From Ian:
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: We Hate You, Even If You Support Us
In Nablus, the largest Palestinian city, students rioted in protest against a visit to their campus by U.S. consular officials. According to Palestinian sources, the officials had come to An-Najah University as part of continued efforts to support educational and cultural activities on campus.
Dozens of students, chanting anti-U.S. slogans, surrounded one of the U.S. vehicles and tried to prevent it from entering the premises of the university. Eyewitnesses said that campus security personnel used excessive force to disperse the protesters.
One student, Mohamed Abu Awwad, was later admitted to hospital with a broken arm.
The clash that erupted at the Palestinian university has enraged many students and human rights advocates. "The university administration does not have the right to disperse a civilized and democratic protest and beat up participants," said Mohamed Dweikat, a political activist from Nablus.
Hazem Abu Hilal, a human rights activist, said that the problem was not with the assault on the protest, but that the university had banned the protest on campus. "Universities are supposed to serve as a podium for freedom of expression," he said.
But this incident is not about freedom of expression as much as it is about extremism and hatred for the US. The protesters did not want US officials on their campus because, they argued, "the U.S. supports Israel." They were also protesting what they called "U.S. backing for Israel" during Operation Protective Edge.
These students have been told that the U.S. is an enemy because it supports Israel financially and militarily. It does not matter whether the U.S. officials came to Nablus to help Palestinians. They were attacked because they represent a country that is viewed by many Arabs and Muslims as an enemy because of its support for Israel's right to exist.
Chloe Valdary: Lies, Lies And More Lies As The Rutgers Univ. Paper Publishes Racist Article
I’m starting to wonder if the Rutgers University student paper, the Daily Targum, actually reads the pieces submitted to it before accepting them. Its latest piece, by freshman student Hamzah Raza is so woefully absurd, so patently racist, and so annoyingly amateur in its recycling of bigoted diatribes, I almost mistook it for a script for a homemade reality show entitled ‘David Duke Wannabees gone wild.’
Raza first illustrates his morally obtuse position by suggesting that Islamism — that doctrine whose adherents decapitate children and rape adolescent brides — is comparable to the Declaration of Independence. Yes, that’s right. Thomas Jefferson’s code of ethics detailing the rights of humanity is exactly comparable to a doctrine which posits that all of humanity should be wiped off the face of the earth if it doesn’t bow to Allah.
But Raza doesn't stop there in his inane musings. He continues to suggest that Hamas and ISIS aren’t actually Islamists — a word he defines as “an advocate … of a political movement that favors reordering government … in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.” This is weird since Hamas and ISIS both are political movements favoring laws, um, prescribed by Islam. But constructing intellectually consistent ideas isn’t Raza’s forte. After all, he goes on to assert that Hamas is perhaps only angry with Israel because there are aboriginal Jews occupying space there, an obviously egregious offense which can only be met with rockets and Hitlerian calls for another Holocaust.
Racism, you say? Oh, no; resistance of the highest noble order.
The Jewish Voices
Israel shuts down, police on alert ahead of Yom Kippur
Police forces are deployed across the country and are taking the measures necessary in order to ensure public safety ahead of the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur and the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino said Friday.
Danino continued that police expect the public to respect the religious customs of all communities, adding that the police will crack down on anyone who attempts to harm worshipers of any faith, Israel Radio reported.
The two important religious festivals coincide for the first time in three decades, and Israel is tightening security in flash-point mixed Jewish-Muslim areas to ward off possible unrest.
The security measures come amid the arrest of two Palestinians in the northern West Bank Thursday after Israeli forces discovered them carrying three pipe bombs and other weapons, raising fears they may have been planning a terror attack.
The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur begins on Friday evening, followed on Saturday by the Muslim Eid al-Adha, against a backdrop of high tension over the seven-week Gaza war.
