From Ian:
'Ancient Arab Susiya' - The Town That Never Was
The Palestinian Authority, with direct financing of the European Union and blind acceptance of lies as facts by media, is swallowing up the southern Hevron Hills, a huge area between Kiryat Arba-Hevron and Arad-Be'er Sheva.
The latest chapter in the Palestinian Authority's re-invention of history is taking place in Susiya (pronounced "Soos-eeya") located two miles from the old borders of Israel, on the western edge of the Judean Desert that leads to the Dead Sea, and less than half an hour from Be'er Sheva, the capital of the Negev.
The Arab strategy: An Arab family erects a tent, illegally, near the archaeological site of the ancient town of Susiya. As time passes, the tent becomes a makeshift structure, which expands into several structures. With the support of extreme left-wing activists, the 'ancient' town of 'Palestinian Susiya' is invented, reported the Tazpit News Agency.
"This makes for a great human interest story, but for one setback — the 'ancient Palestinian Susiya' never existed. It shows up on no records," Tazpit wrote.
Yigal Dilmoni, deputy director-general of the Yesha Council, told Tazpit, "Fifteen-year-old [i.e., 1998—ed] aerial photos clearly show that there was no Arab village at this site ... The Arabs have come for the village of Yatta, and ... repeatedly disseminate lies."
[Back in June 2013], the Civil Lands Authority issued approximately 40 stop-work orders against projects funded by the European Union and intended to firm up Palestinian Authority claims to land where they never lived until Jews came to the area in 1983.
In that year, for the first time in 1,500 years, Jews began living in the southern Hevron Hills, setting up a community in nearby Beit Yatir, two miles to the south, and in Susiya, where the old Jewish town existed until approximately the 6th century.
The Truth on Susiya
NGO Monitor: European-funded NGOs and the Susya Narrative
Khirbet Susiya (Susya) is a small Arab village in the South Hebron Hills. There are widely divergent narratives regarding the village and its history; according to Israeli authorities, the village’s structures have been illegally built. A protracted court battle ensued regarding the demolition of the village.
The Israeli Supreme Court recently cleared the legal barriers to demolition, on the grounds that the structures were constructed illegally, entirely without permits or approved plans. (Under the Oslo framework, Israel is responsible for planning and construction in Area C, which is where Susya is located.)
A number of governments, including the U.S. and European governments, are lobbying the Israeli government to prevent the demolition. In June, “a delegation of all European Union heads of missions to the Palestinian Authority visited Susya, accompanied by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.”
As with many such contentious issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, many NGOs are active in promoting the Palestinian narrative, which is then repeated by the European and U.S. officials. These NGOs are themselves heavily subsidized by European and U.S. entities. (h/t Bob Knot)
International court may not reopen flotilla case, prosecutor says
The International Criminal Court will not necessarily open an investigation into the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, despite a pretrial chamber ordering the prosecutor last week to reconsider her decision to close her initial probe into the case, the court’s chief prosecutor said Tuesday.
“The decision on whether to open an investigation depends on the facts and circumstances of each situation,” said Fatou Bensouda. “We are carefully studying the decision and will decide on the next steps in due course.”
In an email exchange with The Times of Israel, the Gambian-born Bensouda said she was aware of the United Nations Human Rights Council report on last year’s Gaza war and would consider “all credible and reliable sources of information.”
At the same time, she promised to conduct her own “independent analysis” of the controversial report.
Italian PM in Knesset: Supporters of 'stupid' boycotts betray their own future
[PM] Renzi referred to his own excitement at visiting Jerusalem in what he called a "secular pilgrimage."
"People from around the world make pilgrimages to Jerusalem and pray for peace in it," Renzi said, "but it is not enough to pray for peace in Jerusalem; we must build peace."
The Italian Prime Minister called for a two-state solution with security for both sides, and said the Palestinians must recognize the Jewish People's right to a state in its homeland.
That right, he said, "does not exist because of the world's generosity after the Holocaust. Israel existed hundreds of years before. It exists despite the Holocaust and it will continue to exist with the support of its friends in Europe and the world.
"You do not only have the right to exist, you must exist and live for the future of your children and mine. You are a fulcrum of the world and we will stand with you," he stated.
Renzi talked about a global war against terrorism, barbarism and violent extremism.
"I have no doubt which side you are on. We will not stop fighting, together with you, on the right side, together with the US and the UN and Russia...and Arab states like Egypt and Jordan, led by great statesmen who want to bring us to peace and stability," he said.
