From Ian:
Douglas Murray: What a week for integration Britain!
I say all this is a success for integration Britain, because every week brings up cases like this and nobody seems remotely willing to reflect on them. While people in senior jobs in public life turn out to be open and essentially unapologetic racists, we pretend that all that’s needed for our country’s future to be secure is to tweak the racism awareness lessons a bit more or make one more big push to ‘smash’ the fascists.
The mistake is far more basic. For decades, successive governments in Britain pretended that if you brought millions of people from other cultures into this country and gave them enough time plus all the provisions of the British state then before long they would be down the pub and failing to attend church like everyone else. For some time now it should have been clear that a great many people who come into our country have no such desire. They – and very often their children – have another set of ideas, a different attitude towards the purpose of life and an alternative view of what constitutes respected ‘authority’.
Of course as the ICM / Trevor Phillips poll the other week showed, a lot of Muslims in Britain like living in Britain. But the poll also showed they like it because they get the freedom to live the lives they want to live. Not British lives, but lives that are convenient for them. The question of how convenient or pleasant all this is for everyone else is naturally a question that is never asked.
Labour's disgusting anti-Semitism
The word is overused, but the details of Naz Shah’s Facebook postings are shocking. That anyone, in Britain in 2014, should gleefully spread material discussing the (presumably forcible) transportation of Jews from Israel is troubling enough. That the person concerned was only months later elected to the House of Commons is truly disturbing. Even today, her actions exposed to the public, the best Ms Shah can offer is that the repellent material concerned does not reflect her current view, a weasel-worded statement that all but confirms the she endorsed a quintessentially anti-Semitic position at the time.
Perhaps this story raises questions about Bradford, where Ms Shah won her seat for Labour in a bruising fight with George Galloway – himself an unpleasant demagogue who is no stranger to distasteful comments on the Middle East. What do her constituents make of the views expressed in her fateful post? Perhaps there are issues to explore relating to the British Pakistani community of which Ms Shah is a prominent member. Do all the people who live in this country accept that anti-Semitism is as unacceptable as any other racism?
But the most pressing questions are those facing Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, for this is just the latest in a string of cases to emerge under his leadership. Mr Corbyn himself is friendly towards hateful groups seeking Israel’s destruction. Is it any wonder then, that his party contains and – perhaps even attracts – anti-Semites? So far, Ms Shah has lost her job as an aide to John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, but remains a Labour member. That speaks volumes about Mr Corbyn’s disgustingly inadequate response to anti-Semitism in his party.
Naz Shah’s Warning
The Labour Party has taken something of a pasting in the Commons during PMQ’s and rightly so.
I heard that Jeremy Corbyn’s gave a personal warning to Naz Shah. Anyone got any thoughts on what that might have sounded like?
Perhaps something to the tune of;
“I know you meant well dear and clearly I and other members of the Party are behind you, but the Jewish lobby are baying for blood so do bear that in mind when you make further statements on how the Jews have stolen Palestinian land and are perpetrating a massacre against Palestinians.”
Cameron on Naz Shah
UK Labour’s anti-Semitism is ‘like lifting up a stone and having insects crawl out’ — MP
One of the most high-profile new MPs in the Labour Party deplores his own party’s “flat-footed and ineffective” response to the wave of anti-Semitic commentary currently engulfing Labour. But Wes Streeting, who represents the northeast London constituency of Ilford North which has a large Jewish community, insisted this week that the problem predated Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
And interestingly, while Streeting welcomed the resignation of his fellow MP Naz Shah as parliamentary private secretary to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, he did not want the row over her contentious social media posts to cause her to step down from the Home Affairs Select Committee on Anti-Semitism.
Streeting is in a unique position to comment on the two latest instances of Labour and anti-Semitic rhetoric — he is a former president of the National Union of Students, which last week elected the BDS activist Malia Bouattia as its president — and he is vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Semitism. The group intends to hold a parliamentary rally on the issue in June.
Speaking to The Times of Israel in the small and cluttered office he shares with another MP adjacent to the House of Commons, Streeting, 33, declared: “Jeremy Corbyn is a committed lifelong antiracist and I believe he thinks anti-Semitism is abhorrent. But as leader of the Labour Party he has a responsibility to take anti-Semitism seriously — and to stamp on it. Because of his left-wing credentials he can have a powerful role to play, if he chooses, in helping people to distinguish between legitimate criticism of the State of Israel and totally unacceptable racism towards Jewish people.”
He is not, Streeting said, surprised by much of the anti-Semitic commentary from the hard left, having become used to it in student politics.
But, he said, “now there is media scrutiny in light of Jeremy Corbyn’s election. It’s a bit like lifting up a stone and having insects crawl out from under it.
