Thursday, August 24, 2023

08/24 Links Pt2: How to make the case for Israel; Antisemitism of top European Court judge exposed; CUNY Hires Extremist Anti-Israel Professor; Where Is the Outrage?

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: There's a word for how the world judges the Jewish state: Israelophobia
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, one of the most significant figures in the drive to create modern Israel, wrote in 1911: “We are a people as all other peoples; we do not have any intentions to be better than the rest. As one of the first conditions for equality we demand the right to have our own villains, exactly as other people have them.”

Today, not only is Israel unable to have its own villains, it is also deprived of its saints. Many people are unable to view the country reasonably, which means seeing its sins and good qualities in proportion.

When some police officers are overly brutal, it is taken to prove that the country is an “apartheid state”; when its vineyards produce wonderful Merlot, it is derided as “winewashing”.

People simply cannot judge the Jewish state as they would judge any other. Let us begin, therefore, with some facts.

Geographically, Israel is about the size of El Salvador, Slovenia or Wales, with a population the size of New Jersey and an economy the size of Nigeria. It is blessed with an extremely low crime rate, ranking 104th in the world. Britain, by comparison, comes 64th, the United States 56th, France 44th and South Africa 3rd (worst in the world is Venezuela).

Contrary to common perception, in 2022 an American insurance firm named Israel the fifth-safest tourist destination on Earth, behind only Singapore, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Its history may be bloody, but there are at least 27 live conflicts in the world, affecting two billion people; and while the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the Syrian civil war killed hundreds of thousands apiece — and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 claimed at least a million lives — the cumulative number of Arabs who have perished in all wars with Israel numbers about 86,000. That’s over a period of 75 years.

For all its problems, Israel protects the rights of women and minorities, as well as freedoms of religion, expression, assembly and so forth.

In January 2023, a study by the Index on Censorship ranked the Jewish state above Britain and the United States in terms of freedom of expression. Tel Aviv is one of the gay capitals of the world.
Antisemitism of top European Court judge exposed
The European Court of Human Rights is facing calls to re-examine cases involving Jews after its longest-serving judge was exposed for sharing extreme antisemitic content on social media.

Bostjan Zupancic, who worked at the court for 17 years until 2016, has shared claims that Jews are “the central enemies of Western civilization”, as well as the hook-nosed caricatures commonly seen in neo-Nazi propaganda.

The former ECHR judge adjudicated in numerous hearings that directly affected Jewish communities, including cases involving kosher abattoirs and the restitution of property owned by German Jews.

Zupancic, who has also been Vice President of the UN Committee Against Torture, posted the claim that Jews “introduced… sexual perversions of all sorts… sadism, masochism, lots of homosexuality” before the Nazis came to power and a link to a YouTube video that supposedly revealed the “rise of the Rothschild banking mafia”.

He also shared an assertion that the “Jewish war on white is behind the arson of the West, and unless Jewish power is named as the cancer, there is not hope for the white race”.

Lord Carlile KC, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: “It’s a matter of great regret that this judge should have abandoned the human rights principles he must have regarded as important.

“I would call upon the current court and its member states such as the UK to disavow Zupancic’s statements, and I would suggest there should be an examination of the cases on which he sat to ensure that the views he is now expressing did not affect his judgments.”

The remarks were echoed by Jonathan Turner, Chief Executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, who said his organisation was looking into “whether any judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in which Bostjan Zupancic participated should be reconsidered”.

After leaving the ECHR in 2016, Zupancic joined the European Centre of Law and Justice (ECLJ), an influential, conservative human rights think tank. It enjoys a special status that enables it to make reports to the UN. It also makes submissions to the ECHR.

This week, the ECLJ said it was removing him from his role in the wake of the revelations.


How to make the case for Israel
One other general comment about advocacy: Persuasiveness is not synonymous with volume. Many of Israel's detractors believe that shouting is a substitute for an argument. Try not to be drawn into shouting matches; the best response to someone yelling is often to speak more softly. Be the voice of reason, not bombast.

When making the case for Israel, consider using the P.E.E.R technique:
Peace: In most debates, the side that comes across most for peace wins. Every other word out of your mouth should be peace. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in the hope that this would bring about peace. Israel built the security fence to protect the lives of Jews and Arabs so they could live in peace. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze settlement construction for 10 months at President Barack Obama's request, hoping the Palestinians would enter peace negotiations. Peace, peace, peace. This is not propaganda; it is what every Israeli craves.

Empathy: For many years, pro-Israel advocates would focus on the evils of the Arabs. This turns off most students who dislike hearing negative attacks on others and reject generalities about, for example, "the Palestinians." It is more effective and accurate to acknowledge the other side has valid points and to express sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. This, too, should be in context. For example, the Palestinians in the territories certainly have difficult lives and part of that is due to Israeli actions, but it is also because the Palestinian Authority does not permit freedom of speech, religion or press, or recognize women's rights or gay rights. Most Palestinians might wish to live in peace, but unfortunately, they have not had a leader with the vision and courage to negotiate an agreement to coexist with Israel. While I understand the suffering of Palestinians, can you acknowledge the pain of Israeli terror victims?

