From Ian:
Palestinian Terrorism Verdict Shatters Long-Held Myths and Illusions
The illusion is shattered. When confronted with claims of complicity in terror attacks, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) can no longer lift their hands and say in puzzlement, “Who, me?”
And what will the court ruling do?
First, it will help the Western world to understand that the long-held fiction that the Palestinians are not responsible for their actions must be discarded. He didn’t get many things right about the Middle East, but what Edward Said called the “orientalism” of the West—the treatment of Palestinians as children who did not know better—allowed the PA and PLO to duck from responsibility for terrorist acts carried out under their watch, and worse, with their supervision and/or material support.
Second, it should convince the US government that the victims must be allowed to collect their financial awards. If not out of the of the $400 million in US aid money sent annually to the PA, the reparations should come out of other assets of the PA in the US and assist the victims to reach PA money in Europe.
Third, hitting the PA hard—in the pocketbook—should force the Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, et al., to accept the fact that they cannot continue to pay terrorists sitting in prison or provide stipends to the families of murderers. More importantly, it might force the Palestinians living under their thumbs to say, once and for all time, “no” to the continued sponsorship and glorification of terrorists.
Katy Perry Visits Auschwitz, Warns Others to Learn from History
Pop singer Katy Perry took some time away from the music Wednesday to pay a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, where more than one million people were murdered in the Holocaust of the Second World War.
After performing in Krakow, Poland the night before, Perry shared her trip to the former Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camps with followers on Instagram.
“My heart was heavy today,” she said, before asking fans to let the site remain “a cry of despair and a warning to humanity.”
She also paraphased philosopher George Santayana, stating: “The one that does not remember history is bound to live through it again.”
Madonna: European intolerance ‘feels like Nazi Germany’
Rebounding from her stage tumble at the Brit awards, pop star Madonna told French radio Thursday that “intolerance” was now so high in France and Europe that “it feels like Nazi Germany.”
Speaking to Europe 1 radio in an interview to be aired Friday morning, Madonna said “anti-Semitism is at an all-time high” in France and elsewhere in Europe, and likened the current atmosphere to the period when German fascism was on the ascent.
“We’re living in crazy times. It feels like Nazi Germany,” the 56-year-old singer said, calling the situation “scary,” and lamenting what she described as France’s lost tradition of welcoming diversity and honoring freedom.
“It was a country that embraced everyone and encouraged freedom in every way, shape or form — artistic expression of freedom,” Madonna said. “Now that’s completely gone.
70 years since WWII - Amb. Prosor Addresses UNGA
"Seventy years ago, with the ashes of World War II still smoldering, the victors of the war came together to establish the UN and ensure that “Never Again” will not be a hollow promise.
Today the values at the very heart of this institution are being threatened by extremist ideologies that target our way of life. From West Africa to the Middle East, extremists group have unleashed a plague of persecution believing that by silencing individuals, they can silence civilization."
Use bookings.com for your next Gaza vacation
The Electronic Intifada's having a bit of a tantrum because bookings.com offers accommodations over the green line.
Interestingly enough, bookings.com also includes listings in that vacationers paradise, terror controlled Gaza. Electronic Intifada doesn't seem to care about that.
This beach chalet, listed on bookings.com is just meters from the Gaza beach and offers both a swimming pool and a jacuzzi, and manicured landscaping (just like the Warsaw ghetto)
IsraellyCool: George Galloway Humiliated On Twitter
It was supposed to help George Galloway in his re-election bid: a Q&A session on Twitter promoted by his buddies at Iran’s Press TV.
What transpired was a huge PR fail for Galloway.
Here are just a selection of the questions he received (including some from yours truly) (h/t Bob Knot)
Voice of Israel interview with Adam Levick addresses UK media bias and antisemitism
On Feb. 26, Voice of Israel host Judy Lash Balint sat down with Adam Levick for an in-studio interview. Levick discussed quite a few issues of concern to followers of this blog, including the connection between biased UK media coverage of Israel and the recent increase in antisemitic incidents in the UK.
You can learn more about this specific topic by attending a CAMERA sponsored conference in Jerusalem on March 1st titled ‘Framing Israel, Framing Jews‘. (Advance Registration is required)
Adam Levick, Managing Editor of UK Media Watch, on Voice of Israel
Said Says (Falsely): ‘Israel flooding Gaza with Waste Water’
Once again Said Arikat of the al Quds newspaper used the bully pulpit of the U.S. State Department briefing room to lobby for aid for the Palestinian Authority. But this time he also slandered Israel with an outright lie, stated as fact. And no one corrected him. Where is the voice of truth in the State Department press corps, let alone the State Department?