MP who wanted Israel dismantled mustn’t be on anti-Semitism panel — top UK pol
The only contact Naz Shah should have with the Home Affairs Select Committee looking into anti-Semitism, said Sir Eric Pickles as controversy continued to swirl around Shah, should be as a witness testifying before it.
Shah on Tuesday apologized for calling in a 2014 Facebook post for Israel to be relocated to the US, and resigned her senior position as an aide to the shadow chancellor.
On Wednesday, Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, under fire for a perceived rise of anti-Semitism within his party, called Shah’s past comments offensive and unacceptable, but noted they were made before she became an MP and made clear he accepted her apology. He also said Labour is “implacably opposed to antisemitism and all forms of racism.”
Also Wednesday, reports emerged that Shah employed an aide who posted anti-Semitic tweets, called Israel a genocidal, terror state, and blogged that Russian Orthodox Jews are involved in the sex-trafficking trade and that many ultra-Orthodox Jews are regular clients of brothels.
In his statement demanding that Shah be removed from the panel investigating anti-Semitism, Pickles said her presence on the committee would risk destroying its work before it had even started, and that experts called before it would doubt its credibility.
Supporting Terror: Naz Shah’s Pro-Hamas Tweets
In July 2014, Naz Shah tweeted a statement from Osama Hamdan, the head of international relations for Hamas, in which he argued that Hamas is a “legitimate resistance movement”.
This is not a one-off. In December 2014, just six months before she became an MP, Shah promoted an article about a contested EU court ruling that Hamas should be removed from the terror list:
Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
Edgar Davidson: Why are people surprised that Naz Shah is an antisemite - it did not need a Facebook investigation to find this out
So yet another Labour MP Naz Shah is exposed today as a vicious antisemite based on the above Facebook messages she posted (and incidentally she is one of 11 MPs appointed to investigate antisemitsm!). But why are people are surprised? Her views are no different to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and, indeed, no different to the Labour mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan (who will almost certainly be elected, and whose well documented history of vicious antisemitic Israel hatred has been ignored by Britain's 'official' Jews who now bow down to him). In fact, a couple of months ago I posted the following about Naz Shah on Facebook when discussing the London mayoral election (in which Khan's has taken all of George Galloway's natural support):
However, much he has tried to cover it up in the last year, Khan's record on issues that matter to Muslims is pretty much the same as Galloway. So Khan made Galloway irrelevant in this election. Labour pulled the same trick successfully in the 2015 election by having candidate Naz Shah against Galloway. Naz Shah easily won, but that's mainly because her views on Israel are identical to Galloway's so she was assured the Muslim vote in preference to him. It was Naz Shah incidentally who recently stated that no Israelis have ever been killed by Palestinians throwing rocks.
I also noted Naz Shah's views on Israel after last year's election. If you are able to delve deeply enough you will find the same antisemitic Israel-hating views in every 'progressive' Muslim politician. We just saw it with the newly elected NUS President Malia Bouattia. And it is not restricted to left-wing politicos. The most perfect example of all is 'Conservative' peer Baroness Warsi. As I said in my last post, no matter how well educated and secular they are, it seems immigrants (and their children) from Muslim countries can NEVER shake off their sense of Islamic supremacism and most of all their antisemitism. It is in their bones.
Déjà vu in BBC News coverage of UK MP’s Facebook posts story
When yet another member of the UK Labour party was found on April 26th to have posted offensive material on social media, many British media outlets had no problem informing their audiences what the story was about.
The Bradford West MP’s posts advocating ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel, making Nazi analogies and promoting conspiracy theories were, however, portrayed by the BBC as follows in an article appearing on its website’s UK politics page:
UK Labour suspends MP who wanted Israel dismantled
Britain’s opposition Labour Party on Wednesday suspended an MP who called for the dismantling of Israel, and ordered an investigation into her conduct.
Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is facing a mounting crisis over anti-Semitism within Labour, acted against Naz Shah after initially standing by her. Prime Minister David Cameron had said earlier on Wednesday that it was “extraordinary” that Shah had not been suspended. “Pending investigation, she is unable to take part in any party activity,” Labour said in a statement.
Battling the storm over her stance on Israel, Shah on Wednesday afternoon issued a personal apology in the House of Commons for her remarks, which she stressed she had made before she became an MP, and vowed to build better relations with Jews and all others. “I hope you will allow me to say that I fully acknowledge that I have made a mistake and I wholeheartedly apologize to this house for the words I used before I became a member,” said Shah. “I accept and understand that the words I used caused upset and hurt to the Jewish community and I deeply regret that. Anti-semitism is racism, full stop. As an MP I will do everything in my power to build relations between Muslims, Jews and people of different faiths and none.”