Emotion: Too often those making the case for Israel recite historical facts and dry statistics that may be accurate but do not have an emotional punch that conveys to the listener what it is like to be an Israeli. For example, you can talk about the thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, which sounds severe and may win some sympathy but is not as powerful as case studies of the impact of those rockets. For example, ask your audience to imagine hearing a siren and having just 15 seconds to find shelter to hide from an incoming missile. What if you have an elderly parent or a sibling in a wheelchair? How do you get them to safety? Nine-year-old Tzahar is a resident of Sderot. He is deaf and cannot hear the Code Red alarm; as a result, he has been injured twice by rocket fire.

Rhetoric: Israelis often face impossible choices, and it is easy for outsiders to criticize their actions. Force people to put themselves in Israel's position and ask what they would do differently. You have a problem with Israel's reaction to Hamas firing rockets into Israeli homes, parks and kindergartens? What would you do if someone shot bullets through your window daily? You say few Israelis have been hurt by the rockets; what if the shots didn't hit anyone in your house? Would you sit back and let your neighbor keep shooting at you, or would try to stop them?

Using the P.E.E.R. method might not convince everyone to agree, but you will persuade some people and become a more effective advocate for Israel.


CUNY hires professor CNN fired for being anti-Israel
The City University of New York, which has been accused extensively of antisemitism in the past few years, has hired a professor CNN fired in 2018 for an anti-Israel speech.

Marc Lamont Hill, who holds an endowed chair at Temple University in Philadelphia, is now a “presidential professor” of urban education at CUNY’s Graduate Center in Manhattan.

The Graduate Center describes Hill as a “radical educator” who “explores issues of race, education, citizenship and state violence in the United States and Middle East.”

The speech for which Hill was fired from CNN included the statement, “We have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words but to commit to political action, grass-roots action, local action and international action that will give us what justice requires and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

Although the latter phrase refers to violently erasing Israel from the map, Hill claimed on social media at the time, “My reference to ‘river to the sea’ was not a call to destroy anything or anyone.”

“I am calling on the CUNY board of trustees to not allow this dangerous hire to move forward that will leave CUNY’s Jewish students and staff feeling even less safe than they do now,” wrote Ari Kagan, a New York City Council member.

After meeting with Nation of Israel head Louis Farrakhan in 2016, Hill wrote on Instagram: “Been blessed to spend the last day with Minister Louis Farrakhan. An amazing time of learning, listening, laughing, and even head-nodding to music. God is Great.”

“CUNY hiring Marc Lamont Hill is so perfect. I don’t know how I didn’t see it coming,” wrote Seth Mandel, executive editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.
Ronn Torossian: CUNY Hires Extremist Anti-Israel Professor; Where Is the Outrage?
Hill has a longstanding history of anti-Israel animus. On June 7, 2016, he tweeted: “Israel is very much, by definition, an apartheid state.” An avid supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, he criticized New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s initiative to stop boycotts of Israel, and simplistically defends the movement by insisting that it does not seek Israel’s destruction. (Never mind that Hill once called for a state of Palestine from “the river to the sea,” as will be seen below).

Hill, who is quite active on social media, says that “Blaming the Palestinian Authority for violence in the region is dishonest and unproductive,” claiming that Jerusalem is occupied. Hill advocates the “return” of third- and fourth-generation descendants of Palestinian Arabs who left Israel in 1948 and 1967 — a position that could lead to the demographic destruction of the State of Israel.

In a remarkable denial of accepted facts, he denies radical Islam or religion is a major issue between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

During a CNN appearance on August 4, 2014, Hill complained that Israel’s defensive Iron Dome weapon, “Takes away Hamas’s military leverage” over Israel.

Hill has accused Israel of denying “citizenship rights and due process to Palestinians just because they are not Jewish,” and expressed support for boycotting Israel in a speech noting that he thinks that there needs to be “a free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

The phrase “from the river to the sea” is used by those who believe Israel should be eliminated.

He was fired by CNN for those comments, which many viewed as antisemitic. Now he has been hired by CUNY.

Only a few months ago, Hill praised Palestinian terrorist Fatima Bernawi, who attempted to bomb the Zion Cinema in Jerusalem in 1967, saying, “She is a legend among Afro-Palestinians and a beloved daughter of Jerusalem. Much needs to be written about her life and struggle.”

Hill has said the Palestinian issue determines how he votes, and has made it known he’s vote for anti-Israel candidates in the past.