Chief Rabbi, Muslim leader call to end violence
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel David Lau and founder of the Islamic Movement Sheikh Abdullah Nimar Darwish called Friday on leaders of both Abrahamic faiths to hold meetings aimed at reducing inter-religious tensions in Israel.
In a joint interview with Israel Radio ahead of the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur and the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, the two religious figures expressed hope that Jews and Arabs may soon achieve peace.
UNESCO has got the Jewish message
As the jihadist terrorists of the Islamic State (IS- also known by its Arabic acronym of DA'ESH) advance over swathes of Syria and Iraq, the UNESCO director general, Irina Bokova (pictured), has spoken of the need to take urgent action to protect Jewish heritage in the Middle East.
“Islamic, Christian, Kurdish and Jewish heritage, among others, is being intentionally destroyed or attacked in what is clearly a form of cultural cleansing,” warned Irina Bokova at a meeting held on 29 September 2014 at UNESCO's Paris headquarters. “We are gravely concerned about the scale of trafficking in cultural goods, from which Iraq has already greatly suffered over the past decade,”she said.
Campaigners for the rights of Jewish refugees say that Bokova's specific mention of Jewish heritage may have resulted from a meeting they had in June to express their concerns about the destruction of Jewish sites in the Middle East.
"Our message has got through," Dr Stan Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, noted.
Where is the Muslim Outrage at IS?
Imagine this scenario: a new militant Jewish group, The New Sadducee State (NSS), rejects the Torah’s Oral Tradition, and wants to return the entire world to the literal and strict interpretation of the Written Law. They want to bring back slavery, eye-for-an-eye justice, chopping off the hands of thieves, and the death penalty for sodomy.
Their firebrand preachers follow a carefully devised strategy. They hang out in the cafes of Wall Street, befriending PhDs who work as quantitative analysts. Gaining their trust, they succeed in radicalizing them, and convince them to join the battle against the evils of capitalism and democracy. They travel to the NSS enclave in the British Virgin Islands – a tax free jurisdiction, where these analysts cum elite hackers run very profitable high-frequency trading systems to build a war chest of billions of dollars. The entire Western world is paralysed with fear of what NSS might do.
How do you think the Jewish world would respond to this? Every Jewish publication without fail – from Hamodia and Yated Ne’eman to The New York Times and everything in between – would be unequivocal in its condemnation of NSS. There would be full page ads in every major daily with signatures of leaders of the most diverse Jewish groups, all seeking to make it very clear that NSS does not represent any known form of mainstream Jewry.
There would be no excuses or rationalizing. No suggestions that we hold back judgement pending further investigation. NSS would unite the Jewish world more than any external enemy ever could.
Trial set for immigrant convicted in Israel deaths
US Attorney Barbara McQuade said in an Aug. 28 filing that Odeh’s lawyers failed to meet the “high burden” of proof for a selective prosecution charge. US District Judge Gershwin Drain rejected the defense claim Thursday and scheduled Odeh’s trial to begin Nov. 4 in Detroit.
As the case was being heard Thursday, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington announced that it has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to halt the prosecution, saying it “plays into the belief and perception that the … government is intentionally targeting and prosecuting Arab American activists.”
“Odeh is an exemplary citizen and well-respected leader in the Chicago Arab-American community” who has dedicated her life to the community and worked extensively on issues of women’s well-being and “anti-Arab sentiment,” Samer E. Khalaf, a lawyer for the group, said in a letter to Holder.
An Israeli military court convicted Odeh of bombing a Jerusalem supermarket and trying to bomb the British Consulate in 1969. Two people were killed in the market bombing. Israel freed her after 10 years in a prisoner exchange with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Guess who turned up for “anti-Zionist” conference in Tehran?
Israel-haters, conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers have concluded a three-day conference in Tehran aimed at exposing Zionist control of– well, just about everything.
Among the reported attendees who may be familiar to Harry’s Place readers:
–9/11 truther Wayne Madsen.
–Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer.
–All-around nutjob Kevin Barrett.
–Nuttierjob Ken O’Keefe.
–Antisemitic French “comedian” Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala.
Medea Benjamin of the cringe-inducing American “antiwar” group CODEPINK was also on hand. (h/t Miguel)
Time for Church of England to Bring an End to Vicar’s Jew-Baiting
Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer, an Anglican vicar who serves a church in Surrey, England, has a long and storied history of Jew-baiting.
He’s good at it, really good at it.
He has been antagonizing Jews and saying hateful things about Israel for years. He works a lot of his mischief on his blog and Facebook page, where he has posted links to articles that downplay or minimize the Holocaust, and accuse Jews of controlling the world and of being responsible for starting World War I and World War II.
But that’s not all. Dr. Sizer has spoken a number of times on Iranian television to condemn Israel and its supporters and has spoken at conferences in Indonesia and Iran organized by Holocaust deniers and attended by anti-Israel and anti-Western terrorists.
New UN "expert" on Israel starts where antisemitic UN "expert" Richard Falk left off
Meet Makarim Wibisono of Indonesia. He's the new UN expert on the "situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," the post filled for the past six years by the notorious antisemite Richard Falk. Wibisono was the ambassador of Indonesia to the UN from 2004 until 2008. Indonesia is a country that does not recognize Israel's right to exist.
In a 2006 statement to the new Human Rights Council, Ambassador Wibisono, described Israel as showing "ruthless contempt for the lives of the innocent," perpetrating "callous attacks against terrorized and defenseless civilians," among other things. His biography touts that until January 2014 he was "active in the private sector as an advisor to the Third World Network." Third World Network is a non-governmental organization that specializes in hysterical antisemitic vitriol, including: Israel is guilty of "bestiality, barbarity," pays "cash and other perks" for "towing the Zionist line,"and "the US plays the role of God in modern times" holding "back the sun to enable Israel...to finish the job" against its Arab victims.
In his new capacity as a UN-certified "expert," Wibisono has undertaken his first trip to the region. He visited Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt, and interviewed people in Gaza via video and telephone. He then issued a press release about his alleged discoveries. Israel does not cooperate with the UN "expert," chosen for his or her expertise in peddling Palestinian propaganda, and he is therefore not permitted to enter either Gaza or the West Bank.
Pro-Israel Group Rejected by Augsburg College
A well-known pro-Israel group at Augsburg College in Minneapolis has been denied formal recognition by the school’s student government on grounds that it is “unjust” and a “stigma,” a controversial decision that school administrators say they fully support.
Augsburg’s student government last month voted to deny a charter to the local chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI), a nationwide pro-Israel organization that seeks to foster “a clear and confident pro-Israel voice on college campuses,” according to minutes of the student government’s meeting.
The decision to reject SSI means that the pro-Israel group will not be eligible to receive funding from the school, be permitted to hold fundraisers on campus, purchase materials under the college’s tax-exempt status, or participate in student fairs.
Augsburg officials have stood by the decision to reject the pro-Israel organization even though there are questions as to whether the denial violates the college’s own nondiscrimination policies.
Qanta Ahmed: Islamists Use 'Malignant Strategy' to Silence Muslim Dissidents
Appearing on The Kelly File, Dr. Qanta Ahmed discussed her recent encounter at Rutgers University in which Muslims students claimed that she, a Muslim, had no right to discuss Islam because she is not "visibly Muslim."
"I went [to Rutgers] exercising the very bare minimum of my faith, which is to quote the prophet Muhammed, to expose injustices happening to Muslim women, children and minorities happening at the hands of Islamists governments," explained Ahmed. "And I was challenged by a Muslim woman in a hijab who attacked me for not being 'visibly Muslim' and questioning what right I had to speak about Islam."
"Never in my life, in 40 years of visiting Pakistan, two years of living in Saudi Arabia, a decade traveling to the Arab Gulf has anyone challenged me on appearance."