But Corbyn, having initially accepted her apology, suspended her a short time later. Cameron had called it “quite extraordinary” that Labour had not suspended Shah. The Guardian quoted an aide to the prime minister saying, “If the Labour party had a shred of decency she would be immediately suspended … Jeremy Corbyn should be ashamed of himself.”
Labour MP's aide suggests ISIS is part of Israeli conspiracy
Just when things couldn’t seem worse for the UK Labour Party, yet another party member has sparked controversy with anti-Israel comments.
Less than a day after Bradford West MP Naz Shah (Labour) was outed for social media posts calling for Israel to be ethnically cleansed of Jews, her parliamentary aide was found to have made comments alleging that Israel was responsible for the ISIS terror group.
In 2014, Mohammad Shabbir, who now serves as Shah’s parliamentary aide, put forth a conspiracy theory, suggesting that Israel was behind the Islamic terror organization.
In the tweet Shabbir argues that ISIS is in fact part of an Israeli black-flag operation to create a pretext for Israel to conquer Iraq and Syria. Shabbir claims Israel may be looking to annex the two countries as part of a plot to create a “greater Israel”.
Bradford Councillor Posted Goebbels Nazi Film “The Eternal Jew”
Guido [Fawkes] kids you not, another Bradford councillor has tweeted anti-Semitic propaganda. Cllr Istiaq Ahmed posted a link to the Nazi film “The Eternal Jew”, which was commissioned by Joseph Goebbels. It was originally uploaded to YouTube by the “HitlerMyFührer” channel. He has also posted a conspiracy theory video alleging that Israel is behind ISIS. Ahmed is employed by the charity which Naz Shah chairs. an independent councillor in Bradford, but he says he remains a Labour Party member as well. Will they kick him out too? What is going on in Bradford?
UPDATE: A Labour spokesman says Istiaq Ahmed was excluded from the party years ago. He says he rejoined.
Why Attack Israel’s Free Press?
Though Israel has one of the most vibrant and free press cultures in the entire world, Freedom House has downgraded its ranking in the group’s annual report on freedom of the press that will be released tomorrow from “free” to “partly free.”
How is that possible? Has Israel’s government sought to suppress criticism? Has it shut down outlets that disagreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu? Are dissenting voices no longer heard on its television or radio stations?
No, none of those things have happened. Israel, which has far more active newspapers per capita than most democracies, remains a country where critics of the government and of the country, in general, have no trouble in being heard on radio and television or in finding space in general circulation publications. Indeed, it is often far more difficult to find those who back Israel’s government or its current prime minister than it is to encounter his opponents in the media. In that respect, the Israeli press tilts even further to the left than that in the United States.
Why possible reason then can there be for downgrading Israel’s ranking? The answer is simple. The group considers “the growing impact of Israel Hayom” to be a problem. According to Freedom House, that newspaper’s “owner-subsidized business model endangered the stability of other media outlets.”
What are they talking about?
Jennifer Rubin: Freedom House drinks anti-Israel Kool-Aid
The report downgrades Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, one with a vibrant range of media choices, from “free” to “partly free.” The report alleges, “Israel declined due to the growing impact of Yisrael Hayom, whose owner-subsidized business model endangered the stability of other media outlets, and the unchecked expansion of paid content — some of it government funded — whose nature was not clearly identified to the public.”
The action shocked and angered the pro-Israel community. “At a time when the Middle East is beset by barbarism and tyranny, it is malicious and a disservice to the truth to downgrade the one, thriving multi-cultural democracy in the region,” said one official at a pro-Israel group.
Robert Ruby, director of communications for Freedom House, insisted, “Israel, like some other democracies, has hovered on the line between ‘Free’ and ‘Partly Free’ for several years.” He struggled to explain the two rationales for the change.
“The first is the growing economic influence of Israel Hayom, which is distributed free of charge,” he said. “It has affected the economic model and stability of other publications.” In other words, if you are successful, you create an “unfree” press. Maybe the invention of the free Internet or the success of free Twitter and Facebook have made the United States unfree since so many publications have gone belly-up. He could not explain why that phenomenon does not affect the U.S. rating as “free,” but Israel Hayom’s success makes Israel “partly free.” (Previous reports noted the instability in the U.S. media market, but the United States did not lose its “free” rating.)
Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, observes, “The media business has never been stable in any free-market country. In just the past five years in America, Facebook — which is free! — has become the single biggest source of news in the country, a new reality that has quickly destabilized the media business.” He explains, “Publications that haven’t succeeded at creating Facebook-friendly content have failed, and publications (such as Buzzfeed) whose traffic and distribution model is designed almost entirely around Facebook have flourished.”
