It was anther difficult category, but for me an enjoyable one to research, as many of these excellent blogs are not on my normal radar.
Ans the winner is:
A decade ago, 1,500 Holocaust survivors traveled to Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation. On Tuesday, for the 70th anniversary, organizers are expecting 300, the youngest in their 70s.Douglas Murray: Adolf Eichmann hoped his ‘Arab friends’ would continue his battle against the Jews
“In 10 years there might be just one,” said Zygmunt Shipper, an 85-year-old survivor who will attend the event in southern Poland to pay homage to the millions killed by the Third Reich. In recent years, Shipper has been traveling around Britain to share his story with school groups, hoping to reach as many people as he can while he has the strength.
“The children cry, and I tell them to talk to their parents and brothers and sisters and ask them ‘Why do we do it and why do we hate?'” he said. “We mustn’t forget what happened.”
But as the world moves inevitably closer to a post-survivor era, some Jewish leaders fear that people are already starting to forget. And they warn that the anti-Semitic hatred and violence that are on the rise, particularly in Europe, could partly be linked to fading memories of the Holocaust.
Over Christmas I finally got around to reading Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth. I cannot recommend this book – newly translated from the German – highly enough. It challenges and indeed changes nearly all received wisdom about the leading figure behind the genocide of European Jews during World War II.Pat Condell: A special kind of hate (h/t dabney)
Of course for years after the war there were rumours that Eichmann had fled to an Arab country. He might have had a better time there. Other Nazis certainly did, including Alois Brunner – Eichmann’s ‘best man’ – who settled in Damascus after the war and who is now believed to have died in Syria as recently as 2010. Eichmann’s Argentina years were certainly filled with frustration and rage. What is most interesting is how mentally caught he remained even before he was captured, principally by the impossible conundrum of how to persuade the world to accept what he had done and simultaneously boast about his role in the worst genocide in history.
There is much more to say about this book. But I do urge people to read it. Not least for the way in which Stangneth sums up the problem with the only strain of Nazi history which really remains strong to this day. ‘Eichmann refused to do penance and longed for applause. But first and foremost, of course, he hoped his “Arab friends” would continue his battle against the Jews who were always the “principal war criminals” and “principal aggressors.” He hadn’t managed to complete his task of “total annihilation,” but the Muslims could still complete it for him.’
The Israeli army fired an artillery barrage at the source of several rockets fired from Syria Tuesday afternoon, which struck Israeli locations near Mt. Hermon in the northern Golan Heights, the IDF said in a statement to reporters.
The army said it fired 20 artillery shells in response to the attack, and identified hits.
“At least two rockets hit the Golan Heights in northern Israel. IDF responded with artillery towards the positions that launched the attack. The IDF has evacuated and closed Mt. Hermon for visitors,” the statement read.
There were no immediate reports of injury or damage to areas near several kibbutzim and Druze villages in the area, although police evacuated the Neve Ativ resort at the foot of the tourist and skiing center, and closed roads in the area, according to Army Radio.
There were about 1,000 visitors at the skiing center when the attack occurred.
The army instructed residents of Majdal Shams, Buq’ata, Mas’ade, Ein Qiniyye, El Rom, Neve Ativ and Nimrod to remain in bomb shelters until an all clear was given.
2. The Special Committee shall be organised immediately following the coming into effect of this Agreement and shall direct its attention to the formulation of agreed plans and arrangements for such matters as either Party may submit to it, which, in any case, shall include the following, on which agreement in principle already exists: free movement of traffic on vital roads, including the Bethlehem and Latrun-Jerusalem roads; resumption of the normal functioning of the cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mount Scopus and free access thereto; free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives; resumption of operation of the Latrun pumping station; provision of electricity for the Old City; and resumption of operation of the railroad to Jerusalem.
Palestinian security sources told Ma'an that several buses loaded with ultra-orthodox Jews and settlers arrived to Joseph's Tomb escorted by more than 15 military vehicles at around 2:30 a.m.
They then performed religious rites at the holy site.
The sources added that clashes then broke out in the nearby Balata and Askar refugee camps between young Palestinian men and Israeli soldiers.
They said dozens of young men hurled stones at the Israeli soldiers who fired tear-gas canisters, stun grenades, rubber-coated bullets as well as live ammunition at the protesters.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday that it cannot afford to repair Gaza homes damaged in last year's war with Israel because donors have failed to pay.Actually, it is quite clear. The reason was said explicitly by Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shoukry last month:
"The agency has exhausted all funding to support repairs and rental subsidies," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said in a statement.
"$5.4 billion was pledged at the Cairo (aid) conference last October and virtually none of it has reached Gaza. This is distressing and unacceptable.
"It is unclear why this funding has not been forthcoming," it added.