As for the world powers' agreement with Iran, Renzi said Italy thinks the deal "can be a compromise that will help decrease instability in the region."
"We can argue and may not agree about the compromise on the Iranian matter, but we will never compromise when it comes to the future of Israel. Your security is our security," he vowed.
Renzi also came out against boycotts of Israel, saying: "Whoever thinks to boycott Israel does not understand that he is harming himself and betraying his future. Italy will always stand for cooperation and never for boycotts, which are stupid and futile."
PM: Israel Is Being Tried in Global Kangaroo Court
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the Knesset Wednesday in honor of visiting Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, and said that Israel is being accused by the world despite having committed no crime.
"We are not without mistakes, but when we are painted as the source of evil in the world, that is a blatant lie that conjures up clear memories from the past,” Netanyahu said.
"The attitude of the new anti-Semites is a direct continuation of the blood libels and the anti-Semitism throughout the ages. Jews were always falsely tried, throughout history. The Jewish state is on trial in a kangaroo court, and the results are known in advance, in some of the world's nations."
However, the PM emphasized, a key difference today is that with the State of Israel Jews now have the ability to protect themselves against their accusers.
"Now we have the strength to resist those who wish us ill, to disprove the lies that are being told about us and to make pacts with enlightened nations like yours, against the lie and for the truth,” he told his Italian guest.
The New Special Relationship: The British Conservative Party and Israel
Once suspicion, mistrust and the occasional dose of establishment Arabism and anti-Semitism were the norm when considering British Conservative Party attitudes to the State of Israel. Today, such attitudes have been replaced by an embrace that is so warm it has caused more than once critic of Israel to write disparagingly about it.
In part, this changing state of affairs reflects a more general realignment of political attitudes globally. Parties of the Left which once championed Israel as a kibbutz-dwelling, socialist, fellow traveller have come to consider it in more nuanced terms, particularly when considering Israeli-Palestinian relations and the vexed question of settlements. In its most extreme form, such former friends of Israel can be found giving tacit and active support to the slurs of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement globally. Meanwhile, parties of the Right which used to sneer disparagingly at the Jewish state have, broadly, come to see it as an ally, surviving in a tough neighbourhood that does not have much love for the West, facing shared threats. But the British case has particular factors which warrant examination if we are to explain why the Conservative Party – and in particular the pronouncements of Prime Minister David Cameron – can now be seen as the most pro-Israel in Europe.
It was not always this way. The philo-Semitism and Christian Zionism of Conservative leaders in the early 20th Century such as Arthur Balfour – whose famous 1917 declaration promised British support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine – and Winston Churchill may have been well known, but many of their counterparts held very different views. Future Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan typified Conservative establishment positions with his suggestion to a friend during the Versailles peace talks at the end of the First World War that Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s government was not ‘really popular, except with the International Jew.’ Showing that his antipathy – to Jews at least – was lifelong, Macmillan was widely attributed as the source of a quip in 1986 that Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet ‘includes more Old Estonians than it does Old Etonians.’
When Israel faced its darkest hour in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, it was Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath who not only imposed an arms embargo on Israel but denied permission to US planes resupplying Israel to refuel in the UK, even though the Soviet Union was supplying the Arab combatants. It was recognition of how low relations had sunk that led to the formation of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) by the former MP Michael Fidler in 1974, the Labour Party having boasted a similar grouping since 1957. From such inauspicious beginnings, CFI has played a major role in educating Conservative politicians about Israel, first under Fidler and then current Director Stuart Polak, with 80 per cent of Conservative MPs now reckoned to be members of CFI’s parliamentary Group.
Manchester’s Gaza War: One Year On
2014 was also the year when a number of Westminster politicians threw their weight behind the anti-Israel campaign. The Conservative Party’s Baroness Warsi chose to resign her job as Foreign Office minister the day after a ceasefire came into place. She claimed that her government’s even-handed approach to the Israeli-Gaza crisis was “morally indefensible and not in Britain’s interests.” It’s a pity she didn’t resign in 2013 when the same government failed to take action after Assad gassed his fellow Syrians.
On the Labour side, Jack Straw, the lamentable foreign secretary during the Iraq war in which more than 100,000 people were killed, referred to Israel’s war in Gaza as an “unspeakable horror.” And in a transparent (but failed) attempt to shore up the left-wing and Muslim vote, the then Labour leader Ed Miliband condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “wrong and unjustifiable.” Luckily, Miliband was beaten to the post of Prime Minister by the pro-Israel David Cameron.
