From Ian:
Journalist: I realized the left's positions were childish
Israeli journalist Avri Gilad on Tuesday credited the late Minister Uri Orbach for changing his worldview from the left to the right.
Gilad and Orbach were, for many years, co-hosts of a show on Army Radio called “Hamila Ha’acharona” (lit. “The Last Word”) which pits a leftist and a rightist journalist against one another for one hour daily.
Speaking at a meeting with students and faculty at the School of Communications at the University of Ariel, Gilad was asked what influenced him and helped change his views, and he replied: "A lot of it was a result of the weekly meeting with Uri Orbach and Jacky Levy when we hosted ‘Hamila Ha’acharona’ together. We would talk for two hours a week, and [Orbach] would embarrass me time and time again, and that caused me disappointment."
Gilad continued, "It made me feel that I was reciting the left’s positions like a puppet reciting empty messages. I learned that if I cannot truly defend my position, I guess I'm not really standing behind it."
Asked about his position today, he said, "I'm not a rightist, but what I took from Uri Orbach is the understanding that the positions of the left are childish. A little boy facing a problem wants a solution here and now, but there comes a time when a reasonable person must say ‘I tried, there is no solution at this time, and we have to live with that’. So even though we are paying a price for the continued occupation in the form of our society becoming more violent and so on, if I have to choose between dying and being violent, I choose violence. However, I certainly hope there will be a change in the future."
Go figure: Israel’s standing in the world is both fantastic and awful
It is no secret that Israel and some Arab countries cooperate clandestinely and have done so for years. Netanyahu has long been saying that many moderate Sunni states no longer see Israel as an enemy and are willing to cooperate with the Jewish state in fending off their common foe, Iran.
“There are Arab states that our sought our assistance. If I mentioned their names you’d fall off your chair,” Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold said last week.
Israel's incoming Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold and former Saudi government adviser Anwar Eshki shake hands in Washington DC, June 4, 2015 (Debby Communications Group)
The expansion of secret contacts with Sunni states is certainly a welcome development, but so far have not paid off, a senior diplomatic official argued. As long as Israeli athletes cannot obtain visas for certain Arab countries or are not allowed to display their flag there, the much-hailed rapprochement is nothing to brag about, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Israel always had behind-the-scenes contacts with Arab countries, but they also need to be translated into concrete achievements. “In diplomacy many people talk to many other people behind the closed doors. That in itself means very little,” he said.
“How does it help Israel if Dore Gold meets someone from Dubai to talk about the mutual threat emanating from Iran and agree to meet some time in the future to chat about Syria, when publicly the same person is still trashing us, telling everyone we’re murderers and genocidal maniacs?”
Isi Leibler: Cauterize the cancer of Jewish terrorism
In the Palestinian arena, the terror is preceded by vile campaigns inciting Muslims to kill Jews and become martyrs. Every murder is sanctified and glorified at the national level from PA head Mahmoud Abbas and extended by the mullahs in the mosques, through to the schools and the media. Every murder results in joyful street celebrations with scenes of the proud parents of the "martyrs." Soon thereafter, streets, city squares and even football clubs will be named after the murderers.
Compare that with Israel, where the entire nation, including every party in the Knesset, is horrified and shocked that even isolated barbaric behavior of this nature could occur in this country and where draconian steps are taken to identify and indict the Jewish terrorists.
We should give full backing to the government to act with uncompromising discipline and eradicate these home-grown aberrations who reject the sanctity of human life as well as investigating the behavior of a handful of fringe extremist rabbis.
These are early days and the situation can be rectified but there must be a recognition that, like cancer in a body, these elements must be completely cauterized or they could revive and cause us immeasurable damage, shaking the very moral foundations of the nation.
The 2016 agenda for the Middle East
President Obama is unlikely to change course in 2016. So while Iran cyber-attacks America’s infrastructure and breaks UNSC resolutions on missile testing, the president still claims the Iran nuclear deal is a winner. And while the president still claims victory with a hollow UNSC resolution to end the regional war in Syria, the Syrian people remain cannon fodder for both IS and Assad.