Marc Lamont Hill has the right to his beliefs — but these radical, extremist positions don’t belong at CUNY.
CUNY, Under Fire for Antisemitism Complaints, Hires Prominent Anti-Israel Scholar as ‘Presidential Professor’
During a 2018 interview with The Breakfast Club, a popular urban radio broadcast, Hill called Farrakhan his “brother” and accused Israeli police of training American officers to kill Black people.

“What is happening is a normalization and legitimization of Jew-hatred that has really become part and parcel of the academy,” Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, who founded the AMCHA Initiative nonprofit to research and track antisemitism in American higher education, said of CUNY’s decision to hire Hill in an interview. “And it’s not just that he’s proud of that and proud to tell you that, it’s that this is how he sees himself as an academic. His obsession with the Jewish state is actually the centerpiece of his scholarship, and that is probably why he was hired at CUNY.”

Rossman-Benjamin added that CUNY administrators and faculty have signaled their commitment to anti-Zionism before — including in 2022, when the CUNY Law School faculty endorsed a BDS resolution. She explained that faculty there and throughout the university system place political activism above scholarship, citing as an example the law school’s description of itself as a training ground for “radical lawyering,” a term drawn from far-left literature.

“Hill is a staunch advocate of the BDS movement,” Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, told The Algemeiner. “He ignores the total makeup of Israeli society, buying hook, line, and sinker into the white colonial narrative even though Israel largely comprises Jews of color. He’s a total propagandist in that regard, and he has made those accusations about Israel often to his own detriment. And I think people should be appalled that CUNY is legitimizing him.”

Romirowsky argued that Hill’s hiring is inconsistent with CUNY’s alleged efforts to address antisemitism on campus, a cause that CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez appeared to embrace in several public messages.

“Clearly Rodriguez’s comments have no teeth,” he continued. “Actions have to follow stating one’s commitment to fighting antisemitism. Bringing a known antisemite who has been so vocal and so pronounced about his views sends a contradictory message. I think the faculty fighting antisemitism at CUNY should be deeply concerned about what’s happening there.”

CUNY on Wednesday defended its hiring of Hill as a decision driven by merit, adding that several Jews served on the hiring committee that selected him.

“Professor Hill, a widely respected expert in his field, was unanimously selected by the Urban Education hiring committee for a position that focuses on advancing conversation and research about the role of education in American society,” a spokesperson for the university told The Algemeiner. “The committee reviewed the entirety of his scholarship and public comments, which include a public letter of apology for remarks made half a decade ago and his strong, unequivocal condemnations of antisemitism and antisemitic violence.”

The City University of New York is currently under investigation by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for allegedly neglecting to discipline a student, Nerdeen Kiswani, who threatened to set her classmate on fire for wearing an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hoodie, and for failing to protect another Jewish student from harassment. CUNY is also the subject of a Title VI complaint, which was filed in July 2022 by the American Center for Law and Justice after accusations of antisemitism at CUNY campuses were aired during a New York City Council hearing held the previous month. It alleges that CUNY has intentionally ignored “a sustained pattern of antisemitism.”


British Rocker Eric Clapton Says He Almost Retracted Support for US Presidential Candidate for Being Pro-Israel
Renowned British rock guitarist and singer-songwriter Eric Clapton said in a new interview that he nearly withdrew his support for US Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., commonly known as RFK Jr., because Kennedy was pro-Israel and deleted a tweet praising avid antisemite Roger Waters.

Clapton, 78, has several upcoming shows in the US, including a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Sept. 18 for RFK Jr., an attorney who is the nephew of former US President John F. Kennedy and the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

During his guest appearance Monday on the YouTube channel “The Real Music Observer,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee — who also attempted but failed to make a large donation to Kennedy’s presidential campaign — said he almost pulled back from supporting the candidate and restated his defense of Waters.

“I found it difficult at one point when he retracted that tweet about Roger [Waters] because of Roger’s stance on the Middle East, on Israel-Palestine politics,” the “Wonderful Tonight” singer explained. “I was nearly going to pull out — I didn’t know if I really, honestly, support this when Robert said, ‘I’m pro-Israel and the family has always been pro-Israel.'”
Orthodox Jews banned from renting holiday homes by German travel firm
A German company has been accused of adopting a “systematic policy” to block strictly Orthodox Jews from renting holiday homes that it manages.

E&P Reisen, a Cologne-based firm that operates ski holidays across Europe, allegedly told two Jewish families they would not be allowed to stay in their properties due to their faith.

Earlier this year, Channah Feldinger, 32, tried to book a large house in eastern Switzerland that was advertised on the company’s website.

E&P Reisen declined her request, explaining it would not rent the property to Charedim, because previous guests had damaged its houses.

“Unfortunately, our houses do not meet the requirements of strictly Jewish-Orthodox groups and ‘Abitur groups’ [of school graduates],” it said in an email seen by the JC.