Unsurprisingly, the British media were deeply offended by Israel’s strength of purpose. Most of the newspapers, along with broadcasters like the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky, failed to report the facts, preferring to take statements by Hamas as gospel truth. The Times refused to run an advert that criticised Hamas’ use of children as human shields in case readers were offended. The macabre obsession with the death toll in Gaza (combined with the media’s "inability" to explain why the Israeli death toll was comparatively low) fuelled the belief that Israelis were acting without restraint.
But it was events in England’s second city of Manchester that came to symbolise the plight of British Jewry. (Greater Manchester is home to the fastest growing Jewish community in Europe and is the largest in the UK after London.) Manchester’s Gaza conflict centred on a small Anglo-Israeli cosmetics shop called Kedem. It is a store that sells soap and exfoliating cream made from minerals extracted from the Israeli side of the Dead Sea. Kedem is not a political shop. It is a registered British company, paying UK taxes. It is not a front for the Israeli government as some idiots believe. However, Kedem became the focus of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
When the protests first started, the shop was forced to shut for four days. But a large contingent of Israel supporters (including this writer) came to the rescue. Day after day, week after week, Manchester’s Jewish community turned out to support the shop and to oppose the pro-Palestinian protesters. We tried very hard to highlight the hypocrisy of the boycotters. It is all too easy to boycott a little shop that sells soap, we argued, but why didn’t the Hamas supporters discard their USB flash drives and instant messaging software that are the products of Israeli innovation? Don’t use Google, we said, because Google uses an advanced text search algorithm invented by an Israeli student.
Ben-Dror Yemini: Just another anti-Israel educational conference
The Education International 7th World Congress opened in Ottawa, Canada on Monday, and like in almost every congress of this kind, some of the discussions – and sometimes the main discussions – aren't dealing with education, but with incitement against one country in the world: Israel, who else?
These bodies have an automatic majority of dark countries. And the darker they are, the more blatant their anti-Israel sentiments. The only meaning of the "rights discourse" in these kinds of congresses is to throw false accusations at Israel. And so, representatives of educational systems and teachers' organizations, who are in charge of obeying oppressive regimes, unite to preach morals to a state which also has school principals who are radical left-wing activists.
The problem is that dark countries are not the only ones raising dark proposals. The English representatives, for example, also raised a radical anti-Israel proposal.
As part of the preliminary discussions, the Israeli Teachers Union succeeded in removing some of the hostile clauses, and it should be praised for that, but it turns out that the proposal which will be submitted to the congress will include, for example, a clause stating that "the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the existence of illegal Israeli settlements there and their impact on the lives of Palestinians, including access to water along with the siege of Gaza, impose severe constraints on the potential for Palestinian economic and social development."
As opposed to media reports, the Israeli Teachers Union says it did not agree to the settlement clause.
Compilation of videos from PMW report on PA education
Hamas congratulates ‘Palestinian Return Centre’ for winning UN status
Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh congratulated the Palestinian Return Centre for winning UN status and “stressed the vital role played by the PRC in the legal and political arena,” revealed Israeli representative David Roet, during Monday’s debate at the UN ahead of the vote.
The information undermines PRC’s strenuous denials that it has any ties to Hamas.
The conversation occurred last month after the PRC won first approval by a UN committee, which was confirmed on Monday by the 54-nation Economic and Social Council.
Israel statement on PRC in ECOSOC
“PRC is not just simply affiliated with Hamas, but is an essential part of the Hamas network in Europe. Allowing such an organization to gain access to the UN will set a dangerous precedent, which if not handled correctly, would pave the way for other terror affiliated organizations to the UN. Don’t be surprised if tomorrow Jabhat Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda and ISIS will also apply for consultative status.”
Yesterday, the Palestinians Return Centre was granted a consultative status at the UN, despite objections by Israel, the US, Canada and Australia as well as several other countries.
Israel’s Deputy Permanent representative, David Roet, made a statement prior to the vote.
Deputy foreign minister warns Europe to stop funding left-wing groups
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has warned representatives of the European Union that Jerusalem may make their countries’ funding of left-wing NGOs illegal, according to a Tuesday report.
European governments have contributed between 100-200 million euros to groups, Hotovely said, that actively “work to blacken Israel’s name in the world, accuse it of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and war crimes.”
Some of these groups, Hotovely claimed, even contribute funds to terror groups.
B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Coalition of Women for Peace are among the organizations that Hotovely fingered for getting support from foreign governments.