13 Democrats Among 17 Senators Not on Letter for Increased Israel Defense Aid
Among 100 members of the US Senate, 17 lawmakers — 13 Democrats, three Republicans, and one independent — decided not to join the strong bipartisan support for a letter arguing that Israel should receive increased annual defense aid from America.
The letter, signed by 83 senators and addressed to President Barack Obama, cites a number of security threats facing Israel that justify “investment in the long-term security requirements” for America’s “closest Middle East ally.” Israel is hoping that its US defense package will rise from the current $3.1 billion per year to between $4 and $4.5 billion annually, while the Obama administration has proposed a target of $3.7 billion.
US Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) initiated the letter, which was not signed by the following 17 senators: Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Angus King (I-Maine), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), John Tester (D-Mont.), and Tom Udall (D-N.M.).
Senior US official: Senate letter on Israel won't change a thing
A letter from 83 of the 100 total senators demanding US President Barack Obama to hurry and settle a new defense aid package to Israel, encouraging him to raise it from $3 billion a year, will not make a difference in practice, a senior American official opined Wednesday.
If anything, additional support for Israel is a given, he told Army Radio- due to heavy bilateral support for Israel in Congress.
Israel has been asking for an increase of the annual defense budget to $4-$4.5 billion when the current agreement expires in 2018, and while the letter did not specify how much the US should give, it called for a significant increase.
In the letter, the senators also said they want to increase US funding for cooperative missile defense programs with Israel, such as Iron Dome and David's Sling.
Taking BDS to its logical conclusion
Boycotting Israel only to the extent that it suits you, while taking advantage of Israeli IT or medical technology is, of course, a particularly sickening form of hypocrisy and possibly a completely new breed of bigotry. Nevertheless, it would appear that some state officials on the European continent have indeed tried to bring BDS to its logical conclusion, even when it meant that they might find themselves at a considerable disadvantage in an area of grave importance to national security.
According to news reports, France was offered Israeli security technology to track terrorists, which might possibly have prevented the disastrous terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 and in Belgium in March 2016. The technology tracks terrorists by finding and matching intelligence reports from a number of national and international databases and employs powerful analytical tools and unique algorithms to navigate and process the information. According to an Israeli counter-terror specialist, French authorities liked the technology, but were told that there was a higher-level instruction to abstain from purchasing it. No official reason was stated for the rejection.
If true, this shows that not only has BDS made significant inroads into official France, but also that there is at least one European government willing to disregard its own citizens' security just to pursue the goals of the BDS movement. It should give every concerned European pause that a European government puts the twisted and basically racist policy of boycotting Israeli products before its obligations of securing its own citizens and keeping them safe from terrorism -- especially recently, with the Islamic State terror threat at an all-time high.
Moral Turpitude in Turtle Bay
Last month, the United Nations condemned only one country in the world for violating women’s rights. Singling out Israel with specious accusations of harming Palestinian women is a popular annual ritual in Turtle Bay — scapegoating democratic Israel while willfully ignoring the many states with actual, well-known egregious policies toward women. Just because the UN repeats this accusation every year does not make it true. The hypocrisy and institutional bias are mind-boggling.
At the 60th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), whose mission is to promote global gender equality and the advancement of women, a report of the Secretary-General, “Situation of and Assistance to Palestinian Women,” was presented, discussed, and approved. It accused Israel of violating the rights of Palestinian women through its blockade of Gaza and “occupation” of the disputed territories, and received a vote of 20 in favor (including China, Cuba and Iran), 11 abstentions (including Belgium, Germany, and Japan), and only Israel and the U.S. opposed. In its statement after the vote, the U.S. termed the report a one-sided, politicized document, and Israel described it as an attack on the Jewish state because of its failure to hold the Palestinian leadership accountable for the lack of advancement for Palestinian women.
The report describes the dismal situation for Palestinian women in Gaza and the “West Bank,” including those in refugee camps under UNWRA administration. UNWRA, an arm of the UN, has been complicit in fostering hatred against Israel rather than encouraging cultural, legal, and religious reforms to enhance the quality of life of Palestinian women.
According to the UN, Israel’s so-called “occupation of Palestinian land” is the sole impediment to Palestinian women attaining gender equality.
Using Gandhi To Sanctify Hamas
In October 2015, President Mahmoud Abbas “assured” the President of India that he and his band of cronies and oligarchs ruling the Palestinian Authority were in reality “seekers of peace” merely “following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi.”
President of Palestinian Authority told the visiting Indian delegation that “non-violence is the only way for Palestine to realize its dream of an independent Palestinian State.”