On Thursday, Feb. 26, Arikat artfully built on a lie that Israel intentionally flooded Gaza by opening dams in the region. That lie has been conclusively disproven – there are no such dams in southern Israel that could be opened to flood Gaza, even if Israel wanted to to that.
Perhaps sensing that some journalists or even the State Dept. Spokesperson herself might have learned that major media outlets such as AFP, MailOnLine and Yahoo! News had to pull their Israeli dam stories because they were proven false, Arikat reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out another (false and disproven, but older so maybe not so fresh in people’s minds) slander against Israel.
Arikat claimed that Israel was intentionally flooding Gaza “farmland” with waste water.
Rock, Paper, Scissors of PC Victimology
Muslim > gay, black > female, and everybody > the Jews
This is because in the progressive imagination, the perceived plight of Muslims now trumps the sufferings of all other groups. It is this conceit that goes the furthest in explaining President Obama’s remark to Vox earlier this month that the murder of four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris last month was “random,” and, when questioned on his use of that particular word to describe what was obviously a very deliberate assault, the efforts of two administration spokespersons to dig in their heels and insist that the attack had nothing to do with religion, either that of the victims or the assailants. Contra my Tablet colleague Yair Rosenberg, I do not buy the argument that the administration’s downplaying the anti-Semitic nature of the crime was the result of a stubborn refusal to admit an incident of presidential inarticulateness. As I’ve written elsewhere, more likely is it that the president and his administration are reluctant to draw much attention to anti-Semitism for the same reason they are reluctant to speak plainly about militant Islamism: They seek an accommodation with the Muslim world, where bigoted views about Jews are prevalent if not mainstream, and harping about anti-Semitism gets in the way of that all-consuming aspiration. The same goes for anti-Christian animus; see, for instance, the White House’s anodyne condemnation of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya last week, which made no mention of the reason why they were killed. As such, the president cannot let a discussion go by of the Islamic State (which, he insists, is “not Islamic”) without a reference to the Christian Crusades (“committed … in the name of Christ”) of five centuries ago.
So, true to form, after this month’s Copenhagen attack, a National Security Council statement made no mention of the fact that a Jewish institution had been targeted. Likewise, the New York Times article reporting on the events, while not mentioning the word “anti-Semitism” at all, was sure to note that “Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment is rising in Europe, and although there was no indication who was responsible for the shootings in Copenhagen, Twitter was ablaze with anti-Muslim indictments.” A follow-up story in the Times carried this preposterous headline, “Anger of suspect in Danish killings is seen as only loosely tied to Islam.”
If European Jews Must Live in Fear, Why Was Netanyahu Wrong?
A new Pew Research Center study shows that Jews were harassed or oppressed by their governments in 77 of the 198 countries covered by the survey. That includes a frightening total of 34 out of 45 countries in Europe. Yet the problem with accepting the reality of European anti-Semitism arises from a reluctance to place the blame for this prejudice on the haters rather than the victims.
One example came this week from “Science Guy” Bill Nye, the popular science educator and television star. On Bill Maher’s HBO show Real Time, Nye said that the problems of European Jews stem from their reluctance to make friends with those who hated them. Attacking Netanyahu’s Zionist stand, Nye said the answer was that Jews should do more “to get to know their neighbors,” as if the roots of centuries of European anti-Semitism was the unwillingness of the victims to undertake outreach to anti-Semites.
That was offensive enough, but an even better example of the mentality that tolerates this new wave of anti-Semitism came from a British Jews. Harry Potter Actress Miriam Margolyes told the Guardian, “I don’t think people like Jews” but blamed the current outbreak on Israel since it gave Britons an excuse to vent their true feelings because of anger about the Gaza war. Like most British artists Margolyes blamed Israel for defending itself against Hamas terrorism and said the backlash against Jews was therefore somehow understandable, if deplorable. Her stance was both uninformed and illogical but it reflects the attitudes of English and other European elites who have, in a strange confluence of opinion, come to share the prejudices of Muslim immigrants who have helped revive traditional Jew hatred on the continent.
