arab states
The N7 Initiative is pushing for a regional free agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors, starting with a trilateral one with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

“Israel of course has entered into multiple bilateral trade agreements with countries in the region,” said William F. Wechsler. He is the senior director of the N7 project, which is run by the Atlantic Council and the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation.

There are, however, no regional trade zones that include Israel, Wechsler explained, adding that the issue is not just regional.

“Israel does not have any multilateral free trade agreements at all and that is actually quite unusual. Most countries are part of some kind of multilateral trade agreement,” he said.

So this is “relatively novel” for Israel, he said.

“Israel and the UAE have a bilateral free trade agreement and Israeli and Bahrain are finishing negotiations on a free trade agreement,” he said, adding that there is also a more long-standing one with Jordan.
Israeli wireless electric road system chosen for groundbreaking French project
Electreon, an Israeli provider of wireless electric charging solutions, was selected to play a key role in an unprecedented French project to wirelessly charge electric cars, the company announced on Wednesday. The project will enable vehicles to charge directly from under-road electric infrastructure.

The initiative marks a significant step toward achieving France’s ambitious net-zero transport emissions goal.

The tender was awarded by Bpifrance—France’s public sector investment bank—to a consortium led by VINCI Autoroutes. Electreon’s partners in the consortium include VINCI Construction, Hutchinson and Gustave Eiffel University.

Electreon, which is based in Beit Yanai, near Netanya, will install its infrastructure on a two-kilometer stretch of the A10 highway, southwest of Paris. The A10, also known as L’Aquitaine, is France’s longest motorway, running 549 kilometers (341 miles) from Paris to Bordeaux.

“We are honored that Electreon has been selected as the on-the-go wireless charging technology for France’s first ERS deployment. Electreon is excited to once again partner with VINCI, and due to the strategic importance of the French market is expanding its presence in the region,” said Oren Ezer, Electreon’s CEO and co-founder.

Electreon’s infrastructure for wireless charging has already been installed in other countries, including Israel, the United States, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Norway.

According to Electreon, the technology is based on magnetic resonance induction, with copper coils installed under the roadway. The coils transfer energy to a receiver that can be mounted under any kind of electric vehicle, such as trucks, vans, buses and cars. With proper maintenance, Electreon estimates the coils and the rest of the charging infrastructure should have a life-span of 10-20 years.
In Israel, leaders of US Black universities laud partnership with Jewish community
Jews in America have been important partners for African-Americans and their universities, said administrators of five Historically Black Colleges and Universities on Wednesday.

“There are certainly many examples through our history of the collaboration between the Jewish community and African American communities and HBCUs,” said Colonel Alexander Conyers, president of South Carolina State University, in Jerusalem.

He pointed to the example of “Rosenwald schools,” the 5,000 schools built across 15 Southern states from 1912 to 1932. The effort was an outgrowth of a collaboration between Julius Rosenwald, the son of German Jewish immigrants and Sears executive, and Booker T. Washington, the renowned educator born into slavery in Virginia.

In the years they operated, Rosenwald schools educated one-third of rural Black children in the South, estimated at more than 663,000 students, including writer Maya Angelou, civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and playwright and director George Wolfe.

Rosenwald believed that Jews should uniquely sympathize with the plight of African-Americans, writing, “The horrors that are due to race prejudice come home to the Jew more forcefully than to others of the white race, on account of the centuries of persecution which they have suffered and still suffer.”

“On our campus today is still an original Rosenwald school that we maintained in honor of his contributions to educating African American youth,” said Conyers.

“Strategic partnerships were born between those individuals in the civil rights movement and the Jewish population,” added David Wilson, president of Morgan State University in Baltimore.

The Civil Rights Movement was the high water mark for an alliance of Jews and Blacks who saw a common cause. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously marched from Selma to Montgomery with Martin Luther King Jr., and two Jewish activists, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and the Black civil rights worker James Chaney were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan when they were registering Mississippi’s Black citizens to vote as part of 1964’s Freedom Summer.


'Golda' premiers at Jerusalem film festival
Hanna Brown reports from the ground at the Jerusalem film festival, where 'Golda,' featuring Helen Mirren, premiered.


This Charming Man
In the United States, the greatest Morrissey fans are the Chicanos. Extensive research has been done on the subject. Beautiful essays have been written about how Morrissey’s outsider stance appeals to Mexican immigrants and how the themes of estrangement and longing in his melancholic ballads remind them of their own music genres such as rancheras. But do you know who loves the former frontman of the Smiths just as much as Mexican Americans? Israelis do. The reasons why Israelis love Morrissey, however, are much more prosaic. Israelis, as anyone knows, are no frayerim—suckers. They love Morrissey because he loves them.

Jokes aside—most of his Israeli fans are loyal to him and appreciate his support for their country, as do the Israeli media and local politicians. Even the press release sent to me and all other music journalists ahead of his two recent Israeli shows, which took place on July 2 at the Zappa Shuni amphitheater in Binyamina and on July 4 at Expo Tel Aviv, happily stated: “After 7 years, one of Israel’s best loved musicians is back in our arms!.” Yes, Morrissey is back in our arms.

It’s no secret this country hasn’t been super popular in the world for quite a while now, so if someone embraces us, we hug him right back—no questions asked. And Morrissey, baruch hashem, loves Israel. The man is no sycophant—he’s not the type to flatter every nation. He calls it like he sees it, and he sees Israel with extremely fond eyes.

In 2017, politician Avigdor Lieberman, who at the time was minister of defense, tweeted: “Impatiently waiting for Morrissey’s new album!” Not to be overly stereotypical, but Soviet-born men like Lieberman, especially those of his generation, usually are not into verbose British indie pop, and generally prefer ’70s hard rock in the vein of Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Nazareth. Lieberman’s surprising appreciation for Morrissey, it’s safe to assume, was a strategic one. This tweet was posted a few days before the release of Morrissey’s 11th solo album, Low in High School, which included two songs referencing the very same state that Lieberman was in charge of defending.

The first, “The Girl From Tel Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel”—a strange tango whose title plays homage to the diaries of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish woman who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. The second, the album closer “Israel,” is an almost six-minute-long pro-Zionist ballad in which Morrissey declares with great pathos: “In other climes they bitch and whine / Just because you are not like them—Israel, Israel … And they who rain abuse upon you—they are jealous of you as well.” In the same song he claims, “I can’t answer for what armies do—They are not you,” which reads like an explanation to why he doesn’t believe in BDS and cultural boycotts.

Morrissey’s love affair with Israel stretches quite a few years back. This shouldn’t come as a great surprise. Morrissey has been opposing popular opinions for most of his career, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now, at a time when many European public figures who fancy themselves moral prefer to shun Israel.






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