With such a distorted view of reality, 2016 is shaping up to be one where America may contribute to human suffering, undermine its essential allies and make common cause with the world’s chief state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, in Syria, with the help of Hezbollah and Russia. After seven years, we have to say this is not naiveté; it is a deliberate strategy of executive overreach that flies in the face of American values and damages our national security interests.
Aaron David Miller: Why the Middle East Isn’t Likely to Look Better in 2016
Threats to state authority: The Arab state structure is under enormous stress: There is fragmentation and civil war in Yemen, Libya, and Syria; in Iraq, there is serious dysfunction and sectarian division. Although Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has survived the Arab Spring, leaders there and elsewhere in the Gulf are looking warily at falling oil prices, rising deficits, a surging Iran, neighboring unrest, and potential complexities around succession. Jordan and Tunisia seem to be holding their own, but they are not Middle East heavyweights. Egypt is under military rule and in many respects has become more authoritarian and less representative than it was under Hosni Mubarak; that’s a prescription for further instability. Not a single Arab state has leaders who can rise above their narrow ethnic or sectarian affiliations or individual interests to think of the nation as a whole. Nor does any have institutions that are representative, inclusive, and reflect the public’s will.
The emergence of transnational and local actors: Militants and groups with millennialist ideologies or local grievances are taking advantage of the weak or nonexistent governance to tear at the fabric of the state. ISIS’s gains in Iraq have been checked and reversed; but its militants have jumped borders, expanding into Sinai, Libya, and Yemen. Al Qaeda is rearing its head again in Afghanistan. In Syria and Iraq, the Kurds carve out local autonomies at the expense of state authority, as do pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq. In Yemen, al Qaeda derivatives continue to hold ground and pose a serious threat of international terrorism. In the putative state of Palestine, Hamas rules alone in Gaza, effectively dividing the Palestinian national movement and making statehood impossible.
Ramallah urges talks to stem unrest; Israel says not until attacks stop
Israel is refusing to consider steps toward restarting stagnant peace talks with the Palestinians until the ongoing wave of violence comes to a close, Palestinian officials said Tuesday.
There have been a number of high-level meetings between Israeli and Palestinian officials in recent weeks, during which Ramallah proposed restarting talks as an effort to stanch nearly three months of violence, which has seen near daily Palestinian terror attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank, with more than 20 Israelis killed, and over a hundred Palestinians killed — most in the act of attacking Israelis, and others in clashes with Israeli troops.
Peace talks have been on ice since US-brokered negotiations collapsed in April 2014 amid reports of renewed settlement building and an Israeli refusal to release several dozen Arab Israeli security prisoners, and with the Palestinian Authority joining UN and other international forums in efforts to bypass bilateral conflict resolution.
According to the Palestinian officials, during the recent meetings to jumpstart talks, they demanded, as preconditions for new negotiations, a moratorium on settlement building and the release of the 36 prisoners Israel refused to let out, as well as an agreement to negotiate based on the pre-1967 armistice lines.
Was Your Congressman One of 32 Who Called for Closing PLO Office in US?
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein added, “Put quite simply, the PLO does not merit the diplomatic immunity and the status that comes with it. President Obama gave Abbas’ PA this upgrade despite the fact that the PA has not altered its behavior, even while receiving annually hundreds of millions of dollars in US tax-payer funded aid.
Below are the names of the Congressmen, all of them Republicans, who signed the letter:
Ted Cruz and Randy Weber from Texas; Mark Meadows, North Carolina; Ilan Ros-Lehtinen, Ron DeSantis, Jeff Miller, Carlos Curbelo, Ted Yoho, Bill Posey, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Curt Clawson from Florida;
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina; Doug Lamborn, Colorado; Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee; Scott Perry, Pennsylvania; Jody Hice, Georgia;
Tim Huelskamp, Kansas; Lee Zeldin, New York, Gary Palmer, Alabama; John Fleming, Louisiana, Jim Jordan, Ohio; Morgan Griffith and David Brat from Virginia;
Matt Salmon, Paul A. Gosar and David Schweikert, Arizona; Stevan Pearce, New Mexico; Scott Garrett, New Jersey; and
Ken Calvert, Marlin Stutzman from California and David B. McKinley and Alex Mooney from West Virginia.