“Since we do not want to prevent anyone from practising his/her faith and because of our experience in dealing with our houses (damage and complaints), we unfortunately cannot make you a rental offer.”

Her uncle, Manny Feldinger, 42, said he was shocked as he had rented the same property previously.
‘Domino Effect’: Latin American Academics Accuse Israel of Racism, Apartheid
An association of anthropologists in Latin America has passed a resolution accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and apartheid while voicing support for the so-called Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to isolate the Jewish state from the international community as a step toward the country’s eventual elimination.

The measure was passed in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month, with 70 percent of participants voting in its favor during the 2023 XIV Mercosur Anthropology Conference, an annual gathering of scholars from across Latin America held in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Anthropology.

“Aware of the crimes against the indigenous population of Palestine during the Nakba, we affirm our commitment to remembering the damage caused by militaristic practices of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century, and declare our solidarity with the Palestinian people,” says a copy of the resolution obtained by The Algemeiner. “This is a public and academic commitment to the anti-racist struggle.”

Many Palestinians and anti-Israel activists refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as the Nakba, an Arabic term meaning “catastrophe.”

The resolution additionally charges that Israeli policy toward the Palestinians “is a perverse update of the heinous practices of apartheid in the 21st century.”

The group’s actions represent a “domino effect” of academic support for the BDS and broader anti-Israel movement, according to Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
George Washington University Still Has an Antisemitism Problem
The George Washington University (GW) has an antisemitism problem. As GW alumnus Avi D. Gordon, executive director of Alums for Campus Fairness, claims, his alma mater has long "fostered a hostile environment for Jews." He's not alone. A recent staff editorial in GW's student newspaper argued that antisemitism "fit[s] a pattern of discriminatory classroom conduct" at the prestigious university. Things have gotten so bad that, in January, the student association passed an Ending Antisemitism Order, which prompted Mark Wrighton, then-president of GW, to form a "Special Presidential Task Force to Combat Antisemitism." In March, a sophomore on the task force, Sabrina Soffer, wrote that she has friends who "conceal" anything that identifies them as Jewish so they won't be "confronted or heckled" on campus.

But GW is under new leadership, and last month it terminated its relationship as host to the anti-Israel Middle East Studies Association (MESA), which bills itself as a "learned society" but acts like a slightly more literate version of every other anti-Israel activist group.

Expelling MESA was a good first step, and it could mark the beginning of the end of GW's antisemitism problem, but there is more to do. With a new president at the helm, the university is at a crossroads and might soon be restored to what it claims to be – "a global, comprehensive research institution" where "all our students feel welcome and supported." But it will take fearless leadership.

GW's BDS problem
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, rampant among some students and faculty members, is just one component of GW's antisemitism problem, but it is an accurate gauge of the problem (the Anti-Defamation League calls it, "a cornerstone of anti-Israel campus activity").

According to a report conducted by the AMCHA Initiative, from 2017 to 2018, "promotion and implementation of academic BDS more than doubled and was strongly linked to acts targeting Jewish students for harm and Israel-related antisemitic expression."

2018 was an important year at GW. In April, the student senate passed "The Protection of Palestinian Human Rights Act," demanding the university divest from companies it claimed contributed to human rights abuses against Palestinians. The administration of GW president Thomas J. LeBlanc pushed back, but not very hard. It rejected any institutional participation in the BDS movement and mildly condemned it, but it also defended its BDS-ers' right to express their "academic freedom." Thus began a pattern of attempting to mollify all parties involved.

In 2020 a BDS-supporting professor named Ilana Feldman was appointed interim dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs. Under then-new GW president Mark Wrighton, the university issued a statement that once again tried to please everyone, denouncing the BDS movement, keeping Feldman in the position as interim dean, but excluding her as a candidate for the full-time position.


Following CAA action, Newcastle music venue cancels screening of antisemitism-denial film
Following correspondence with Campaign Against Antisemitism, a music venue in Newcastle has cancelled a screening of a propaganda film about the antisemitic former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The screening of the film Oh, Jeremy Corbyn! The Big Lie was due to be shown earlier this month at The Lubber Fiend, but the booking is understood to have been made by a third party, and not by the venue itself, which we understand was not made aware of the nature of the film.

The news comes shortly after, following action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, Glastonbury Festival, YMCA, Unite union, Basildon Council, North Ayrshire Council, the national pub retailer Greene King, Tolpuddle Village Hall, Yeovil Labour Club, a Nottinghamshire church, Ludlow Assembly Rooms and independent venues around the country, have cancelled screenings of the film.

The film claims that it “investigates the ‘secret war’ waged against Corbyn” and questions whether there was an “orchestrated campaign” against the former Party leader.