In a series of meetings with foreign ministers, deputy foreign ministers and ambassadors, Hotovely told the EU diplomats that Israel will not accept the funding of groups that question the legitimacy of the State of Israel, that work toward the Palestinian right of return to pre-67 borders or that slander IDF soldiers, Ynet news reported Tuesday.
If the countries do not stop funding these groups voluntarily, Hotovely warned, the government may put an end to it through legislation.
Corbyn slams Israel at JW3; Admits he met Hamas.
Jeremy Corbyn laid into Israel at the Labour Leadership hustings at JW3 on Monday night and admitted he met Hamas but said “you have to have talks with everybody to bring about a long term settlement”.
In that case when will he meet Islamic State?
Corbyn claimed Israel had “put Gaza under siege” and that there were “serious issues concerning the bombardment of Gaza, the failure to reconstruct Gaza, the level of poverty and unemployment that exists in Gaza and there are also questions of children held in Israeli prisons. And there are also questions of the number of African refugees that are not being allowed into Israel and that are being deported from Israel.”
Children in Israeli prisons? For anti-Israel activists a “child” is anyone under 18 and these “children” may have thrown stones at a car with intent to murder its occupants, so they are not necessarily as angelic as Corbyn seems to imply.
Corbyn said he supported an arms boycott of Israel and a boycott of settlement products but said he did not support an academic boycott or an economic boycott of “Israel proper”.
On the issue of calling Hezbollah and Hamas “friends” at a House of Commons event Corbyn claimed he was just being “inclusive” but said that didn’t mean he agreed with the “social attitudes, social policies or legal views of those organisations” and claimed he has made that clear to them when he has met them.
He was also asked whether he would withdraw his support for the Stop The War Coalition due to its sponsorship of the Al Quds Day annual demonstration through London where Hezbollah flags are waved and which is a festival of hatred. Corbyn replied that it is “not designed to be a festival of hatred”.
Jeremy Corbyn perpetuates the myth of “settler only roads” in the West Bank
If some within the UK Jewish community thought that Jeremy Corbyn would use the Labour Party hustings on Monday night at JW3 to clarify his positions on terrorism and Israel, they were sadly mistaken. When given the opportunity, he failed to substantively walk back his previous expressions of sympathy for Hamas (and other terror groups), came out in support of an arms embargo against Israel, a boycott of the settlements and engaged in a diatribe about Israel’s “oppressive” policies towards Gaza.
Not once did he call out Hamas for their antisemitic incitement or their continuing practice of siphoning off of humanitarian aid for terror activity. Nor did he hold the group’s extremist leaders even minimally responsible for their oppressive policies against Palestinians.
Further, he found time to engage in the following false charge.
Though this claim didn’t elicit the audible gasp in the largely Jewish audience heard at JW3 when most thought Corbyn claimed that Jews in government “imposed” the Balfour Declaration, those familiar with the issue would have recognized it as the smear that it is.
In fact, as CAMERA has demonstrated repeatedly, there have never been “settler only roads” or “Jewish only roads” anywhere in the West Bank.
After EU labeling of West Bank goods, paper proposes banking steps on Israel
European diplomats have long said that labeling is only the first in a series of steps the EU could take against Israel over its settlements policy, one that in financial terms is expected to have a relatively minor impact on the Israeli economy.
But the new proposals would go much deeper and further, reaching into banking, loans and mortgages, qualifications earned in settlement institutions and the tax-exempt status of European charities that deal with Israeli settlements.
"Under its own regulations and principles, Europe cannot legally escape from its duty to differentiate between Israel and its activities in the... Palestinian territories," says the report, titled 'EU Differentiation and Israeli Settlements'.
The authors argue that by pushing much further to separate the EU's dealings with Israel from the settlements, it will force Israel to decide what sort of relationship it wants with Europe and in turn encourage it to return to talks with the Palestinians on a two-state solution to the conflict.
ISRAEL REACTION
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alon Lavi stressed that the proposals are coming from a European think tank, and not from the European Union.
“We have no intention to respond to a research paper from one research institute or another,” Lavi said.
The web-site of the European Council of Foreign Relations lists under its experts category three people who deal with Israel, one of whom is Dimi Reider, who writes as well for the hard left +972 Magazine. Left wing analyst Daniel Levy, one of the founders of J Street, is also a part of this think tank.
This is not the first time that organization has published a paper calling on the EU to take a more confrontational stance toward Israel, doing so as well in a report in 2013.