PMO officials rebuff report that Israel is planning to build on E1
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not advancing the construction of E1 at this time and plans by former construction minister Uri Ariel to do so are irrelevant, government officials said on Tuesday evening.
They spoke in response to a Peace Now report which examined the actions of Ariel, of the Bayit Yehudi Party, who was construction minister from March 2013 to May 2015.
Based on a Freedom of Information requisition, Peace Now discovered that during his time in office, Ariel had created initial plans for 55,548 new homes in West Bank settlements. These included 8,372 new units in an unbuilt area opposite Ma’aleh Adumim known as E1.
Israel's UN ambassador suggests Israel join peacekeeping force
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon has proposed a plan to incorporate Israeli police officers into the U.N. peacekeeping forces.
The United Nations peacekeeping forces include representatives from the organization's many member states, and Danon's aim is to ensure Israeli representation as well. This is part of a greater effort to increase Israeli involvement in U.N. bodies and to put Israel's best qualities on display.
The Israeli delegation to the U.N. is expected to ask the Israel Police to select candidates for command and control peacekeeping placements around the world.
If successful, this initiative will not be the first time Israeli security representatives have been part of an international force. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Israel sent uniformed police to join the U.N.'s peacekeepers for the first time ever, helping to restore order in the disaster-stricken country.
Edgar Davidson: In deeds rather than words David Cameron is indisputably the most anti-Israel British PM in 45 years
The British Jewish Community sets spectacularly low bars over whom it considers to be a 'true friend of Israel'. If somebody told you that 'you have a right to exist' while cutting off your arms and legs the last thing you would consider that person to be is a friend. But apparently a politician uttering the words "Israel has a right to exist" is all it takes for the British Jewish community to salivate over that politician and consider them to be a true friend of Israel, even while they are simultaneously working in every possible way to undermine the Jewish State (the bizarreness of the 'right to exist' issue - a phenomenon unique to Israel - is something I tackled extensively here).
This is no more evident than in the Jewish Community's obsequious respect of David Cameron. Two events in recent weeks have really brought home the difference between David Cameron's warm words about Israel when he speaks at Jewish events (or in the Knesset) and the actions of his Government. One is the mandatory labelling of goods produced by Jewish-owned businesses in the 'setttlements' (i.e. Jerusalem, the Golan and Judea and Samaria) that is now law in the UK The other was the detention at Heathrow of an Israeli for 'war crimes'.
Any leader has to be judged on actions not words. And in actions Cameron has led Britain's most anti-Israel government since Ted Heath in 1970-73. Every Prime Minister in between (Wilson, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, and Brown) was a more natural friend to Israel than Cameron.
Has Argentina’s Long Collaboration with Iran Come to an End?
Now that they are out of power, the Kirchneristas look distinctly vulnerable. Macri has made it clear that the investigation into the AMIA bombing needs to be revived. So too with the circumstances of Nisman’s death. If, as the forensic evidence suggests, Nisman was murdered, all eyes will be on Argentina’s former leaders and on their friends in Tehran.
As more evidence regarding this shameful agreement emerges, the underlying theme that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted will be resonate even more strongly. More immediately, the AMIA scandal gives us an important glimpse into how the Iranians negotiate. What they don’t do is compromise. Instead, they present a mixture of threats, ideological venom and faith in the reluctance of Western leaders to take military action as a negotiating strategy. That’s why any country that declares a conflict with the Iranians satisfactorily resolved – whether that’s the AMIA issue or Tehran’s nuclear ambitions – has reached that conclusion in spite of the facts, not because of them.
So watch what happens in 2016. Iran is going to start feeling some pressure. Ironically, its source lies in Buenos Aires rather than Washington, D.C. How the Obama Administration assists or hinders the new resolve in Argentina to secure justice for the AMIA victims will be one of the more colorful foreign policy stories of the coming year.
Terror Expert: Iranian Agents in Argentina Must Be Investigated
The role of Iranian agents in perpetrating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and then covering up the investigation, must be fully probed now that the new Argentine government has scrapped plans for a joint “truth commission” with Iran, Matthew Levitt, a leading expert on Hezbollah wrote Monday in an analysis for The Hill.