It was not known if the visiting Indian delegation was indignant at the disingenuous comparison or amused at their host’s sad excuse for a stand-up gig. The current wave of Arab terror that started in October last year — just as the Indian President began his state visit to Israel — has taken the lives of 31 Israelis and wounding more than 400. In the same period Arab terrorists carried out more than 200 stabbings, 83 shootings, and 42 car ramming attacks targeting Jews and Israelis.
It is not the first time Palestinian leadership and its advocates in the West are using historic metaphors rooted India’s struggle for independence to sanctify their violent and malicious campaign targeting the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
Anti-Israel activists in the West pepper their banners, speeches and press statements with the terms like “nonviolent struggle” and “civil-disobedience.” And describe themselves as “anti-Colonialists.” Back in the days when India was struggling for independence from the British Rule these words had a historical meaning and context.
For “Palestinian” activists, these are mere smoke screens to camouflage their primitive Jew-hatred.
Vassar students start voting on anti-Israel referenda
The BDS referendum is particularly deceptive, as it does not mention an academic boycott of Israel, but SJP takes the position that if it passes it would constitute an endorsement of the academic boycott. We explained in Vassar anti-Israel activists attempt stealth academic boycott Resolution. I have confirmed with a student active in the issue on campus that there has been almost no discussion of the academic boycott, which would be much more controversial than boycotting Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
SJP is the driving force behind the anti-Israel movement and the referenda, but it puts Jewish Voice for Peace out front (which is the role JVP plays on many campuses – to present a “Jewish” face to BDS):
Turnout will be key. One student involved in fighting the referenda told me that apathy may be the biggest problem. After the national media firestorm a few weeks ago, many students have moved on.
Since the anti-Israel students generally are more motivated to get involved, a small turnout generally helps BDS. In places, like Bowdoin, where the turnout is high, BDS fails miserably.
We will report on the results when they are announced on Thursday.
Exclusive: French government indicates giant bank violates anti-BDS law
The French embassy in Israel announced that an account held by Campaign BDS France with Credit Mutuel bank appears to violate the law.
"The French opposition against any form of boycott is well known. There are strict rules in France against calls for a boycott. These rules apply notably to all economic operators," the French embassy told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
France’s 2003 Lellouche law has been applied to punish Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) activists for seeking to damage Israel’s economy. The Lellouche law outlaws discrimination based on national origin. The French embassy statement sends a fresh blow to Credit Mutuel and could open a floodgate of litigation against the financial institution. Multiple Post press queries to the French financial institution Credit Mutuel were not immediately returned on Tuesday.
Frédéric Monot, a spokesman for Credit Mutuel, told the Post last week, “We do not disclose information covered by banking secrecy, but we strictly respect the application of French law.”
Credit Mutuel is now in the cross hairs of a two-front legal war. On the other side of the Atlantic, where Credit Mutuel has a branch office in New York City, the state’s legislature is negotiating a tough anti-BDS law.
The Harvard Eleven — The Bitter Lessons
Eleven Jewish students writing a letter in support of a notorious anti-Semitic colleague student at Harvard School of Law may be an episode, a foot note, another esoteric example of kid’s ignorance and stupidity. Or this is not the case, rather it is a seminal event, something which those researching the estrangement of so many American Jews Judaism and Israel will hail as a symbolically significant event. I, for one, go with the latter. Here is what makes it much more than a passing episode.
Let us start with the venue. Harvard Law School , the place where the half-Jew Romanian- born John Hauseman played the unforgettable role of professor Charles W.Kingsfield in the Paper Chase series. Somehow I believe that in Harvard of Kingsfield, no student would dare standing up in front of hundreds of his peers and refer to a smelly Jew. Moreover, I believe, that not only Kingsfield, but all , or most of his colleagues, would have protested this outrage, and not allowing their school to try and cover it up. But, and this is the problem here, times have changed. The spirit of the time has changed. It is not possible to say anything in public about ”smelly Muslim”, and rightly so. It is not acceptable to say anything in public about ”smelly gay”, or ”smelly African-American” , and rightly so. But,”smelly Jew” is so possible, in Harvard of all places, and with eleven young misguided Jews defending it.
The second important point is, that the pro-Palestinians do not shelter anymore behind anti-Zionism. It is anti-Semitism through and through , and they say it in Harvard as well as in so many other places, because they feel and know, that the winds are blowing in their direction. They know, I suspect, that the thugs of Jewish Voice for Peace and just ordinary Jewish students will go to every extreme, in fact, will use every pseudo-intellectual argument to justify them. This is one, though not the only contribution of deranged Liberal and Progressive Jews to the rise of open anti-Semitism in campus. Then there is the recipient of the hatred. Poor Tzipi Livni. What , on earth, did she not do to distance herself from her past record of being a loyal Likudnik?. No, my dear Tzipi, nothing will help you, unless you will defect completely from Zionism like Avraham Burg did. You, Tzipi Livni, can go as Left Wing as you want, but you are still and always remain a ”smelly Jew”.