PreOccupied Territory: Israelis Puzzled That EU Thinks Anyone Can Get A Mortgage These Days (satire)
A European think tank recommended that the European Union adopt sanctions against Israeli banks that provide mortgages for Israelis to acquire property in East Jerusalem, prompting Israelis to wonder how anyone could think it possible for a family to secure a mortgage nowadays in the first place.
The group recommended that the EU enforce its policy on East Jerusalem and other areas it considers occupied by Israel as a method of pressuring the Jewish State into relinquishing its claim on the whole of the city, the eastern portion of which it captured from Jordan in 1967 and immediately annexed. Israel maintains Jerusalem as its capital, but no countries keep an embassy there, and none have recognized Israeli sovereignty in the areas previously occupied by Jordan. By agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the final status of Jerusalem is to be determined through negotiations between the PLO and Israel, but many EU member states have openly sided with the Palestinians and have expressed willingness to pressure Israel into various concessions. However, Israelis voiced confusion today after the recommendation was reported, as no one seems to be able to secure a mortgage anyway, or knows anyone who has.
“I’m not entirely sure what those people think is happening here, financially,” said Kfar Sava native Hayim Baadom, 36. “Everyone I know is lucky if he can get through a month without sinking further into checking account overdraft – do they think Israelis have the financial soundness that would prompt a bank to extend them decades worth of credit? What planet are they on?” The father of three, who holds down two jobs while his wife works part time, has had to defer the dream of home ownership repeatedly since getting married nine years ago, and now does not believe he will ever achieve it.
Shaked panel seeks to regulate status of settlement lands
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked on Tuesday announced the establishment of a committee to regulate the status of lands within Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The move was agreed upon during coalition talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Shaked’s Jewish Home.
The panel, which is due to begin work in the coming days, will be headed by Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit. Other members include Director-General of the Agriculture Ministry Shlomo Ben Eliyahu and the Defense Ministry’s legal adviser, Ahaz Ben-Ari.
Shaked, whose party supports West Bank settlement construction, said that the committee aimed to reassure settlement residents over doubts about the status of their homes, which she said were caused by confused and changing policies regarding the lands on which they were built.
“There are many areas in Judea and Samaria [West Bank] where the status is unregulated,” Shaked said. “The time has come to dispel the legal fog and to enable the residents of Judea and Samaria — most of them in settlements set up by generations of Israeli governments — to stop worrying about the constant threat to the very ownership of their homes.”
The panel intends to make recommendations to the government to formally regulate the status of lands within settlements, Shaked said.
NGO Monitor: NGO Statements to the 29th Session of the UNHRC
During the 29th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC—June 15- July 3, 2015) one of the central topics of discussion was “the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry [COI] on the 2014 Gaza conflict.” The COI’s report was initially headed by William Schabas and then taken over by Mary McGowan Davis after the former’s resignation over his undisclosed paid work for the PLO.
On June 29 the topic was presented to the Council, where a number of highly active political advocacy NGOs submitted oral and written statements, accusing Israel of “intentionally targeting the civilian population,” “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,” “systematic human rights violations,” and “unlawful policies of impunity.” The statements also called for states to adopt BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) measures against Israel and echoed the “Commissioners’ support of international justice mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court [ICC].” The vast majority of the statements altogether omitted the numerous war crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups against Israeli civilians.
These same groups, which receive extensive funding from European governments, had been highly instrumental in initiating calls for the UN to conduct a “fact-finding” investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes during the conflict. This foreign funding enables them to disseminate baseless and unverifiable allegations.
In fact, a number of the NGOs received “emergency funding” from the Human Rights and International Law Secretariat (joint funding from Sweden Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands) for use in documenting “large scale violations of human rights and international humanitarian law – the majority against Palestinian civilians and civilian objects” in Gaza. The purpose of this emergency funding was to support “current and future documentation and investigation efforts by CSOs [civil society organizations] for the purposes of assisting and supporting national and international mechanisms” such as the UNHRC’s investigation and the campaign to open cases against Israelis in the ICC.
BBC Panorama Goes Off the Rails
In an alternate universe, had Israel decided that Jerusalem’s light rail would discriminate against Palestinian residents of the city by avoiding their neighborhoods, you can bet that the BBC (and many others) would be up in arms. In reality, the light rail serves all populations of Jerusalem, be they Jewish, Muslim or Christian.
But that hasn’t stopped the BBC from focusing on the light rail as a means to portray Jerusalem’s Palestinians as the victims of some malevolent scheme to “Judaize” the city at their expense. And all led by the development of Jerusalem’s transport network.