Now that newly inaugurated President Mauricio Macri has announced that he will scrap the controversial commission, it’s time to investigate “the Iranian agents in Argentina who pursued the deal on Tehran’s behalf,” wrote Levitt, the director of the Stein program on counterterrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The truth commission was widely viewed as an attempt by Iran and the government of former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to whitewash Tehran’s role in the deadly attack on the AMIA Jewish center.
Evidence compiled by Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died under mysterious circumstances in January, identified two Argentines, Jorge Khalil and Abdul Karim Paz, as working for Mohsen Rabbani, the fugitive Iranian mastermind of the AMIA bombing. After the attack, investigators established that Rabbani had used Shiite spies to pick out possible American or Jewish targets. Iran funded the operation by sending money to Rabbani’s accounts in three different banks. Rabbani also helped obtain the van used for the bombing.
Aaron N Rice, J Street Leader, Compares Israel To Nazi Regime
I was pretty shocked last night when I saw this tweet comparing Israel’s proposed law to mandate NGO transparency to Hitler’s rise to power in Nazi Germany:
The first thing I wanted to know was, who is the jackass that wrote this? And the answer was definitely #ShockingNotShocking. According to his Twitter profile, he is “J Street National Leadership.”
But wait, I thought, anyone can pretty much say anything on twitter. Is that really true? Well, according to his bio on the website at the lawfirm at which he is a partner, Baker & McKenzie, it’s true. It’s listed right under the heading “Corporate Social Responsibility.” Ahem. I’m sure his clients will be really happy to know that he’s spouting such drivel on the internet.
J Street claims to be pro-Israel, but repeatedly we see its leadership taking warped positions that just can’t be described as such. As to whether or not the tweet is anti-Semitic, I’ll just quote the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism and let you decide for yourself:
Anti-Israel hate-mongering in the Netherlands
Nowadays the Netherlands is proving an abundant source for anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hate mongering. We will limit ourselves here to several recent events and incidents concerning Israel. These occurred against the backdrop of an opinion poll which found that 38% of the Dutch population believe that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians. This and other radical lies concerning Israel reflect the result of the widespread anti-Israel incitement in the Netherlands by left of center parties, numerous media outlets, various NGOs, some Christian groups and many others.
In October Youness Ouaali, a Turkish-Dutch representative of a Salafi charity World Wide Relief, suggested on his website that visiting Israeli tourists should be beaten up. Pauw, a leading Dutch talk shows invited him to explain his thoughts. A few days later the same talk show invited Constant Kusters, the leader of the NVU, a tiny extreme right-wing party. Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher, a Labor party member, said in Parliament, “I was shocked to see a neo-Nazi representing concerned citizens on television.” No such response was forthcoming from Asscher with regard to the incitement to beat up Israelis.
One of the two annual Kristallnacht memorial meetings has become a regular event for incitement against Israel. It is organized by a group that hides its real views behind the innocuous-sounding name of “Platform for anti-Racism.” This year it invited the anti-Israel Arab MK Haneen Zoabi to speak. The meeting took place next to the Amsterdam monument for the Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, and prompted a petition asking the Amsterdam Mayor and aldermen to no longer give permission to the monument’s desecration through such anti-Israel gatherings.
Edgar Davidson: Not Saving the Children
As I have reported many times previously, Save The Children is a political organisation that spends large amounts of money on Palestinian anti-Israel propaganda. It certainly has no interest in saving Jewish children since it campaigned vigorously against Israel's efforts to build its security fence to protect them from suicide bombings. No sane person, let alone a Jew who professes to love Israel, should give a penny to them. Yet this week Sacha Baron Cohen donated £335,000 to Save The Children - specifically to help Syrian refugees (see my thoughts about such help, and remember also that Syrians are probably the most antisemitic people on the planet).