"I was also accused by this same woman of stoking Islamophobia by bringing to attention the human rights violations," she continued. "That's an example of the silencing Islamists try and pursue when Muslims like me engage in public dialogue."
When host Megyn Kelly asked Ahmed about the charge of Islamophobia, she dismissed the label as a "means to silence...an absolutely malignant strategy."
Ariel U researchers withdraw from London conference after asked to drop university affiliation
Researchers from Ariel University withdrew from a conference in London in September after being told they would not be able to reveal their institutional affiliation.
While the news of the incident broke abroad in The Times Higher Education Magazine last week, in Israel, Ariel University issued a statement regarding the incident on Thursday.
“The event described is an extreme manifestation of hypocrisy and absurdity. While the conference organizers are interested in research and researchers of Ariel University, they are trying to ignore the existence of the institution where these studies have emerged,” Ariel University said in a statement on Thursday.
“Fortunately, this is a rare phenomenon in the landscape of international conferences, where Ariel University researchers are received with much esteem. Ariel University will continue to strive to lead in the field of research and academia.
Also deserving mention is the protest of the participants of the conference from Israel and abroad against the absurd behavior of the organizers,” the university statement read.
Zionist Organization of America protests blocking of Israeli ships
The Zionist Organization of America has written a letter to Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent to protest against the repeated blocking of Israeli vessels by pro-Palestinian protesters in the California port city.
“We were alerted to a serious and recurring problem in Oakland, which your department should be addressing: Anti-Semitic protesters have been blocking vessels owned by Zim Integrated Shipping Ltd., an Israel-based shipping company, from docking at the Port of Oakland, and preventing dockworkers from unloading the cargo,” ZOA president Morton Klein wrote in the letter. “This problem occurred for several days in August and it occurred again last week.”
A representative of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, whose dockworkers were dispatched to unload the Zim ship that tried unsuccessfully to dock in Oakland last Saturday, said some 200 protesters physically threatened the dockworkers and physically blocked their personal vehicles.
The dockworkers felt unsafe and did not unload the ship.
Approximately 50 police officers were on hand but did not intervene.
Why I Wouldn't Want Steven Salaita as a Colleague
Virtually every bit of writing about Salaita is highly charged and thus probably biased. But I and others have read enough of his writings to see that he consistently, expresses one-sided views, based not on research but on his preconceived ideas, filled with nasty condescension toward everyone else.
But for me the decisive factor is Salaita’s ability to discuss the subjects on which he focuses. Professors have opinions, but we also have an overriding responsibility to create spaces where our students, of all political persuasions and opinions, including none at all, can learn about controversies and make decisions for themselves. Salaita makes clear that he has no interest in discussion with people who disagree with him: “It’s simple: either condemn Israel’s actions or embrace your identity as someone who’s okay with the wholesale slaughter of children.” Again: “Supporters of Israel should be forced – A Clockwork Orange style – to view pics of smiling children who were killed on endless repeat.” Again: “If you’re defending Israel right now you’re an awful human being.”
As University President Robert Easter said, Salaita appears “incapable of fostering a classroom environment where conflicting opinions could be give equal consideration.” I would not want him as a colleague.
Irish Times retracts false assertion that Yisrael Beiteinu advocates deportation of Israel’s Arab citizens.
In her review of books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on September 13th for the Irish Times Lara Marlowe made an egregious error.
When discussing Avigdor Lieberman and Yisrael Beiteinu Marlowe wrote:
“Avigdor Lieberman was a nightclub bouncer in his native Moldova, then a baggage handler at Ben Gurion airport. Today he is Israel’s foreign minister. His Yisrael Beiteinu party advocates the deportation of the survivors of 1948 and their progeny, 1.6 million Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship.”