U.S. Senate Introduces Resolution Condemning European Anti-Semitism
The United States Senate yesterday introduced a resolution authored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D – N.J.) condemning the rise of European anti-Semitism, The Times of Israel reported. The bipartisan measure was co-sponsored by 52 other senators.
The resolution notes that “an alarming increase in anti-Semitic attacks and incidents targeting Jewish institutions, places of worship, and individuals continue[s] to take place in Europe and remain[s] a challenge to stability and security.”
It calls on the US to work with its European counterparts to ensure that steps are taken to combat anti-Semitism, including “undertaking prompt, impartial, and effective investigations of any acts of violence motivated by anti-Semitism and fully prosecuting those responsible for such violence within the extent of the law”; cooperating on developing programs to counter violent extremists; integrating measures combating anti-Semitism into national action plans for the prevention of hate crimes and violence; convening regular consultations with the Jewish communities; and increasing cooperation on training initiatives related to hate crimes, particularly crimes motivated by anti-Semitism, for law enforcement personnel, and improving monitoring and reporting efforts.
Footage Shows Hyper Cacher Terrorist Kill Shopper After Victim Revealed He Was Jewish
Footage filmed by Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly during his killing spree inside the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in January shows him asking a customer his nationality before shooting him dead after the victim replies that he is Jewish, the BBC reported on Thursday, citing a transcript of the video obtained by the French website Le Nouvel Observateur.
In the 7-minute clip, Coulibaly asks the hostage what his origin is and when the man replies “Jewish,” Coulibaly kills him instantly. The gunman also shouts “Nobody move” before grabbing another customer, asking his name and then shooting him dead.
“So you know why I am here then. Allahu Akbar,” he yells in the footage, according to Le Nouvel Observateur.
Coulibaly goes on an antisemitic rant in the video and screams “Stand up or I’ll kill you” at the hostages. He also makes further antisemitic remarks in response to one woman who tries telling him the hostages are innocent, according to a transcript of the clip.
Charlie Hebdo riches fail to draw cartoonists
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is facing a drought of contributors just weeks after gunmen stormed its offices killing eight its writers and cartoonists, despite soaring distribution to 2.5m in the wake of an outpouring of public sympathy.
New editor Laurent Sourisseau has complained of difficulties in recruitment from cartoonists fearful of repercussions from association with the title with many asking ‘Will I have to come to the editorial conference? Do I have to sign under my real name?’
It comes amidst internal wrangling over the distribution of profits with surviving shareholders resisting employee calls for a cooperative. Sourisseau himself has a 40 per cent stake in the business.
Record sales saw 8m copies of its special Survivors Edition shifted, generating €12 million in sales. Subscriptions generated a further €3 million and donations topped €4.2 million – eclipsing the €5.2 million revenue generated throughout the whole of 2013.
Hebdo’s financial director, Eric Portheault, has said that all donations will be passed on to the families of victims with sales revenue used to pay for high-security office space.
Police Arrest Suspected Third Accomplice in Copenhagen Attacks
Danish police said they arrested Friday a third alleged accomplice in the Copenhagen shootings, nearly two weeks after the attacks that killed two people.
The suspect is "charged with complicity in the perpetrator's actions" and will appear before a judge on Saturday for a custody hearing, police said in a statement.
Two other men who allegedly helped Islamist gunman Omar El-Hussein were arrested shortly after the February 14 attacks and have been ordered to be detained until March 26.
El-Hussein was shot dead by police after his shooting spree that send fresh shockwaves across Europe after the Islamist attacks in Paris in January.
Danish imam to be charged in Germany for call to kill Jews
A Danish imam who called in Berlin for the killing of Zionist Jews will face criminal charges, German prosecutors said.
Abu Bilal Ismail will be charged in Germany for inciting to hate, Denmark’s TV2 News reported Wednesday.
The charges are connected to statements he made during his July 18 sermon at the Al-Nur mosque, Berlin prosecutors told TV2 News this week.
“Oh, Allah, destroy the Zionist Jews, they are no challenge for you,” Ismail, an imam from the Grimhoj Mosque in the city of Aarhus, was filmed saying during the sermon, according to a translation from Arabic prepared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI. “Count them and kill them to the very last one. Don’t spare a single one of them. Make them suffer terribly.”
Al Jazeera Journos Arrested For Buzzing Eiffel Tower With Drones
Three Al Jazeera journalists were arrested in Paris on Wednesday for illegally flying a drone in the city. French news agencies report that drones have appeared on several occasions in recent days above the Eiffel Tower and other Parisian monuments.