Curiously, just days after Sacha's donation it was revealed that the charity's CEO Jasmine Whitbread earns a salary of £234,000. So, there will still be a bit of money left from Sacha's donation to help fund "Syrian refugees" ....or more anti-Israel propaganda. Curiously, Jasmine Whitbread is the person I wrote to in 2009 asking her to explain her charity's support for Hamas and their refusal to recognise the suffering of Israeli children. Unfortunately, despite being quite well paid she never did have the time to reply to me....
On Mavi Marmara, Los Angeles Times Throws Facts Over Board
In an article about Turkish-Israeli ties last week, The Los Angeles Times incorrectly reported:
In 2010, however, Israeli commandos intercepted a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, that was attempting to deliver supplies to the Gaza Strip.
The photo caption in the print edition repeated the erroneous claim that the Mavi Marmara was "attempting to deliver supplies to Gaza."
While the ship was part of a flotilla attempting to break Israel's legal naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, the Mavi Marmara was not carrying any supplies and therefore was not attempting to deliver supplies. As Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported at the time:
Of the seven flotilla ships, only four were freight ships. The Challenger 1 (small yacht), the Sfendonh (small passenger boat) and the Mavi Marmara (passenger ship) did not carry any humanitarian aid, except for the passengers' personal belongings. (Emphasis added.)
UK Media Watch prompts Daily Express to remove Israel from ‘worst places for Christians’ list
As we noted, not only is it false to suggest that Israel oppresses its Christian population, but the truth is that the Jewish state is the only nation in the region whose Christian population is in thriving, and where the rights of this beleaguered Mid-East minority is consistently protected.
Following our post, we complained to Daily Express editors and tweeted the journalist responsible for the article. Our post got a large number of social media shares, including this tweet from Father Gabriel Nadaf, the spiritual father of the Aramean Christian community in Israel and a promoter of Christian IDF recruitment.
This morning, we noticed that the Daily Express responded to our criticism, and completely removed Israel from their list of ‘worst places to be a Christian this Christmas’.
More PLO messaging from Yolande Knell in Christmas report for BBC WS radio
In addition to the politicised Christmas Eve feature produced by Yolande Knell for the BBC News website on December 24th, she also reported from Bethlehem for BBC World Service radio’s ‘Newshour’.
In that item Knell recycled themes and interviewees seen in her other report, focusing on a low-key Christmas and economic hardship in Bethlehem. Once again audiences were not informed of the Palestinian Authority’s instructions to municipalities to dampen this year’s celebrations or the Council of Churches’ similar dictate.
Setting the scene in his introduction, presenter Tim Franks failed to adequately clarify to listeners exactly which party has been initiating the acts of violence seen over the last three months, using passive language to promote a false sense of equivalence and – through use of the ‘Israel says’ formula – implying that the BBC cannot independently confirm that most of the Palestinian casualties were either terrorists killed in the act or violent rioters.
CAMERA Letter in LA Times: Where's Coverage on Islamist Threat to Bethlehem?
To the editor: For the second time this month in the print edition, The Times has published a piece on the “Israeli-Palestinian violence [that] damped the typically festive mood” in the city of Bethlehem.
Conspicuously absent from Times coverage of the city's subdued atmosphere during the Christian holiday season is the reported threat posed by Islamic extremists. As the Associated Press reported, a Palestinian security officer said that “Palestinian security forces arrested Wednesday about a dozen suspected radical Islamists in Bethlehem.”
According to Israeli Ynetnews, Palestinian security forces arrested 16 Salafists, fearing Islamic State planned to target Christian tourists.
Will The Times be reporting on Islamist threats to Bethlehem, or is the dampened holiday spirit newsworthy only if Israel is somehow implicated?
What does the BBC Academy teach the corporation’s journalists about Judaism?
Near the beginning of the film viewers are told that;
“There are 12 million Jewish people in the world – most of them here in Israel and in America and the former Soviet Union.”
The former Soviet Union actually has fewer Jews today than France, the UK or Canada. Buchanan then goes on to promote the following stereotype:
“The numbers are small compared to the other major faiths but Jewish people exert considerable political and cultural influence.”
Towards the end of the film, viewers are told that:
“The so-called Jewish lobby in the United States has done much to keep America’s loyalty to Israel unshaken. It’s also teamed up with the Christian Right to find a common goal in opposing Islamic influence in the Holy Land.”