Geller: Lamar Advertising Runs Libelous Anti-Israel Billboards, Refuses AFDI Pro-Freedom Billboards
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) points to Alison Weir, who is involved in sister anti-Semitic organizations If Americans Knew and the Council for the National Interest, as being behind this ad. A GoFundMe page for contributions to this particular billboard campaign was set up in Weir’s name.
The ad says that it was “paid for by www.honorlibertyvets.org,” which aggressively promotes the discredited conspiracy theory that Israel intentionally sank the USS Liberty warship in 1967. In reality, the sinking of the ship has been thoroughly investigated by the U.S. government and deemed an accident.
In contrast to the national rollout of this ad, truth-tellers are blacklisted, blocked, censored from running facts. Every major city has enacted what I call the Geller Law – after we won every lawsuit against cities that were refusing to run our ads, one after another they prohibited political and cause-related ads, solely in order to prohibit my ads from running. The fact that they never had any intention of enforcing their prohibition consistently is illustrated by the fact that ads such as this anti-Israel one still run, while mine cannot. My ads telling the truth about the jihad threat are forbidden, while this libel — this blood libel — is sanctioned, assaulting highway drivers with vicious anti-Semitism.
Lamar is not the only company running this ad, but their double standard in rejecting our AFDI ads and running this blood libel is particularly egregious.
Exodus of Glaswegian Jews Continues Amid Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism
Scottish Jews are continuing to abandon the country amid a rising tide of anti-Semitism, local leaders have said. They point to incidents such as the Palestinian flag being flown by Glasgow City Council as signs that they are being made to feel increasingly unwelcome in their own cities.
Jews have lived in Scotland since the late 18th Century, with the community swelling to peak numbers of around 20,000 by the early 20th Century, mostly driven by migration from Eastern Europe as Jews sought to flee the rise of Nazism.
Most of those settled in and around the Gorbals area of Glasgow, but the community has been in steady decline ever since, and that trend does not seem to be letting up. Between the censuses of 2001 and 2011, Glasgow lost some 20 percent of its Jews, with the population dropping from 4,222 to 3,396 in number.
The city is still home to the fourth largest Jewish community in Britain, but the trend continues.
Romania expected to pass Holocaust restitution bill
Legislation that will make it easier for Holocaust survivors to press restitution claims is expected to pass in Romania’s parliament next week.
Lawmakers said Tuesday they expect the bill, which removes barriers to claiming property, to succeed, Reuters reported.
Much of the Jewish property confiscated in Romania during the Holocaust was later taken over by the Communist government. Despite laws passed after the collapse of Communist rule, few people have been able to claim government-owned property.
A draft law published on the parliament website said that in processing applications for the return of property, priority would be given to “requests by people certified as Holocaust survivors by entities designated by the Romanian state or other European Union states.”
Israeli-made ‘black hole’ could win Stephen Hawking a Nobel
In 1974, Hawking hypothesized that black holes are slowly evaporating, challenging the conventional understanding that nothing could escape from the void of a black hole.
The theory, known as Hawking Radiation, suggests that subatomic light particles are sometimes ejected back out of a black hole, taking with them tiny amounts of energy, resulting in a gradual decrease in its mass over time until it evaporates completely.
But more than 40 years later, no one had been able to prove Hawkings theory, mainly because light particles from black holes are too small to be detected from Earth.
Enter Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Physics Professor Jeff Steinhauer. Last year, he and his team of researchers recreated the conditions of a black hole in a lab using sound waves in order to study how subatomic particles behave on its edge, known as an event horizon. (h/t Dave4321)
Israeli grassroots lifesaving model goes international
When the ambulance on which he was volunteering in the 1980s got stuck in Jerusalem traffic and failed to reach a choking child in time, then-teenager Eli Beer envisioned squads of neighborhood-based volunteers who could reach patients quickly by foot or cycle and begin first aid until the ambulance arrives.
In 1989, he equipped 15 volunteer first-responders in his Jerusalem neighborhood with police scanners and thus planted the seed for a nationwide volunteer emergency medical services organization, United Hatzalah, formally founded in 2006.
UH’s 3,000 volunteers have treated 1.6 million people in Israel as of 2016. The organization also sends humanitarian-aid teams to disaster areas around the world.
Over the past few years, large cities in Brazil, Panama, Argentina, India, Lithuania, New Jersey and Michigan have asked the award-winning Israeli NGO to help them set up similar systems in order to get aid to victims of accidents and illness within three minutes.