This is false. Lieberman has mentioned the possibility that, in the context of a final peace treaty between Israel and Palestinians, both sides may want to agree to a mutually agreed upon land swap (change in borders), whereby the map would be redrawn to grant some existing Israeli territory to the new Palestinian state. Thus, some Arab citizens of Israel who currently live in those areas will become (by virtue of the change in borders) citizens of the new Palestinian state.
BBC’s capitulation to political pressure on Gaza casualty figures: tip of a bigger iceberg?
The saga of the BBC’s squeezy stance on the reporting of casualty figures in the Gaza Strip continues.
To recap the story so far; on August 8th the BBC News website published an article titled “Caution needed with Gaza casualty figures” written by the Head of Statistics for BBC News. Three days later, unannounced changes were made to that article – apparently as a result of pressure from campaigning actors including UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness who reportedly told ‘Private Eye’ (print version only) that the article was “an appalling piece of journalism”. Only on August 15th – four days after amendments had been made to the article – was a footnote added informing audiences that changes had been made to its content. The BBC’s damage control continued in the form of a nine-minute item in the August 22nd edition of ‘More or Less’ on Radio 4. Since then, the BBC has continued to produce highly problematic content on the topic of casualty figures in the Gaza Strip during Operation Protective Edge.
Not content with the censoring of BBC audiences’ access to statistical insight into the issue of casualty figures in the Gaza Strip, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign now seeks to restrict audiences’ opportunities to benefit from such analysis in the future.
Iran's "Political Prisoner Cleansing"
Prison authorities ordered the crowd to leave and assured Jabbari's family that she was not to be hanged -- a statement the authorities commonly make before an execution so it can be carried out quietly, without incident.
Meanwhile, Ayatollah Boroujerdi has been taken from his prison cell in Evin to be executed and is being held incommunicado at an undisclosed location. Also "missing" is dissident blogger Mohammad Reza Pour Shajari and prominent student activist Arash Sadeghi, both presumed to have been re-arrested according to friends and family.
The "mainstream media" and so-called Human Rights Groups have, as usual, remained silent. The regime tells the media that information about "missing" prisoners is inaccurate in order to prevent publication of the news.
The Iranian killing machine seems to be counting on the reluctance of the U.S. to intervene in any serious way, in order to run its nuclear weapons program to completion.
Netanyahu suggests force on the table if US agrees to 'bad deal' with Iran
Israel may consider the use of force against Iran if world powers accept a nuclear agreement that Jerusalem finds unacceptable, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suggested on Wednesday.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Netanyahu said he hopes that US President Barack Obama shares his standards for a bad deal with Iran over its nuclear program.
Israel seeks the full dismantlement of Iran’s uranium enrichment infrastructure and its heavy-water plutonium reactor – what Netanyahu views as the guaranteed pacification of Iran’s nuclear program, which currently spans thousands of centrifuges.
Those centrifuges, he told Mitchell, “are only good for one thing: to make bombgrade material.”
Congress Sounds Alarm on Iran’s Non-Compliance With Nuclear Inquiries
As nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers approach a Nov. 24 deadline for a final deal, more than 80 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives signed an Oct. 1 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry expressing concern over Iran’s “refusal to fully cooperate” with inquiries from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.-affiliated nuclear watchdog.
According to a report by Reuters, Iran had failed to answer questions about its research into explosive testing and neutron calculations—which are essential to the production of nuclear weapons—by an Aug. 25 deadline set by the IAEA.
The House letter states that any final deal between Iran and the P5+1 that does not fully hold the Islamic Republic accountable for meeting IAEA deadlines and inquiries would set a “dangerous precedent.” Iran should not be allowed to declare parts of its nuclear infrastructure off limits to IAEA inspections, since that condition would hinder the ability to make “accurate predictions of the period of time needed by Iran to assemble a weapon,” argue the letter’s 352 signatories.
Khamenei Calls for Muslim Unity for Israel's 'Annihilation'
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday used his annual message to Hajj pilgrims heading to Mecca to insult Israel and call for its "annihilation."