This film is supposed to be a reference item for BBC journalists, designed to help them produce accurate, impartial and informative content. It is therefore little wonder that we see, for example, repeated inaccuracies concerning the Western Wall and Temple Mount in BBC reporting or that promotion of the ‘Jewish lobby’ trope has become such a regular feature of BBC content.
Aide to Rahm Emanuel attacked at Chicago vigil
A top aide to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was physically assaulted at a downtown vigil by assailants who also made an anti-Semitic slur.
Vance Henry, Emanuel’s deputy chief of staff, was punched, tackled and kicked on Sunday evening at the event for two people who were shot and killed over the weekend by Chicago police officers, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
It is believed the anti-Semitic remarks were directed at Emanuel, who is Jewish but was not at the vigil. Henry is black. The newspaper did not say what the slur was.
“What are you doing here, you should be downtown doing something about this,” one of the assailants reportedly said. The same man also said that “the police are killing us,” according to the report.
2 British teens indicted for Auschwitz-Birkenau theft
Two 17-year-old British boys face up to 10 years in prison for stealing items from the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in Poland.
An indictment was filed Tuesday with the Regional Court in Krakow.
Museum guards stopped the teenagers in June while they were on a trip with the independent Perse School in Cambridge. The teens were found to have hidden in their bags fragments of a hair clipper, glass from the barracks and buttons taken from the area of the former Birkenau camp called “Canada,” where during the war stood warehouses filled with items looted from Jews.
The teens initially pleaded guilty and were levied a fine as punishment. They were allowed to return to Cambridge.
Polish prosecutors say the teens withdrew their admission of guilt, saying they were not aware that the items had special cultural significance.
Ukraine MP who saluted Hitler is on Israel committee
Artyom Vitko, who is on a committee to improve Ukraine-Israel ties, sang pro-Hitler songs days after Ukraine apologized for Holocaust role.
Ukraine-Israel ties, sang a pro-Hitler song in a video that appeared online over the weekend. The footage shows Vitko, a member of Oleg Lyashko’s Radical Party, wearing camouflage fatigues and singing along with a song praising the genocidal Nazi leader.
“Adolf Hitler is with us, Adolf Hitler is in each of us, and an eagle with iron wings will help us at the right time,” say the song's lyrics. Vitko, the former commander of the Kiev-backed Lugansk-1 Battalion in eastern Ukraine, sings the words and salutes Hitler with a bottle of water.
NYPD Searching for Assailants Caught on Camera Beating, Robbing Brooklyn Jew (VIDEO)
New York City police are searching for two suspects in the brutal assault and robbery of a Brooklyn Jewish man, the New York Daily News reported on Tuesday.
The attack, which took place in the Midwood section of the borough late Monday, left the victim in need of some 70 stitches on his forehead.
Security-camera footage — released by JP Updates — shows a man in a hoodie knocking 55-year-old Eli Weinstein to the sidewalk, before punching him repeatedly in the face, then flipping him over and digging through his pockets, while another hooded assailant joins in.
The two muggers are seen committing their attack behind parked cars, as traffic on Brooklyn’s Avenue M continues uninterrupted.
Jewish teen beaten in second Brooklyn attack
The boy, 17, was punched in the face and knocked into the street in the Midwood section of Brooklyn while walking home from his yeshiva at approximately 6:30 p.m. Monday, Yeshiva World News reported Tuesday.
The side of his face was bruised and he is in stable condition, according to the website.
The assailant was an African-American, the website reported.
Early Monday morning, the 60-year-old man was attacked on a residential block in the same neighborhood. Last week, a kippah-wearing student was assaulted at Medgar Evers College in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The alleged assailant was African-American.
Anti-Semitic insults hurled in Budapest Jewish quarter
Several men this week hurled anti-Semitic insults at a group of people they identified as Jews in the historic Jewish quarter of Budapest, a Hungarian watchdog group reported.
The incident occurred early on Tuesday on Dob Street in the center of the Hungarian capital, according to the Forum against anti-Semitism – Hungary. Six individuals who appeared to be inebriated began shouting “dirty Jews” at the victims, as well of accusing them of “killing Jesus.”