BBC Panorama, the network’s flagship current affairs program, broadcast “The Train That Divides Jerusalem” on July 20. It is a biased and one-sided look at Jerusalem.
Filmmaker Adam Wishart makes sure to point out at the very beginning of the program that he is a British Jew who has previously been on a Zionist educational tour of Israel some three decades ago as if this gives him some special authority to discuss the issues at hand based on his identity. It becomes clear throughout the program that Wishart neither speaks for British Jews nor has any special knowledge about Jerusalem.
Canary Mission. Is it helping?
In the Bay area, we’ve experienced firsthand the smug hypocrisy of the hard left and witnessed the indignities they've committed in the name of “justice". They’ve repeatedly blurred the lines between private and public. More than once we’ve seen groups like Code Pink take their protests to their opponents homes. Family and neighbors of their target are dismissed as collateral damages. From the protests at Berkeley Professor John Yoo’s home, to the aborted invasion of the home of the Israeli general consul, being a self-righteous activist means never having to say you’re sorry.
When has justice has ever been achieved using unjust means?
On many occasions we’ve experienced the shrill expression of their “right to free speech”, over the rights of others. Synagogue and Jewish community events have been disrupted, virtually without consequence.
Canary Mission is a consequence.
No, we don’t know who is behind it, and no, its not us. (and you can stop asking, now) But after watching our activists threatened and attacked, and seeing our institutions defiled and vandalized by the same handful of extremists, its clear there needs to be a consequence. The “catch and release” policies of municipal law enforcement have been useless up to now. The organized Jewish community lacks an effective strategy.
There's a thoughtful discussion taking place at Divest this (the lawful good branch of the Worldwide Zionist Conspiracy) about the efficacy of the Canary Mission "naming and shaming" tactic, examining it from both an ethical and a practical perspective.
I find myself dissenting. Canary Mission functions as a distiller of information, profiling anti-Israel activists' own words, gathered from youtube, social media and the mainstream press. It fills a need.
To JVP: Jewish Lives Matter, too
On August 22, 2014, a mortar shell fired from Gaza exploded, filling the Tragerman home in Nahal Oz with shrapnel. Four year old Daniel Tragerman was killed
To Jewish Voice for Peace: Why doesn't the life of 4 year old Daniel Tragerman matter to you? Why don't the lives of Jews in Israel matter to you?
Since 2001, nearly 16,000 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza have targeted Israel, terrorizing the Israeli people. Of those, roughly 10% have fallen short of their target and have fallen within Gaza, endangering the Palestinian people. Hamas has fired long range rockets at cities across Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Tomorrow, the fringe group, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) will be commemorating the Palestinian dead at Civic Center Park in Berkeley, in what they have the audacity to call "Kaddish". They have deliberately excluded the Jewish dead from their commemoration. To JVP, Hamas terrorists are to be mourned, while the Jewish dead, including 4 year old Daniel Tragerman are ignored.
This isn't the first time JVP has exploited Jewish culture and traditions.
He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.
On last day as ADL chief, Foxman says Internet biggest factor in rising anti-Semitism
On Monday, Abraham Foxman ended his 28-year tenure as national director of the Anti-Defamation League and spoke with The Jerusalem Post about the future of world Jewry, the rise of anti-Semitism and what's next for the man who has been part of the organization in various capacities for the past 50 years.
When asked about the state of world Jewry, Foxman said simply that "it's not the best of times," taking into account the dramatic rise of anti-Semitism and the Iran deal that just garnered approval in the United Nations on Monday.
"If the world left us alone, we'd be fine," he said.
Foxman said that the biggest factor contributing to the dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in the past 15 years has been the Internet, where it has had a rebirth. On this new platform, he said, people have the ability to quickly and anonymously voice their opinion without having to back it up with any facts.
He says that despite all the good that the Internet does, it is also used as a "superhighway for bigotry." He says another huge factor is that "we never developed an antidote" to anti-Semitism.
Neo-Nazi Russian beauty queen stripped of title
The official beauty Queen of Russian football has been stripped of her title following revelations that she adheres to a neo-Nazi ideology, local media reported.
The political views of Olga Kuzkova, who was recently chosen from among sixteen candidates representing teams in Russia’s Premier League as 2015’s Miss Charming, were discovered after she posted a series of anti-Semitic images on the popular social media platform VKontakte.
In one widely circulated image, Kuzkova can be seen performing a Nazi salute while standing in front of a wall covered in Nazi graffiti.
Other images, translated by the Moscow Times, called for the burning of Jews and promoted racial purity.