The speech comes ahead of Eid al-Adha on Friday, the Muslim holiday celebrating Abraham's "sacrifice of Ishmael" in an appropriation of the original Torah story, and like his speech for Eid al-Fitr in July was replete with unfounded barbs hurled against the Jewish state.
"The conspiring enemy is aiming to stoke the fire of a civil strife among Muslims, to misdirect the motivation for resistance and jihad and to secure the Zionist regime and the servants of Arrogance (America - ed.) – who are the real enemies," said Khamenei referencing the bloody conflicts rocking the Muslim world.
Calling for Muslim unity against Israel, the same Friday that Arab MK Ibrahim Sarsour (Ra'am-Ta'al) called for the establishment of the "United Islamic States" and bashed Israel as being "crueler than ISIS (Islamic State)."
Khamenei likewise accused Israel of having "no limit or boundaries regarding viciousness, cruelty, and trampling underfoot all human standards and ethnics. Crimes, genocide, mass destruction, the killing of children, women and the homeless...they take pride in."
Egyptian Storefront Advertises Hitler the Cockroach Killer
A storefront in Egypt is advertising the services of Hitler the cockroach killer, according to a copy of the sign posted on Facebook.
The offer bearing the name of the initiator of the Holocaust promises an exclusive offer to burn cockroaches, an apparent reference to the Nazi gas chambers that killed some 6 million Jews.
The anti-Semitic advertisement is a reminder that anti-Semitism continues to thrive and grow in Egypt even under its more moderate government, experts say.
“Here Only,” states the Arabic sign, which also bears a swastika and a picture of the Nazi leader raising the traditional Third Reich salute. “A salute to the respectable Egyptian peoples from the German Hitler.”
There’s a growing army of grassroots groups working to defend Israel
We’re a national movement. We’re diverse. And we’re growing.
At a meeting of grassroots activists hosted by the Board at the weekend I looked across a crowded room filled with representatives from 26 different Israel advocacy organisations. What made this meeting unprecedented is that the delegates came from every corner of the British Isles.
Amidst all the challenges we are facing at the moment, a growing army of local grassroots groups is taking the field in defence of Israel and of Jewish rights across the UK. And in my opinion, their efforts and achievements deserve to be in the news as much as the headline-grabbing negativity and tensions.
Put on your seat belts as I take you on a whirl-wind tour of the groups represented at the gathering.
World beats path to Israel’s door for better space tech
Israel hasn’t sent astronauts to the moon, at least not yet, but its know-how in space technology starred at a major professional show in Canada this week. Over 200 leaders in the “space business” gathered on Wednesday at the Israel exhibition at the International Astronautical Congress in Toronto. The event brings together experts from industry, government and academia to discuss the latest trends in the satellite industry, exploration technology, communications, and other space-related matters.
Those are all areas Israel excels in — and the presence of top officials from NASA, the European Space Agency, and corporations involved in space-related technology at the event is a testimony to the prowess of Israel’s capabilities in this area, Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri said.
Sponsored by the International Astronautical Federation, the world’s largest space-related lobbying group, the IAC, now in its 65th year, features presentations on all things space — exploration, life sciences, space debris, communication and navigation, propulsion, policy, regulations and economics, and even space law, to name just a few. Over 3,000 people attended the event, which featured exhibitions by space agencies and corporations from around the world, including local space-tech firms Rafael and Israel Aircraft Industries.
Abu Nazir Hearts Israel
Navid Negahban’s most famous alter ago, “Homeland” terrorist mastermind Abu Nazir, was certainly no fan of Israel. But Negahban, whose quiet, almost sympathetic performance of the jihadist shot him to fame in 2011, fell in love with the Jewish state while filming “Homeland” in Tel Aviv, so much so that when he was offered the lead role in an Israeli helmer’s low-budget debut, he jumped at the chance to return.