The film’s contributors include a who’s who of controversial figures such as Jackie Walker, who has previously stated that Jews were “chief financiers” of the African slave trade; the filmmaker Ken Loach, who caused outrage when, during an interview with the BBC, he refused to denounce Holocaust denial. Both were expelled from the Labour Party; Graham Bash, the Political Officer of Jewish Voice for Labour, an antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation; and Moshe Machover, a professor and Holocaust revisionist. All have been expelled from the Labour Party, although Mr Machover was readmitted.


A development in a story ignored by the BBC for six years
In 2017 the IDF published information concerning Hizballah’s use of a self-proclaimed environmental organisation as a front for terrorist activity in south Lebanon in violation of UN SC resolution 1701.

In 2020 that organisation – ‘Green Without Borders’ – was described by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as “a Hezbollah front, providing the militant group cover for operational activities prohibited under UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701—from conducting preoperational surveillance to firing rockets at Israel”.

Over the past six years we have repeatedly noted the absence of any BBC coverage whatsoever of the activities of that Hizballah-linked organisation (see ‘related articles’ below), despite the fact that the corporation maintains offices in both Jerusalem and Beirut. The BBC News website’s most recent report about “tensions” on the border between Israel and Lebanon also failed to make any mention of ‘Green Without Borders’:

It is therefore not in the least surprising to find that to date BBC audiences have seen no reporting whatsoever on the topic of last week’s US designation of that organisation and how its activities violate UNSC resolution 1701.


Stephen Pollard: Did you know that Jews invented everything?
I was reading this week the non-story of all non-stories, that coffee has overtaken tea as our favourite drink (of course it’s more popular; no serious person would prefer tea to coffee), when I came across one of those factoids that makes life worth living. At the end of the story was this little gem: “The first coffee house was established in Oxford in 1650 by a Jewish man named Jacob, in the building now known as The Grand Café.”

Chalk up another one on the board. Everyone knows, of course, that a Jew invented fish and chips (Joseph Malin, an immigrant, opened the first chippy in 1860 in London). And thanks to this summer’s blockbuster, everyone also knows what Oppenheimer invented (if you need me to tell you, try Google — also invented by Jews).

Thing is, when I find a new one like the coffee house, I am never surprised. I’m inclined, you see, to think that Jews invented everything. Blame the parents; like many of us, I was brought up with a running commentary to every TV programme pointing out — or just guessing — which of the actors was Jewish. I think that must have seeped into my general consciousness because now I treat most of the world around me in the same way.

(And I am now inflicting the same thing on my children, although we have invented an inversion of it by pointing out in supposedly Jewish programmes such as Friday Night Dinner which of the actors aren’t Jewish.)

But the thing is, if you play the Jewish inventions game, the chances are you’ll win easily.

Talking of the kids, it was two Jews who invented the teddy bear. Morris and Rose Michtom, who owned a sweetshop in Brooklyn, made a stuffed toy bear in honour of Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, after the then president famously went on a bear-hunting trip but didn’t find any. A cartoonist turned the trip into satire and when the Michtoms saw it, they made “Teddy’s Bear”.
Israel Helped the U.S. Solve Scores of F-35 Glitches
Israel is a cost-effective laboratory for the U.S. defense and aerospace industries and armed forces.

In 2016, Israel became the first country to use the highly-computerized F-35 operationally.

Israel soon became successful in solving most of the operational and maintenance glitches which had caused concern among prospective buyers.

Scores of Israeli solutions to F-35 glitches in data gathering and processing, electronic warfare, and firing control accuracy have been shared with U.S manufacturer Lockheed-Martin and the U.S. Air Force.

The enhanced performance of the F-35 demonstrates Israel's role as an important source of modernization, reduction of unit cost, and expanding job creation in the U.S.

Israel shares with the U.S. more intelligence than many countries, and Israel's battle experience has been shared with the U.S., saving American lives.
Australia to Acquire Rafael’s SPIKE LR2 Anti-Tank Guided Missiles
The Australian Government has chosen RAFAEL Australia to provide the country’s defense force with the next generation of its SPIKE LR2 anti-tank guided missile.

This is the first acquisition of Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) by the Australian Defense Force (ADF) under the leadership of inaugural chief of the GWEO Group, Air Marshal Leon Phillips OAM.

The acquisition is intended to support the Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle capability being delivered under Project LAND 400 Phase 2.

SPIKE LR2 is a state-of-the-art, multipurpose, multiplatform, combat-proven missile system, designed to meet the needs of modern warfare and complex battlespace challenges, the company said.

RAFAEL has operated as a partner and supplier of the ADF for 30 years, according to Dr. Ran Gozali, RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems’ G.M Land & Naval Division Executive Vice President.

“RAFAEL looks forward to continuing to work closely with the ADF and our Australian industry partners to deliver forward-thinking solutions and capabilities that will strengthen Australia’s defense capabilities, and foster investment in Australia’s sovereign industrial capacity,” Gozali said.
"Elbit Wins $55M Contract to Sell C-UAS Counter Drone System to Netherlands"
Elbit Systems has announced that it was awarded a contract worth approximately $55 million to supply its counter-drone system, the multi-layered ReDrone Counter Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS), to the Netherlands.