Commenting on a Gaza donors conference held in Cairo months ago, Shoukry said donors who pledged billions of dollars for the embattled Palestinian territory had not sent the money because they had no trust in the absence of a lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the suspension of direct Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations.Hamas refuses to relinquish its hold on Gaza even after it supposedly joined the "unity government" and international donors don't want to contribute to Hamas. Arab countries don't trust Hamas and neither do Western countries.
"The international community links its financial contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza to the return of the Palestinian authority to its position in it," Shoukry said.
He added that this international community had confidence in the Palestinian Authority and a desire to contribute to the reconstruction of Gaza through the authority.
[Serry added,] "People are desperate and the international community cannot even provide the bare minimum – for example a repaired home in winter –let alone a lifting of the blockade, access to markets or freedom of movement. We’ve said before quiet for quiet will not last, and now the quiet is at risk.”Meaning that UNRWA knows that Gazans are not being told that their Arab brethren aren't paying up. They are being told that it is Israel's fault, so they will want to start resuming rocket fire at Israel.
Sultan, smiling about his "Jew-bashing" |
An Orthodox Jew was beaten up by a gang of teenagers who said the attack was a protest ‘about the Palestinians and the Jewish community’, a court has heard.Those poor Muslims, having to fight against Islamophobia and Israeli aggression! They were so distraught that they were forced to plan the attack ahead of time, traveling to a different neighborhood miles away to find random black-hatted Jews, and not being able to stop themselves from attacking the first one they saw.
Balawal Sultan, 18, Kesa Malik, 19, Hassnain Aliamin, 18, all from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and a 17-year-old boy have all admitted attacked the 41-year-old victim in nearby Gateshead.
Sultan, who had hours earlier sent a text message saying he was ‘going Jew bashing’, lay in wait with the other three behind a van before pouncing on the victim as he walked home to his family.
The victim screamed in fear as the pack chased him down the street, throwing wood at him, before tripping as he fled and being surrounded by the teenagers while stricken on the ground.
One of the thugs was threatening to kick him in the head when the victim was saved by a friend.
The attackers claimed they were only in the area looking for a new mosque but one of them admitted the planned attack was motivated by the dispute between Israel and Palestine.
The night before the attack, Sultan sent a text message saying ‘I’m going to go Jew bashing. Haha’.
Hours later, just after midnight on July 18, he and the others set about carrying out the threat. With Malik driving, they started looking for a victim.
The man they attacked had been at a Jewish study room nearby and was on his way home.
Bridie Smurthwaite, prosecuting, said: ‘The defendants had deliberately travelled to the area in Gateshead where there were members of the Jewish community with the particular intention of targeting someone from that community.
‘The Crown say the victim was targeted because he was wearing traditional Jewish attire, a black suit and white shirt and a black hat.
Indicating displeasure with Israel’s immigration promotion and absorption strategy, the Jewish People Policy Institute last week presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with its emergency plan for the absorption of 120,000 French immigrants.BBC Arabic Won't Call Charlie Hebdo Attackers 'Terrorists'
According to the high profile Jerusalem think tank, which maintains close ties with the Jewish Agency and senior politicians, Israel has thus far not implemented the necessary policies to compete with the United States, Canada, and various European states in attracting highly educated and business savvy French Jews.
According to JPPI senior fellow Dr. Dov Maimon – himself a French immigrant – despite the increase in French aliya over the past several years, the number of people making the move is relatively small compared to the large numbers of people who have made inquiries with the Jewish Agency.
Agency chairman Natan Sharansky recently told The Jerusalem Post that some 50,000 French Jews had requested information on aliya during 2014.
The head of BBC Arabic has instructed editors not to use the word "terrorist" to describe the Islamist gunmen who murdered 12 people at the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.BBC Tim Willcox Investigation Moves Forward
Tarik Kafala told the UK's Independent newspaper that the term "terrorist" is too "loaded," and said the decision was in-line with the BBC's overall policy on reporting such attacks.
"We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist. What we try to do is to say that 'two men killed 12 people in an attack on the office of a satirical magazine'. That’s enough, we know what that means and what it is," said Kafala.
"Terrorism is such a loaded word," he added. "The UN has been struggling for more than a decade to define the word and they can’t. It is very difficult to. We know what political violence is, we know what murder, bombings and shootings are and we describe them. That’s much more revealing, we believe, than using a word like terrorist which people will see as value-laden."
He also explained why the BBC, like other mainstream British media outlets, was censoring any images of the founder of Islam Mohammed, with the only exception being its inclusion of the front cover of the post-attack Charlie Hebdo "Survivors" edition.
But while "the cover has appeared… on a banner or on a newsstand, on our screens," he emphasized that "we haven’t shown it in full frame or real detail."