The Al Jazeera employees, all of whom are foreign nationals, were aged 36, 54 and 70, according to reports. Police officials said the employees of the Doha-based company were found flying a drone near the Bois de Boulogne woods in western Paris. Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, the Paris prosecutor’s office spokeswoman, said the motives of the journalists remain unclear.
Under French law, the journalists can face a maximum prison term of one year and an $85,000 dollar fine.
From Tuesday to Wednesday, police sighted at least one drone in the skies of Paris on five different occasions, all of which took place from 11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. local time. Another drone was spotted on Monday flying over the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
Judge rejects AMIA cover-up case against Argentine president
An Argentine judge dismissed the case against his country’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner for allegedly shielding Iranian officials from prosecution over the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center, judicial sources said Thursday.
Judge Daniel Rafecas said the documents filed by the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman failed to meet standards needed to open a formal court investigation.
“I dismiss the case because no crime was committed,” Rafecas said.
Prosecutors had sought to relaunch the case against Kirchner that was being brought by their late colleague Alberto Nisman, who died mysteriously last month after accusing Kirchner of protecting Iranians suspected of ordering the deadly bombing at the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association.
Yelling ‘Allahu Akbar!’ in a Crowded Movie Theater
On a busy Syrian street, members of al Qaeda held a Muslim woman captive. As part of their “street justice,” one man loudly proclaimed that she had gone against Allah by committing adultery. After five, long torturous minutes, he pulled a pistol and shot her dead. The entire group immediately began chanting “Allahu Akbar!”
In an Eastern Nigerian village, a group of Islamic terrorists gunned down more than 50 Christian children as they screamed “Allahu Akbar!”
In Paris, terrorists stormed the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and murdered 12 people while yelling “Allahu Akbar!”
Throughout Israel, almost every Muslim suicide bombing that took thousands of Jewish lives was preceded by the chant “Allahu Akbar!”
In today’s climate, it seems most reasonable that a small group of Jewish and pro-Israel students would feel threatened, and yes, terrorized, while walking between a gauntlet of students yelling “Allahu Akbar!”
The University of California system would not tolerate these actions by any group toward gays, Asians, women, or blacks, so the time has come to put an end to this pretense. The time for yelling “Allahu Akbar!” at demonstrations, school votes, pro-Israel rallies, or anywhere that is publicly funded has come and gone, just as yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater has.
ASUC Senate Passes Bill Condemning Anti-Semitism
On Wednesday, the Senate of The Associated Students of the University of California, also known as ASUC, unanimously passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and called for the ASUC to do a better job protecting Jews. The ASUC, the association of students at the University of California, Berkeley, is “the largest and most autonomous student association in the nation,” according to the organization’s website.
The bill, sponsored by Senator Ori Herschmann and co-sponsored by numerous campus leaders including ASUC President Pavan Upadhyayula, the Jewish Student Union, and fellow ASUC Senators condemned the campus anti-Semitism with a 20-0 vote. The bill, which lists the many anti-Semitic acts in the UC system over the past five years, adopts the US State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism as the official description for the ASUC, creates an ASUC committee to challenge anti-Semitism, and calls for a meeting with Chancellor Dirks of UC Berkeley and the Dean of Students.
Herschmann stated, “As a brother of AEPi, I saw the horrible anti-Semitic actions that occurred at our UC Davis chapter where swastikas were spray-painted on their house as well as discrimination against a Jewish student within the UCLA student government. It’s extremely important for the ASUC and student governments alike to actively fight anti-Semitism and make sure all Jewish students feel safe on campus.”
Liberty University Student Government Disavows Anti-Israel BDS Legislation
The student government at Virginia’s Liberty University on Tuesday passed an amendment to its constitution that forbids legislation supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
The amendment to the constitution declared that Liberty’s student government “will not entertain BDS legislation targeted at the Israeli state, or its people, or legislation of similar intent.”
Liberty University senior Chelsea Andrews—a pro-Israel student activist with CUFI on Campus, the school’s division of the Christian Zionist organization Christians United for Israel—led the effort to pass the anti-BDS amendment.