The contract will be carried out over a period of four years.

As part of the contract, Elbit Systems will supply several mobile, stationary and deployed configurations of the ReDrone integrated Counter-UAS solution along with a logistic support package and training.

The ReDrone Solution is comprised of Elbit Systems’ advanced DAiR Radar, signal intelligence (SIGINT) sensors, and COAPS-L electro-optical (EO) payload which provide an enhanced integrated aerial picture, along with high-end electronic attack capabilities, all fully controlled by a unified Command and Control system.

The ReDrone system provides functionalities beyond the common active and passive sensors that enable it to rapidly detect and locate multiple drones simultaneously within the protected area.

The system can detect, identify, locate, track and neutralize hostile UAS during day and night, both in urban and rural environments and under various weather conditions.

“The growing threat of drones creates an increasing demand for our Counter UAS solutions,” Oren Sabag, General Manager of Elbit Systems ISTAR & EW noted.
Israeli startup pulls in $2 million to use fungi for eco-friendly plastic packaging
Israeli biotech startup MadeRight, which has developed a process of cultivating fungi for green packaging, has nabbed $2 million in seed funding to drive the production of eco-friendly industrial materials.

The funding round was led by Fresh Start foodtech incubator and group of investors including Israeli venture capital firm Arkin Holdings and ARC Impact, that back on early-stage startups.

Founded in 2022 by CEO Rotem Cahanovitc, a mycology expert, and CTO Yotam David, a molecular geneticist, Made Right is harnessing the way fungi function as natural recyclers to replace harmful materials in plastic packaging and reduce their environmental impact.

The startup is deploying fermentation technology to cultivate fungi grown on organic industrial waste such as wood chips, to produce sustainable materials that are biodegradable and free from pollutants to create a recyclable plastic alternative for packaging. The compounds are mixed with bio-plastics to create pellets that can be used and integrated in existing machinery and supply chain processes in the packaging industry.

“Fungi serve as nature’s recyclers, thriving on what we consider waste,” said Cahanovitc. “We harness the potential of fungi to fashion materials from renewable sources, fostering an economic circularity that will steer the future’s material revolution.”

Cahanovitc told The Times of Israel that the founding idea for the technology evolved after completing his volunteer work in Ethiopia, where he was confronted with the stark reality of families burning their plastic waste as a means of disposal.
Israeli-Palestinian aquaculture farm wraps up pilot program
A four-year pilot project managed by the Israeli Agriculture Ministry in cooperation with the Civil Administration — the Defense Ministry agency in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank — ended in Jenin after producing several tons of bass fish for the local market.

The aim of the project is to allow West Bank residents to grow their own food and strengthen food security for Palestinians. The Agriculture Ministry has provided financial support, equipment, food for the fish, water filters and training sessions for the local operators, for a total investment of NIS 700,000.

The first pilot in Jenin ended up yielding between two and four tons of bass fish. Another similar project is still ongoing in a fish farm in Tulkarem. The project is part of an effort to support the economy and food production in the PA areas.

The project was part of a program run by the Agriculture Ministry and the Civil Administration to transfer knowledge to Palestinian experts in the fields of veterinary medicine, forestry, plant protection, food import and marketing.

The aquaculture farms use Israeli technologies to maximize resource utilization, including the construction of open and covered ponds, water filtering and the use of the wastewater for agricultural irrigation.
Ice Jewish boy! Greenland’s only known Jew discusses life among the glaciers
The icy expanse that is Greenland has many marvels: towering glaciers jutting into the sky, vast tundra and the midnight sun, to name a few.

There is, however, another, lesser-advertised quality that might recommend the country to Jewish travellers. Antisemitism is virtually non-existent. That is, according to Paul Cohen, Greenland’s only known Jewish resident.

Cohen, who is originally from the US, moved to the southern town of Narsaq from Berlin 22 years ago with his wife, Monika, and is quick to point out that the absence of Jew-hate may have something to do with the island’s lack of Jews. Greenland has a population of 56,000 people but the only Jews Cohen has met are holidaymakers.

“I’m the only Jew I know in this town and in this region in Greenland. I don’t know if I’m the only Jew in Greenland [but] we think I might be… I’m definitely a rare breed,” he says.

Narsaq, which has a population of just 1,300 people, is “a very quiet place”, he says, but for those in the region it is seen as more of a city because there is a hospital and a catering college in the town where Greenlanders train to become butchers and bakers.