“Baba Joon,” the first feature from newcomer Yuval Delshad, above with Negahban, is a coming-of-age story set in an immigrant-heavy Israeli farming village. Negahban plays Yitzhak, a turkey farmer struggling to pass his Iranian traditions onto his precocious Israeli-born son. Delshad, himself the child of Iranian immigrants, penned the semi-autobiographical script, which features mostly Farsi dialogue and offers a window into Israel’s oft-forgotten population of Iranian Jews.
Some 200,000 Israelis are either Iranian-born or first-generation descendants of Iranian immigrants, with Iranian cuisine and culture touching all aspects of Israeli society. Tel Aviv’s iconic Levinsky spice market hosts dozens of Persian grocers, and Negahban – who left his hometown of Mashad, Iran, at the age of 20 to forge an acting career – laughs as he recounts visiting one to purchase ingredients for kashkeh bademjan, an Iranian eggplant dish, and despite his fluent Farsi still being spectacularly ripped off.
Culture, business cement Israel-China relationship
The top foreign investor in Israel’s economy no longer comes from North America or Europe — it’s China. Over the past two years, said Edouard Cukierman, a business person deeply involved in the bilateral commerce, “China over the past two years has become the number one investor in Israel. For them, Israel is a great source of technology to help them develop their economy, while for us, it’s a fantastic opportunity to gain entry into the biggest market in the world.”
Increasingly, Israelis are looking at China as sort of a “big brother,” a partner with a burgeoning economy and great prospects for long-term growth. While there are misgivings – as evidenced in the opposition of some Knesset members to the purchase of Tnuva by China’s Bright Foods from the British Apax Partners, which owned the majority of shares, it should be noted – most Israeli business people – and many government officials – welcome the relationship.
Jerusalem gears up for Formula One
The Jerusalem Peace Road Show is back for another lap, this time promoting four young Israeli race car drivers alongside breathtaking vehicles and internationally acclaimed racing drivers and stunt experts. Eleven racing cars arrived at the Ashdod Port on Wednesday (October 1), including a Porsche GT, Formula Master, and Audi R10 TDI.
The Formula One two-day event in Jerusalem is set to turn the city into a race track on October 6-7, 2014.
Taking part are legendary motorcycle stunt rider Rafal Pasierbek on his Kawasaki ZC636; stunt driver Terry Grant; eight pro riders from the FMX4Ever Team in a freestyle motocross show; as well as Israel’s motorsport stars Roi Nissany (F3 driver) in the Formula Master single seater, Yarin Stern in a Formula 3 single seater, Bar Baruch in a Formula 4 single seater and Alon Day, who now competes in German masters GT Series.
This year’s route will start at the Old Train Station and continue through Remez Street, leading to Liberty Bell Park, to King David Street, and up along Mamilla Avenue. Two stunt areas will be set up at Liberty Bell Park and at the footsteps of the Old City walls, at the entrance to the Karta parking lot.
Israelis test gold-plated ‘cardiac patch’ to treat heart attacks
Israeli researchers are testing a biocompatible gold-plated “cardiac patch” built by using the patient’s own tissues — and with the potential to reverse heart damage for the first time.
Up to now, serious heart damage from attacks or disease can be treated only by heart transplants. While the procedure has saved thousands of lives over the past half century, the main drawbacks are a lack of enough donors, rejection rates, and high costs.
If it were possible to transplant just parts of the heart muscle to replace damaged sections, that would be a promising alternative. But researchers have yet to figure out how to get the replacement tissue, called a cardiac patch, to conduct electricity or to be accepted by the recipient’s immune system.
In a forward-looking study published in the journal Nano Letters in September, the Israeli researchers tested a cardiac patch they engineered using a new technique and enhanced with gold nanoparticles. The gold nanoparticles appeared to improve the cardiac patch’s electrical conductivity. Heartbeat is controlled by electrical impulses generated by the heart tissue itself.