“At Liberty University we stand with Israel, because as Christians, as Americans, and as individuals focused on freedom and human rights, there is no alternative,” Andrews said after the amendment passed. “I hope that other students will see what LU has done and follow suit. Across the country we’ve seen BDS repeatedly rear its ugly head. That stops now.”
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid disbands
Palestinian rights group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is shutting itself down after seven years of activism and controversy.
Tim McCaskell, one of the group’s organizers, announced in a news release Thursday that QuAIA will “officially retire” at the end of this month.
The group educated Canadians about the Israeli “occupation”, popularized the terms “Israeli apartheid” and “pinkwashing” and inspired QuAIA groups in queer communities around the world,” he said.
But deteriorating Middle East conditions and Canada’s attempts to “suppress” boycott, divestment and sanction efforts “pulled activist energies in many directions,” and QuAIA members to other groups and cities.
“It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” McCaskell said. “But we decided that retiring QuAIA allows us all to develop new strategies for supporting the Palestine solidarity movement and to make new links across oppressions in our communities.”
Avi Benlolo, chief executive of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, and a past critic of what he called a “fringe group”, welcomed QuAIA’s decision but doubted the stated reason.
“It’s quite obvious that they would lose momentum,” Benlolo said.” With extremist massacres in Syria, ISIS going around cutting people’s heads off, Iran executing gays ... why would anybody be going after Israel with its pride parades in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?”
Muslim preacher who called homosexuality a 'scourge' to speak at university a day before gay pride event
A controversial preacher who described homosexuality as a “scourge” has been invited to speak at a London university the day before a national gay pride event takes place there.
More than 500 people have signed a petition against allowing Haitham al-Haddad to speak at the University of Westminster’s Islamic Society [Jihad Johns alma mater] event on Thursday.
Dr al-Haddad has called homosexuality a “criminal act”, as well as saying there is a “proper” way of performing FGM. He has also argued that the authorities should not become involved in domestic disputes, saying: “A man should not be questioned why he hit his wife, because this is something between them.”
His appearance as keynote speaker at an event called “Who is Muhammad” comes the day before the National Student Pride Festival is launched at the university.
IsraellyCool: Roger Waters Accused Of Illegal Land Grab
Fresh from being owned by fellow rocker Alan Parsons, Rock’n’roll BDShole Roger Waters is again in the news, this time for being accused of – wait for it – engaging in a land grab!
If good fences make good neighbors, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame needs to put another brick in the wall — the wall he should build around his property in the Hamptons, that is.
The legendary British rocker has been at war for three years over a right-of-way that gives his neighbors on Quimby Lane access to Sag Pond.
The trouble started when Ben Krupinski, the contractor hired by Waters and his beautiful wife, Laura Durning, began building a 14,000-square-foot house with a swimming pool, a pool house and a sunken tennis court.
Krupinski started driving trucks and bulldozers down the right-of-way, so neighbors put a chain across the lane. But Krupinski tore down the chain and paved the right-of-way, turning it into Waters’ driveway.
“Welcome to Gaza” – Banksy’s anti-Israel video
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Banksy’s video is not so much what it states but the content it leaves out. There is a complete absence of any reference to Hamas, rocket and mortar attacks, Islamist terrorism perpetuated against Israeli civilians etc. In other words, the video provides zero context. There is only space for poignant images of Arabs living in a bomb damaged environment, and apparent instances of Israeli oppression and aggression.
The video’s absolutist dichotomy is reinforced by a total absence of images or footage that includes Hamas. The viewer is not any wiser about Gaza’s governance. In fact, without explanation, the video features a scene of heavily armed IDF soldiers, with the words “The locals like it so much they never leave (because they’re not allowed to)”. However, the video footage of the soldiers appears to have been shot in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), because the security barrier is shown in the background. The inclusion of such content may lead to the viewer to believe that Gaza is still occupied by Israel.
By implication, Banksy casts Hamas as powerless, when he wrote “of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless…” This is a normative claim by anti-Israel activists, who excuse Hamas’ belligerency, incitement, and terrorism against a civilian populace which it desires to see exterminated.
Perhaps Banksy should ask which party truly tyrannises the Gazan populace? Could it be an Islamist regime that no longer constitutes the territory’s legitimately elected representatives, that puts its people in harms way to continue its belligerency at all costs, to be used as fodder in intensive anti-Israel propaganda?
Other than shady motivations, what could possibly prompt omissions of Hamas from this narrative?