Cohen, 61, speaks English, French and German but when he and Monika — who is from Germany — moved to the island, Danish was not on that list.
Not your standard biopic, ‘Golda’ is a gritty warning about the cost of victory
You can tell a biopic is ahead of the curve when it’s not interested in a cradle-to-the-grave story of its subject. Life is messy and never fits the structure of a three-act movie. So it’s with savvy that director Guy Nattiv uses “Golda” to look at Israeli prime minister Golda Meir not through her entire life, but through the crucible of the Yom Kippur War. What’s more, rather than being a simple tale of triumph over adversity, “Golda” is a story about the costs of leadership and the human mistakes our leaders make along the way.

Nattiv quickly takes us up to the days preceding the 1973 Yom Kippur War and notes to the audience that Israel’s government was feeling overconfident after its success in the Six Day War in 1967.

This sets the stage for October 1973, where Meir (Helen Mirren) knows that war is at her doorstep (again), but is trying to maneuver through the egos, beliefs, and politics of her advisers as well as her country’s place on the world stage. And when the attack does come on Yom Kippur from a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria, Meir must use all her political skill to defend Israel while also appealing to American interests represented by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber).

Rather than telling a rah-rah tale of heroism, Nattiv soaks his story in death. He makes the most of a limited budget by making a war film that doesn’t require expensive battle scenes. Instead, in a sharp and effective move, he uses a mixture of real war footage and some scenes of characters learning of the battle from far away. In one scene defense minister Moshe Dayan (Rami Heuberger) witnesses his troops being destroyed by opposing forces, the explosions of tanks reflected in his horrified stare. A later scene has Meir listening to a radio broadcast of Israeli troop losses in battle, a necessity of war but no less heartrending for that, especially witnessed through Mirren’s excellent performance.

Instead of a world of jingoism and patriotism, Nattiv paints a world of cold realpolitik where everyone is dying. Israeli troops are dying. Arab forces are dying. Even Meir is dying as the film repeatedly cuts to her cancer treatments. This is a world where death is on the doorstep, and while movies about American figures like to employ soaring rhetoric and big emotions, the world of “Golda” is cramped rooms filled with cigarette smoke.

Of course, with any movie dealing with historical reality, there will always be questions of accuracy. However, I would encourage viewers to look more for emotional truth and thematic consistency than for a history lesson. Did Golda Meir really smoke cigarettes next to her oxygen tank? I doubt it! But it’s a potent visual metaphor for a person who lives her life with the slimmest of outlets (smoking isn’t glamorous for Meir in “Golda”; it’s portrayed as the one release she permits herself) and whose actions may have catastrophic consequences. When we start taking out our history books against a narrative feature, we’re more likely to miss what’s really happening.
Israeli actors make ‘Golda’ film more grounded, authentic, says director Guy Nattiv
Tel Aviv-born film director Guy Nattiv came to global prominence in 2019 when he won the Academy Award for best live-action short film for “Skin,” about neo-Nazis, violence, skinheads and their tattoos. He is only the second Israeli to win an Academy Award.

His latest film takes on Golda Meir, who served as Israeli prime minister from 1969 to 1974. She died in Jerusalem on Dec. 8, 1978.

Helen Mirren plays Meir in the new film, which is set during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and which premieres in some U.S. theaters on Aug. 23 with its general release on Aug. 25. Nattiv, who lives in Los Angeles, talked with JNS about global reception of “Golda,” whether a non-Israeli could have made the film, Meir as an imperfect but admirable leader and his next film, co-written and co-directed with Iranian women. Responses have been lightly edited for style.

Q: “Golda” has already been released in Israel and in Berlin. What’s the early reaction been like here heading into the U.S. premiere?

A: It gets a very emotional wave of reactions from the Jewish community here. It’s been amazing. I’ve been to Atlanta, Boston, Washington, and I’m here in New York. It’s just all good so far.

Q: It’s been talked about ad nauseam—this argument over whether Helen Mirren, a non-Jew, should have been cast as Golda Meir—so we’re not going to ask about that. But let’s talk about the filmmaker. Could this movie have been made by a non-Israeli, or would it simply have not worked?

A: I don’t know; it’s an interesting question. I think that I brought authenticity to the table. The fact that I worked with Israeli actors made it more grounded, more authentic.

I think that doing an international movie, especially about the history of Israel, is something about which you need to be very careful. I wouldn’t do a film about the history of Serbia because it’s not my country. I don’t know anything about it.

I felt that it was good that it was handled by someone who is an Israeli, who lives in the States and knows both sides.


Jewish resistance hero identified 80 years after execution by Nazis
Dutch forensic investigators have identified the remains of a man executed by the Nazis in the Netherlands eight decades ago as that of a Jewish resistance hero after locating a cousin in Australia, investigators said on Wednesday.

Bernard Luza, 39, was killed by a firing squad in 1943 after he and hundreds of other Jews were arrested following a raid on a factory in northern Amsterdam on Nov. 11, 1942. His body was discovered in 1945 in a grave with four others, buried at a shooting range near Schiphol Airport.