While the dissemination of anti-Semitic ideas has proliferated in Hungary in recent years, confrontations of the kind described by the Forum remain rare in the Central European country, which has approximately 100,000 Jews.
In 2014, the Jewish community’s main Action and Protection Foundation, or TEV by its Hungarian-language acronym, documented a total of 37 such incidents.
Nazi refugees ‘tagged’ in liberation documentary
Our visual palette for World War II comes largely from footage shot after the liberation of Europe, as millions of refugees made their way home, or as far away from home as possible. For the Swedish documentary “Every Face Has a Name,” researchers used social media and digital technology to “tag” individual refugees from April 28, 1945 newsreel clips. In that day’s footage from the Swedish port of Malmo, 1,948 refugees — representing 20 nationalities — arrived to begin their post-war lives.
Specificity is the bread and butter of this film, in which ten former refugees from that post-liberation rescue scene — now living all over the world — are tracked down and interviewed. With the producers’ laptop a mainstay on the coffee tables of these one-time prisoners, the aging survivors recognized themselves with a range of emotions.
“I didn’t want to be touched,” recalled 93-year old survivor Elsie Ragusin upon seeing herself. Though Roman Catholic and from New York City, Ragusin and her father were captured by the Nazis in Italy, and sent to Auschwitz as spies.
“Why am I here,” Ragusin recalled asking herself, “the only American girl in Auschwitz?” Seeing her 24-year old self arrive at Malmo brought back positive memories for Ragusin, who now lives in Orlando. She mentioned the rescuers’ smiles and adequate food as standing out.
Israel Grants Stipends to Descendants of North African Jews Living Under Nazi Regime in WWII
Jews of North African descent who were living under the Nazi regime during World War II will receive an annual stipend from Israel, the Finance Ministry announced on Monday.
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon announced the grant during a special session hosted by the Knesset’s Labor, Welfare, and Health Committee, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Annual payments of NIS 3,600 ($923) will be provided to Jews who emigrated from Morocco, Iraq, and Algeria. Immigrants will also be exempt from paying prescription drugs.
India successfully tests missile system developed with Israel
The Indian Navy overnight Tuesday successfully tested the Barak 8 missile defense system, which was developed jointly with Israel.
The Indian Defense Ministry hailed the “significant milestone in enhancing its anti missile defense capability,” which it said represents a “quantum jump in air defense capability.”
Israel in November also carried out its first successful launch of the new maritime missile defense system, which would be used under battlefield conditions.
In Israel, the system has been installed on one of the navy’s Sa’ar 5-class warships. In previous tests, the missiles had been fired from land.
Forbes to hold Under 30 Summit in Israel
Forbes has announced its first Under 30 Summit EMEA, (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and has selected Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the inaugural event.
The Under 30 Summit EMEA is hoping to attract 600 young entrepreneurs and game changers from across the world: 200 from Europe, 200 from the US and 200 from Israel.
“We look forward to bringing our successful Under 30 Summit to the EMEA region, and there is no better place than Start-up Nation, where innovation is at the core of everything that is going on,” said Randall Lane, editor of Forbes magazine.
The Under 30 summits run by Forbes are considered among the most exclusive entrepreneurial events on the circuit.
2,700-year-old farmhouse unearthed outside Tel Aviv
A 2,700-year-old farmhouse was discovered during recent excavations near the town of Rosh Ha’ayin, just east of Tel Aviv, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.
The ruins were unearthed during an excavation commissioned by the Rosh Ha’ayin municipality ahead of the construction of a new neighborhood. Dozens of schoolchildren from neighboring institutions took part in the dig, the IAA said.
The 24-room structure, some of whose walls were preserved over two meters high, was built around a central courtyard, where remnants of ancient grain storage and production were found. Two silver coins dating from the fourth century BCE bearing the image of the Greek goddess Athena and her iconic owl were also uncovered in the ruins.
“In addition, we found simple presses hewn from the stone which were used for producing olive oil,” Amit Shadman, the IAA archaeologist who headed the dig, said in a statement.
IDF Blog: What Was My 2015?
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