The Human Stain of Moral Preening
Responsible journalist that he is, Kristof concedes “far worse human rights abuses in the Middle East” than those committed against two Palestinian farmers by evil settlers. He recognizes that at “a time when Saudi Arabia is flogging dissidents, Egypt is sentencing them to death, and Syria is bombing them,” Israel “should stand as a model.” But not for Kristof. The only democratic country in the Middle East, indeed by his own acknowledgment “the nation in which Arab citizens have the most meaningful vote,” is the morally flawed Jewish state. Curiously, his enumeration of Arab misdeeds omits the forbidden phrase in liberal circles emanating from the White House: “Islamist terrorists.” There is no mention of ISIS, ISIL, al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra, Boko Haram, Hamas and Hezbollah, or other “folks” (in the current lexicon) who commit daily atrocities against innocents.
But Kristof finds Israel’s “occupation” (of its biblical homeland, no less) to be “particularly offensive.” Why? Because “it is conducted by the United States’ ally, underwritten with our tax dollars, supported by tax-deductible contributions to settlement groups, and carried out by American bulldozers and weaponry, and presided over by a prime minister who is scheduled to speak to Congress next week.” It is, in sum, all Netanyahu’s fault (and mine, since I contribute a small sum annually to The Hebron Fund).
If only Israel did not “squander” its political capital and “antagonize” friends “with its naked land grab in the West Bank,” it might reach his noble standard of moral purity. Perhaps, Kristof suggests, the Prime Minister might discuss such abuses in his forthcoming address to Congress. I have a better idea: perhaps Mr. Netanyahu will remind Israel’s professed American friends (like Nicholas Kristof) that Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) comprise the biblical homeland of the Jewish people, where Jewish history was forged millennia before self-righteous New York Times pundits offered Israeli prime ministers moral guidance.
The Guardian continues to mislead on cause of Palestinian deaths at UN school
Additionally, IDF spokesman Peter Lerner told reporters that the IDF had returned fired at Hamas targets (which were stationed near the school) on the day in question, and that one of the errant tank mortars landed in the school courtyard, “injuring no one“. Lerner said it was “extremely unlikely” that anyone had been killed by the mortar round that fell in the empty yard.
Further, as CAMERA has previously noted, numerous news reporters, as well as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have acknowledged that the circumstances behind the July 24th incident were unclear.
However, not only did the Guardian fail to report this evidence at the time, but they continue to publish articles and photo stories about the summer war which falsely suggest that Israel’s guilt is firmly established.
BBC’s Lyse Doucet does ‘reporter in the rubble’ redux – part two
Not only does Doucet fail to clarify to viewers that the Gaza Strip has not been under “occupation” since August 2005, she makes no effort to correct the inaccurate impression received by audiences as a result of Hamad’s lies.
In January 2015 alone, 15,205 tons of construction materials were imported into the Gaza Strip. Since the end of the conflict, 50,000 tons of building materials have entered the Strip and more than 42,000 residents have purchased them. 804 tons of agricultural produce were exported from the Gaza Strip to the PA controlled areas in January, bringing the total tonnage of merchandise exported to that destination since September 2014 to 2,130. 11,826 people crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip in January alone – 2,038 of them for humanitarian reasons. 3,054 tons of gas entered the Gaza Strip during January, along with 1.8 million litres of fuel, 6.8 million litres of gasoline and 76,000 litres of oil.
Doucet continues:
“But there are reports – credible reports – that Hamas is again digging tunnels, that Hamas has been test-firing missiles in preparation for the next war.”
Hamad: “Look, I think this time – that’s right – but I think that Hamas is doing this in order to protect our people here. We don’t want to be surprised with a new war – a new aggression against us.”
In addition to displaying no interest whatsoever in questioning Hamad about where the money and materials for rehabilitation of Hamas’ military capabilities are coming from and why Hamas is doing nothing to improve the lives of the ordinary people it holds hostage, Doucet also makes no attempt to enlighten viewers with regard to the fact that Hamad’s faux victimhood is mere propaganda. Instead of pointing out that Hamas initiated last summer’s conflict she closes with yet more drama and unsupported speculations.
Swastika posters on California house enrage neighbors
A Northern California man’s display of poster-size swastikas outside his Sacramento house is upsetting some neighbors and state lawmakers, who plan to call on him to remove them.