The Nordic spirit cannot live in the body of an Untermensch,” one post declared, using the German word for subhuman.
Kuzkova was promptly fired, with league director Sergei Cheban telling Sport Express that the sporting body does “not tolerate manifestations of fascism, nationalism and racism,” the Times reported.
Romania bans Holocaust denial, fascist symbols
Romania’s president has signed into law legislation that punishes Holocaust denial and the promotion of the fascist Legionnaires’ Movement with prison sentences of up to three years.
President Klaus Iohannis signed the amendments to existing legislation, approved by Parliament last month, on Wednesday.
The legislation also bans fascist, racist or xenophobic organizations and symbols, and promoting people guilty of crimes against humanity by up to three years in prison.
Holocaust denial refers to refuting Romania’s role in exterminating Jews and Roma between 1940 and 1944. About 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma, or Gypsies, were killed during the pro-fascist regime of dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu.
Belgian Soccer Team Faces Punishment Over Fans' Anti-Semitism
The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is likely to take punitive measures against the Belgian Charleroi soccer team over the anti-Semitic behavior of its fans at last week’s game against Beitar Jerusalem, Channel 1 News reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, UEFA will summon group ownership for a hearing after Charleroi fans taunted Beitar fans at the game with Nazi salutes and anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli chants.
Some radical Beitar fans at the game responded by throwing smoke flares onto the pitch. Charleroi's goalkeeper was struck in the head by what Belgium press reports said was a bolt thrown by Beitar fans. Beitar ultimately lost the game, 5-1.
UEFA has already indicated it would fine Beitar over the behavior of the fans but, according to Channel 1, the fine to Charleroi will likely be higher than the one to Beitar due to the anti-Semitic nature of its fans’ behavior, and might even include the team’s dismissal from the league.
StoreDot brings vivid color to your screen, for less
A 30-second phone charge, a five-minute electric car charge … and now a new display technology for vivid colors without heavy metals.
It’s been a busy year for Israel’s StoreDot.
The Herzliya Pituach-based private company is working toward commercializing the fast-charge and display inventions with the help of $42 million from Samsung Ventures, Singulariteam, Millhouse and other investors.
StoreDot’s FlashBattery and MolecuLED products utilize the same energy-efficient, environmentally friendly nanomaterial developed in-house from customized organic compounds, says CEO and cofounder Doron Myersdorf.
“The battery guys need properties that enable fast movement of ions, and the display guys need more color. We meet these needs by adding functional groups to the molecules we are creating from scratch using organic chemistry,” he tells ISRAEL21c.
MolecuLED will offer several advantages to potential partner OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) such as Samsung. Reportedly, it lasts more than 20,000 hours, uses 20 percent less power and is 90% cheaper than competing solutions. In addition, it’s non-toxic, whereas existing display technologies contain cadmium or other heavy metals.
How Did Israel Become a Hub for Innovation?
As an Israeli, an entrepreneur, and the general manager of the Microsoft Ventures accelerator program, I’m constantly asked to explain the secret behind the massive success of Israeli startups. Even though there are successful entrepreneurs in almost every corner of the world, it seems that a disproportional amount of successful startups are located in Israel.
In the past year, Israeli startups enjoyed exits—meaning acquisitions and initial public offerings—worth about $15 billion, an all-time record, according to Forbes. Some of the Microsoft Ventures alumni contributed to this outrageous number: AppsFlyer raised $20 million, Webbyclip $4.2 million, Medisafe $6 million, and Appixia, KitLocate and ConferPlace were acquired.
How did Israel become this hub for innovation and entrepreneurship? Even with my 20 years of experience in the startup ecosystem, I don’t think there is a definitive answer to this question. Though a unique combination of circumstances, culture, and a strong will to succeed most likely has something to do with it.
History
For centuries, the Jewish people who started this nation had to run, hide, and fight to survive. They had to stand up for themselves when no one else did. So they did the only thing that made sense and transformed challenges into assets.
The land is arid—they excel at water and agricultural technology. There are no resources—they developed alternatives for fuel. Israel is surrounded by enemies, so its military technology is superb, and it inspires further innovation. Israelis had to learn how to work well under pressure, and since they had no other alternative, they turned adversity into a source of competitive advantage.
What do hummus and water purifiers have in common?
Zohar says he is fortunate to continue working for an Israel-based company with global activities.
Switching from hummus to water puts him in a position to address the increasing worldwide demand and diminishing supply of quality drinking water.