Israeli car engine could halve fuel costs, emissions
Founded in 2014 by Fridman, CTO Shaul Yaakoby and CEO Ariel Gorfung, Aquarius is the latest challenger to the hegemony of the internal combustion engine – the piston-driven machine that generates energy to turn wheels and open and close valves, providing the power that enables a several-ton hunk of steel, aluminum, and plastic to move.
Developed over a number of years in the mid-1800s, the internal combustion engine was first patented in 1860, and was in commercial production by the early 1900s.
“Over the years there have been incremental changes in IC engines, with the most recent innovation the development of the turbo engine, which uses air to pressure and power,” said Fridman. “But those have been very incremental, nothing like our take on engine technology in the Aquarius engine.”
Instead of the 4, 6, or 8 pistons that thrust up and down to turn the valves that move the wheels, the Aquarius engine features a horizontal-moving cylinder that generates energy to power two electric generators that power the car. The result is a much smaller engine without the thousands of complicated and hard-to-replace parts in standard engines; a small, efficient power-generating machine with fewer parts to wear out, and fewer parts to distribute energy to – meaning that there is less chance for the energy to dissipate, said Fridman.
IDF Vets Help Arab Entrepreneurs Launch High-Tech Startups
There’s something very unusual about Hybrid, the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry’s new accelerator for startups in the Arab sector, recently launched at the Nazareth Business Incubator Center (NBIC).
The unusual aspect is that it leverages the expertise and connections of Israeli military veterans. Specifically, Hybrid teams up early-stage Arab-Israeli entrepreneurs with members of the 8200 Alumni Association.
This elite group of veterans of the IDF Intelligence Corps’ Unit 8200, which specializes in signal intelligence and code decryption, has spawned some of Israel’s most successful high-tech executives.
“We know that 70 percent of successful Israeli startups are led by 8200 graduates,” says NBIC Director Fadi Swidan, who co-directs Hybrid with Eitan Sella, a former entrepreneur and 8200 alumnus.
“They have their own NGO, 8200 EISP, to help them run their startups and they have a lot of connections available at all stages,” Swidan tells ISRAEL21c. “These people can help our entrepreneurs to connect with the startup ecosystem because they already have a solid position within it.”
IDF Blog: Journeys to Freedom: IDF Rescue Operations
On Passover, the Jewish People celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt and their journey to freedom in the Land of Israel. In honor of the holiday, we’re honoring stories of daring crossings and escaping persecution. There was no need to part the seas – airlifts sufficed for bringing hundreds of thousands of Jews to safety. Here are three stories of these rescue missions.
Operation Magic Carpet
Yemenite Jews have long had ties to the Land of Israel. Religious zeal and an upswing of anti-Semitism brought waves of immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries to places like Silwan in Jerusalem and Kerem HaTeimanim in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. After the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which called for the establishment of a Jewish state, state-sanctioned oppression of Yemen’s Jewish community only increased. Violent riots broke out that year in the port city of Aden, Yemen, killing 82 Jews and injuring tens of others. Jewish property was destroyed, and shops owned by Jews were looted.
Operation Moses
In 1974, the Derg, a military junta rose to power in Ethiopia. This new government, led by Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, was hostile to the country’s ancient Jewish population, the Beta Israel. The situation for the Beta Israel continued to worsen into the 1980’s. Famines, civil war, and the influence of the Derg’s Soviet patrons exacerbated the difficulties of the Jewish population, who were forbidden from emigrating by the government. Some Ethiopian Jews fled by Israeli ships, departing from Sudan. In 1984, the Israeli government deemed this process too dangerous, and ended it. That November, in a closed-door session, the Israeli government decided that the IDF would airlift the Beta Israel to safety in Israel.
Operation Ezra and Nehemiah
The Jews of Iraq have a long history of culture, philosophy, trade, and study, and that was reflected for centuries in their high status in Iraqi society. Even after Iraq gained its independence from Britain, Jews continued to hold important cultural and governmental posts. But as anti-Zionist sentiment grew and Nazi propaganda started flowing into the country in the 1930’s, the Jews of Iraq found themselves victim to terrible violence. The 1941 Farhud, a massive pogrom that took place in Baghdad on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, was the culmination of this anti-Jewish provocation. Hundreds of Jews were killed, and hundreds more were injured. Jewish properties and businesses were destroyed and looted. Shaken by this extreme violence, Jewish communities were no longer safe in Iraq.
IDF Blog: IDF Nepal Delegation by the Numbers
On April 25, 2015, Nepal was hit with an earthquake of extreme magnitude. The impact was immense. More than 600,000 houses were destroyed and hundreds of thousands more were damaged. An IDF delegation was one of the firsts to participate in the global effort to rescue the Nepalese citizens and its tourists. Here are some numbers you need to know about IDF efforts in Nepal.