The symbols used by German Nazis in World War II replace stars in one American and two Israeli flags. There is also a Palestinian flag and a statue made of wood of a figure raising its arms and dressed in army green. The display also includes Christmas lights to illuminate it at night.
Sacramento Police Spokesman Officer Justin Brown said Wednesday police received a call about the house in the River Park neighborhood on Monday and after doing a welfare check found there were no reportable crimes.
“We haven’t received any other complaints,” Brown said.
Democratic Sen. Marty Block of San Diego said a news conference with lawmakers, veterans and community leaders will be held Thursday to call on the house owner to voluntarily remove the swastikas.
What’s in that drink? Futuristic device lets you find out
Before buying fruit at the greengrocer, steak at the butcher or a nutritional supplement at the pharmacy, imagine taking a gadget out of your pocket, aiming it at the item and instantly seeing its quality, ripeness and nutritional value, plus a whole lot more data hidden at the molecular level.
That is about to happen. Come July, the Israeli company Consumer Physics will start shipping preorders of its futuristic SCiO, the world’s first consumer-grade molecular sensor.
The sensor, a tiny spectrometer, allows you to get instant relevant information about the chemical make-up of just about everything around you, from foods to plants, medicines, diamonds and more, sent directly to your smartphone.
“In the last 10 years or so, we’ve all gotten used to having an instant ‘search button’ in our pocket that lets us know where we are on a map, book a table at a restaurant, listen to a song in a different language and buy it and translate it,” says Consumer Physics cofounder Dror Sharon, who describes his position as “CEO and Chief Happiness Officer.”
“The power in our pockets is phenomenal, but one piece is missing, and that’s information about the things in our physical world – everything from food to medicine to fuel. That’s the basic need we’re trying to answer.”
Predicting where to park? Israel’s got an app for that
With the parking industry worth $25 billion a year in the United States and more than twice that in western Europe, it's no surprise that high-tech firms are scrambling to come up with clever ways to make the process quicker and easier.
In Britain, JustPark provides a mobile app that enables users to rent people's private parking spaces.
In the United States, SpotHero and ParkWhiz allow users to find paid parking areas or book places in advance. German carmaker BMW has been trialing a similar service called ParkNow.
But Israeli companies are taking a different approach to the problem: predicting where parking spaces can be found based on mobile data analytics.
Anagog, a Tel Aviv-based firm, has developed an app that can guide drivers to empty on-street parking using real-time, crowd-sourced data from mobile phones, similar to what another Israeli app, Waze, has successfully done with navigation. Waze was bought by Google in 2013 for $1 billion.
Anagog's software learns personal behavior and knows whether a user is getting into a car or starting to drive away, freeing up a place.
New study findings could improve targeted chemo drug delivery
A new Israeli-American study reveals that silicon nanomaterials for localized delivery chemotherapeutics behave differently in cancerous tumors than they do in healthy tissues.
The findings from the joint study by the Technion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard Medical School could improve targeted chemo drug delivery.
“We have shown for the first time that biomaterials in general, and nanostructured porous silicon in particular, behave differently when they are injected (or implanted) at the tumor microenvironment,” said Professor Ester Segal, who heads the Technion group that led the study. “Over the last few years we successfully engineered silicon to be used as a carrier of anticancer drugs that releases its contents in a controlled manner, and now we have focused on the degradation mechanism of the silicon at the diseased tissue.”
Tim Cook: Apple’s Herzliya R&D center second-largest in world
Cook, who was in Israel to inaugurate Apple’s new R&D center in Herzliya, touched on a number of major issues that concern both Israel and Apple — including environmental matters, education, diversity, and even Israeli Arabs.
That last issue was highlighted not by Cook himself, but by Johny Srouji, who accompanied his boss on the trip. Srouji — vice president for hardware technology — is an Israeli Arab who hails from Haifa. Before joining Apple in 2008 to head its chip-development team, Srouji worked at Intel and IBM, after graduating from the Technion.
For Rivlin, Srouji’s ascent to one of the top tech positions in the world was a harbinger of what the government hopes will be a wave of similar accomplishments by people just like Srouji — Israeli Arabs educated in technology disciplines, working at the 300-some multinationals that have R&D and other facilities in Israel.
“Imagine what the world would be like with another five ‘Johny Sroujis,’” said Rivlin. “We are proud of him and all he has achieved.” To which Cook added, “When you find those five Sroujis, let me know where they are.”
The Times of Israel- Telling Israel's Story