“The trick is to find the right way to answer consumer needs. In hummus, Americans were looking for healthier dips but didn’t like the taste of hummus. We were lucky to be able to find that twist to fit American tastes and convey it to the consumer through tastings and samplings.”
Strauss Water’s Water Bar answers a much more basic need with a similar approach. “We believe we have the knowhow and patents that can solve so many quality-of-water problems around the world,” says Zohar.
“Right now we’re dealing mainly in China and the UK, and you can find our product on a small scale also in Canada, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Finland, Portugal and Singapore. In China, they have to boil water even to cook because the quality is so bad. Each country will have different needs.”
Potable water is plentiful in the United States, but many consumers – including Zohar, when he lived there – don’t like tap water and therefore lug bottled water home from the supermarket. The Water Bar is meant to be a cheaper, easier alternative.
“All the technology in the Water Bar was developed in Israel. As a country, we have a lot of capability related to water treatment. Our knowledge gives us a huge advantage,” says Zohar, who aims to make Strauss Water a world leader in its category.
Israel offers its expertise to India for Ganges River clean-up
Israel has offered to help India in its major project to clean up the Ganges River and a delegation of experts will head to the South Asian country in August to assess the areas of the river that the country can contribute to, Indian daily newspaper The Hindu reported on Monday.
Israeli officials have met their counterparts in the Indian Union Ministry for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, headed by Uma Bharti, to offer help in water conservation and the Ganga cleaning program, The Hindu reported.
“The advantage we have is that we have a wide range of solutions for problems; there are specific problems in different states and our experts have solutions. We are pushing for more government-to-government agreements,” The Hindu quoted the spokesperson of the Israeli Embassy, Ohad Horsandi as saying.
Israel’s Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon recently offered Israel's assistance in water management to the Union Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu so India can better meet the challenge of water scarcity in the burgeoning urban areas, The Hindu reported.
Israeli Medical Team Treats Hundreds of Tanzanian Children with Cardiac Problems
An Israeli medical team just returned home from Tanzania after performing life-saving cardiac surgery on ten children and treating hundreds more, The Jerusalem Post reported today.
An Israeli delegation of 20 doctors, nurses and medical technicians has returned from Tanzania after performing lifesaving heart surgery on more than 10 local children and examining hundreds more with congenital heart defects. …
Headed by surgeon Lior Sasson, the team was in Africa for a week to examine, treat and operate on children in Dar es Salam. Also on board was a young surgeon from Ethiopia whose name was given as Dr. Yaio. He has been undergoing advanced training at the Holon hospital, and in another three years he will return to Ethiopia to work as his country’s first pediatric cardiac surgeon.
Godfrey Goodwin, a pediatric heart surgeon from Tanzania who underwent six years of training with Save a Child’s Heart, was head of the Tanzanian team that worked with the Israelis. Goodwin returned to his native country two years ago. Since then, he and colleagues have independently treated local children with heart defects even though they still needed Israel’s help in coping with the huge number of children who need medical help.
Canada Announces Expanded Free Trade Agreement with Israel
Canada and Israel announced Tuesday that they have agreed to upgrade their bilateral free-trade agreement, in what could be a major boost to economic ties.
Under the changes, the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement will be revised and streamlined to remove some of the red tape at border crossings and expand market opportunities in the agriculture and food sector.
The revision will reduce transaction costs for businesses, support Canadian investment in Israel, increase transparency in regulatory matters and eliminate Israeli tariffs on a wide range of products.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Tuesday hailed the agreement, saying it would “strengthen [Canada’s] bilateral relationship” with the Jewish state, which he said was a key partner.
“Israel is a priority market for Canada and holds great potential for Canadian companies in a variety of sectors. An expanded and modernized free trade agreement will lead to a strengthened bilateral relationship as well as an increase in jobs and opportunities for Canadians and Israelis alike,” Harper said.
Mariah Carey to perform in Israel on August 18
Just weeks after her June visit, pop superstar Mariah Carey has announced an August 18 performance in the Rishon Lezion Live Park Amphitheater.
“Shalom Israel, I will be coming to see you live on August 18, so come to see me! Shalom,” said Carey in a recording shown at a Tel Aviv press conference.
Tickets went on sale Wednesday morning, said Ran Rahav, the Israeli public relations guru handling Carey’s concert.
The concert, which was arranged during Carey’s recent visit to Israel in late June, was fairly simple to arrange, said concert promoter Lia Luzon of Bookmark Entertainment.
Carey’s June visit was her first trip to Israel, made with beau James Packer, an Australian businessman and friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who reportedly recently bought a home in Tel Aviv.