The BBC’s Tim Willcox caused a wave of revulsion and outrage in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket massacres in Paris. Many complaints were sent to the BBC including one from HonestReporting.
We’ve continued to pursue the complaint through the drawn-out BBC process and we can share with you the latest email to HonestReporting from the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit.
Due to the large quantity of complaints and issues raised, the Editorial Complaints Unit has expedited the process by dealing with the complaints in their totality and drawing up a summary of the issues that will be investigated:
Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections.You mean, a foreign organization wants to interfere in Israeli politics? Isn't that the terrible kind of thing that all proper Americans are against?
One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign's national field director) who will run the campaign out of offices taking up the ground floor of a Tel Aviv office building.
V-2015 is careful not to support a specific party - rather “just not Bibi”. As such, the foreign funds pouring into the campaign are not subject to Israel’s campaign finance laws.
OneVoice is an international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians, empowering them to propel their elected representatives toward the two-state solution. The Movement works to forge consensus for conflict resolution and build a human infrastructure capable of mobilizing the people toward a negotiated, comprehensive, and permanent agreement between Israel and Palestine that ends the occupation, ensures security and peace for both sides, and solves all final-status issues in accordance with international law and previous bilateral agreements. The 1967 borders form the basis for the establishment of an independent, viable Palestinian state, with permanent borders and any modifications to be agreed upon by both parties. The Movement recognizes that violence by either side will never be a means to end the conflict.Yet when you look through their website to see exactly how it tries to have Palestinian Arabs influence their leaders towards peace and compromise, you come up blank. No, instead, this award winning "peace" organization teaches both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to pressure only one side: Israel.
Nisman, who was found shot in the head in his apartment just hours before he was scheduled to provide testimony against Argentine President Cristina Kirchner last Monday, denied the Free Beacon story in 2013 and suggested that Rouhani played no role in the attack.Journalist who reported Nisman's death lands in Israel
“There is no evidence, according to the AMIA case file, of the involvement of Hassan Rouhani in any terrorist attack,” Nisman told the Times of Israel in response to the article.
However, Nisman said privately he had evidence that Rouhani was involved in the decision to authorize the bombing, according to Miami Herald reporter Andres Oppenheimer.
Nisman told Oppenheimer that Rouhani was on the committee that green-lighted the attack. “Nobody is pointing out that Rouhani participated in the decision of the AMIA attack,” wrote Nisman in a July 2013 email.
“In several telephone conversations and email exchanges I had with Nisman over the past three years, the prosecutor told me that Rouhani was among the top Iranian officials who had ‘participated in the decision’ to bomb the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires,” Oppenheimer wrote after Nisman’s death.
Damian Pachter, who first reported the story about the mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman and fled the country out of "fear for his life", has landed in Israel where he hopes to find safe haven.Interview with Damian Pachter (h/t Yoel)
"I came to Israel because I am an Israeli citizen I lived here the most important years of my life and this is a place where I feel safe," Pachter said Sunday after landing in Israel.
"I left because the Argentinean government persuade me because of my news report regarding the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman who died in unresolved way last week, so I was the first who report on that and now I am kind of suffering the consequences of that," he said.
After accusing the Argentine Government of going after him for breaking a story about the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, journalist Damián Pachter talked to The Bubble from Israel.
The official Argentine Jewish community is planning to boycott the country's official Holocaust commemoration. The state ceremonies will be held on Tuesday, International Holocaust Day – and the Jews of Argentina will hold their own separate memorial ceremony the same day.
The Jews are protesting the suspicious death – and subsequent investigation thereof – of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, as well as ties between Argentina and Iran.
The official memorial ceremony happens to mark two years since Argentina and Iran signed an agreement to establish a “truth commission” into the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center back in 1994 that left 85 dead and hundreds wounded.
It is widely believed that Iran was actually behind the bombing, and that top Argentinean government officials attempted to stymie investigations to this effect – so as not to stymie negotiations for a favorable oil deal with Iran.
It is now known beyond any reasonable question that the 9-11-01 nuclear attack on America was an “Inside-job”, a Gladio-style false-Flag attack on America.Not only that, but VT reports that the moon landings were fake!
What this means is that this attack was no surprise attack at all and was done with the help of some high ranking US Officials in the Administration, JCS, USAF, NORAD, the FAA and the local NYC government officials.
false-flag1 (2)It is also known that the individuals responsible for planning and executing this attack included PNACers, Top NeoCons, the President and the Vice-President and the Secretary of the Department of Defense, Several top JCS, USAF, NORAD and FAA, some Top Directors of AIPAC, and numerous American-Israeli ‘Israeli-first” Dual Citizens and Israeli Intel.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!