14 Days
Our delegates arrived two days after the earthquake and got straight to work. Landing April 27th, the field hospital was up by the next day and continued operating until May 10th.
260 Representatives
The Medical Corps included 45 doctors and 29 nurses. Additionally, the IDF delegation brought along two mental health professionals to treat unseen trauma.
1668 Patients
With injuries ranging from scrapes to severed limbs, our doctors remained constantly alert for every victim that was rushed in. Among the patients were 8 newborns who we helped deliver.
130 Surgical Procedures
Our field hospital was fully operational. IDF doctors performed tens of plastic surgeries and hundreds of orthopedic surgeries. In addition, the hospital had a fully functioning lab in which they ran a range of tests for the patients.
One Year After: Looking Back at the IDF Mission to Nepal
Watching prophecy unfold with 'lost Jews' - and Hindu villagers
I thought we could handle the forecast predicting steady 105 degree weather in order to go to Southern India for Pesach to serve as visiting Rabbinic leadership for a little-known community of Indians practicing Judaism called the Bene Efraim.
But as I reached into the seat-back to check out the airplane newspaper, headlines read, 'record breaking heat wave hits Andreh Pradesh, temperatures upwards of 120 degrees' and, well, I laughed. That kind of awkward laugh that comes with silent expletives and a simultaneous pleading prayer that the Indian news wasn't really accurate. I actually double checked to make sure it wasn't their satirical version of the news like the The Onion or something. Especially since it took a bit of convincing to pull my charismatic husband away from the opportunity to lead a large seder on our beautiful rooftop in the Old City where we live...
Well the news was not a satire, and I learned quite a few things about oppressive heat. Did you know bananas could actually melt? Or that balloons simply pop or deplete almost immediately, even when they are meant to be seder decorations, in high temperatures? I nearly depleted too, sweating more than Lucy in the famous I Love Lucy 'sauna episode' - but I have survived and am eager to share the tale with you. The tale of a heart warming, prophecy revealing, humble crew of Indians.
I won't discuss here whether or not I feel that the Bene Efraim are "officially" a lost tribe or try to prove or disprove their Jewish lineage or blood either way. For that there is plenty of literature one can turn to, such as can be found on the Kulanu.org website, the great organization that helped us plan our trip. Rather, I want to share the most touching part of my experience with the community.
Judaism Is a 3,000-Year-Old Love Affair With a Land
The connection to Israel is important in understanding modern politics
On Passover, Jews all over the world change one sentence in their daily prayers; instead of praying for rain, we begin to pray for dew. For in Israel the time for the grain harvest has begun, and if the winds blow and the rains fall, the grain cannot be harvested and will will rot in the field. Dew on the other hand, will moisten the grain without damaging it. That simple change in the prayer marks a profound truth about Judaism that touches on modern politics as well.
Twenty-five years ago I was returning from a two-day trip to New York. I ran into my teacher, the late Rabbi Henry Fisher. We began talking, and he asked me if I had changed my watch to accommodate New York time. “No,” I said, “I kept it on Los Angeles time.” “Why?” he asked? “Because,” I answered, “I would soon be home.”
Rabbi Fisher then told me that that is why Jews all over the world prayed for rain or dew when it was needed in Israel, no matter where they lived. The assumption of Jewish history is they would soon be back in Jerusalem. They kept their clocks to the time at home.
It has also been a tradition for many centuries in Judaism to leave a corner of one’s house unpainted, to remind us that this is a temporary dwelling. We are here only until we are gathered back to Israel.
Passover 1945: A Jewish soldier’s story
If someone were to ask me when my most memorable Passover was, I would, without hesitation, answer March, 1945.
Our division, the United States Army 86th Infantry, was stretched thinly along the west side of the Rhine River, in the area of Cologne (Koln), Germany. Our orders were to stand firm to repel an anticipated Nazi attack. The German Wehrmacht – 350,000 troops strong – we were told, was massing on the east side of the river.
At night German commando units would cross the river to probe our fortifications and strength. We had, at best, about 15,000 troops, including a cadre of officers who preferred the rear echelons to oversee their troops, cooks, office personnel, truck drivers and a small contingent of tanks.
It was March 28, the first night of Passover, and I and two other soldiers of Company E were manning a strong point with a heavy machine gun in an abandoned, battered factory building that once made Bayer Aspirin, or so the sign said. Our lookout on the river was in a maze of brick and concrete, dark, dank and filled with weird, unearthly sounds.
We were the watch on the Rhine, with orders to shoot on sight. Nazi infiltrators from across the river were a headache, but the Bayer factory was not making any aspirin.
In a room nearby was a huge machine and conveyor belt loaded with sweet candies.
Probably destined for the Nazi army.
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