Two of the bodies were quickly identified, while a third was named in 2013. But the two others, including that of Luza, remained shrouded in mystery.

“Now, through the use of DNA technology employed in a relationship study, his [Luza’s] remains were finally identified,” said Geert Jonker, head of the Dutch Defense Ministry’s forensic unit specializing in identifying human remains.

He said the identification was made possible after Luza’s cousin was found in Australia.

“After more than 80 years, his relatives finally have certainty about the fate of their missing family member,” Jonker said.
I’m a Nazi hunter but I’m still haunted by my time in a camp
When we speak about the Holocaust we refer to millions of victims, but the numbers are almost too big to comprehend.

Each of those fatalities had a name, a place and a life, however short and cruelly curtailed. There is no reminder or confirmation of what happened to my aunt, uncle and cousins apart from these words. They were just another family, thrown into an unmarked grave in a desolate field. Another group of victims denied the respect of remembrance.

Death, I learned quickly, offered no protection from the inhumanity of our oppressors, who decided to build an Arbeitslager, a slave labour camp, in Plaszow, a southern suburb of Krakow, on the site of two Jewish cemeteries. Jerozolimska was the oldest, having been established in 1887. The second was barely ten years old, and had a beautiful Ohel, a form of tomb built in the Byzantine style.

The Nazis were not content with taunting and killing the living. They refused to let the dead rest. Dozens of us were ordered to line up behind huge earth movers, which levelled the headstones and gouged out the graves. It was my job to shovel up remains — bones, skulls, teeth and scraps of humanity — into a wheelbarrow pushed by someone who ran along to my left. Everything had to be done at speed; we were shouted at, whipped across the back and shoulders, and threatened with being shot if we paused or stopped. The disturbed bodies, or what was left of them, were dumped into a hastily dug hole and covered with earth. The sights and smells of such desecration were revolting, and our ears rang with constant abuse, but we were learning not to think, never to question or register emotion.

If we had done so at the time, we would have realised that even the subsequent use of the headstones was a calculated insult. They were recycled as paving slabs, set in front of administrative offices, and used to form pathways to the homes of SS officers. The camp originally covered 25 acres of rocky ground, which was marshy in places. By the time it became a fully fledged concentration camp, in January 1944, it had grown to eight times the size. Eventually it housed 25,000 prisoners, ten times the number it was initially designed to take. We initially lived in tents on the cemetery grounds, and were joined by gangs of slave labourers, the so-called Barrackenbau Jews, who commuted from the Krakow ghetto during the early stages of its liquidation.

They told us, in snatched conversations, of persecution and starvation beyond our imaginations.

No one mentioned the obvious, that we were building our own prison. We merely prayed that we would not be killed when we were surplus to requirements. We dug out the sewage system, helped build wooden barracks, and tied barbed wire around nails with our bare hands to form double fencing, which, when the camp was fully extended, measured nearly four kilometres.
The Jews of Samarkand: Remembering the Death of Stalin
“The Jewish Underground of Samarkand: How Faith Defied Soviet Rule” by Rabbi Hillel Zaltzman (Mandel Vilar Press, 2023)

“The Jewish Underground of Samarkand: How Faith Defied Soviet Rule” relates the largely unknown story of the Chassidic Jewish underground that operated in Samarkand under the watchful eyes of the KGB — a story of faith, courage, and resilience.

When the Nazis invaded Ukraine, throngs of Jews fled eastward to the Soviet provinces of Central Asia. Members of the Chabad stream of Chassidism settled in the cities of Samarkand and Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and Hillel Zaltzman’s family was among these refugees.

Yet despite the Soviet regime’s brutal repression against religion, the Chabad community continued to teach Torah, open an underground yeshiva, celebrate Jewish holidays, and observe their faith. In vivid detail, Zaltzman tells the story of this community.

Below is an edited excerpt from the book:
On March 4, 1953, the Soviet radio broadcaster took to the air. In a saddened voice, he announced that the mighty Stalin had fallen seriously ill and lost consciousness. This official announcement of Stalin’s illness was unusual for the Soviet Union, since the government always refrained from announcing any illness in their top echelons. We suspected that Stalin had died, and that the milder public announcement was to prepare the citizens of the country for the truth without causing any chaos. But this was only a suspicion, and his death was not yet confirmed.

All through the day, we sat fixed to the radio, listening raptly to every piece of news. We hoped against hope to finally hear the news we had been awaiting for the past 30 years.

Finally, the official announcement was made that Stalin, wicked enemy of the Jews, had died. The top government radio broadcaster, Yuri Levitan, himself a Jew, dramatically announced that a special news release would be broadcast shortly in all the radio stations throughout the Soviet Union. Levitan then addressed the nation solemnly: “On the fifth of March, at 9:50 p.m. Moscow Time, the heart of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Council, the Generalissimo Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, stopped beating.” (h/t MtTB)




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