Negev lab promises a better tech tomorrow for Africa
For Westerners, it’s hard to imagine life without electricity — but that’s the situation for more than a billion people, according to the UN. Besides making lives less convenient in far-flung rural areas and crowded urban slums in the developing countries of Africa and Asia — no electric lights or computers — it means an existence socially and economically worlds away from the 21st century in the West. Now an Israeli firm is working to close the gap by delivering technology.
Products to be developed at the newly created Eilat-Eilot (EE) Off Grid Hub will bring electricity, cooking fuel, and other benefits to the bottom fifth of the world’s population, who have for decades been waiting for a better life.
The technologies developed at the Off Grid Hub, said director Tomer Weinstein, will deliver that power in a much more efficiently — and cheaply — than the governments in those countries would be able to, even if they had the resources to do so, “which they largely don’t,” Weinstein told The Times of Israel.
IsraAID joins West Africa fight against Ebola
Despite reports that Israeli officials had turned down international requests to help combat Ebola in disease-stricken West Africa, an Israeli aid team was on the ground in Sierra Leone this week as part of a national task force offering support to both health workers and the general population.
IsraAID, an Israel-based international relief group with standing missions in South Sudan, Phillipines, and tsunami-struck Japan, plans to send 30 experts in PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) prevention and stress management to help combat the stigmatization of Ebola as well as the discrimination that both survivors and the families of victims are facing. Their project, called the Psycho-Social Support (PSS) training program, will be similar to models launched in Jordan and Bulgaria to help Syrian refugees and in South Korea to help escapees of the North Korean regime.
IsraAID has partnered with Sia Nyama Koroma, the first lady of Sierra Leone, as well as the ministries of Health and Social Welfare in the country. They plan to lead training seminars with local social workers and health care officials, teaching tactics to help prevent trauma, manage stress and cope with the emotional effects of the crisis.
Star Trek ‘tractor beam’ could be waves of the future
An Israeli-Australian collaboration study could change the way waves oscillate and use the new course to clean up pollution in the ocean. Prof. Gregory Falkovich of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Physics of Complex Systems Department worked together with the research group of Prof. Michael Shats of the National University of Australia, Canberra, to produce new powers previously witnessed in science fiction.
In nature, waves such as those in the ocean begin as local oscillations in the water that spread out, ripple fashion, from their point of origin. But fans of the television series Star Trek will recall a different sort of wave pattern: the tractor beam. Tractor beam technology, if it were to exist, would be based on waves that go in the opposite direction, converging from out in space onto the point of origin. In the show, the starship Enterprise would send out a tractor beam, like a cowboy’s lasso, to latch onto an object floating in space and pull it back toward the ship.
Falkovich and Shats recently showed that the idea may not be all science fiction.
Moses and Ramses Face Off in Official Trailer for Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus’ (VIDEO)
A new trailer for Ridley Scott’s upcoming film Exodus: Gods and Kings, released on Wednesday, shows the action-packed biblical story of Moses as he liberates the Israelites from slavery.
“I came to tell you that something is coming that is far beyond you and I. This is about Egypt’s survival, do you understand?” Christian Bale as Moses tells Joel Edgerton as Ramses in the clip. “Who has been telling you this?” replies Ramses. “God,” answers Moses.
The 20th Century Fox action drama tells the story of the Israelite leader who defied the Pharaoh Ramses by freeing 600,000 Hebrew slaves and leading them out of Egypt.
American Beauty Queens Travel to Israel
Eleven former beauty pageant winners from the United States are touring Israel to show their support for the Jewish nation, according to the Times of Israel.
According to an analysis of pictures from the trip, Israel is surely happy to play host for this trip and the girls are enjoying some of the best experiences that Israel has to offer.
The women on the trip included some of the most talented beauties the United States has to offer, including Susia Castillo, who won the Miss USA pageant in 2003.