05/06 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism Goes to School; BDS Is An Anti-Indigenous, Pro-Colonial Movement

From Ian:

Anti-Semitism Goes to School
War differs from other forms of human interaction in dividing us into those for and those against. The organization of politics against the Jews constitutes an unusual form of warfare in that all the aggression is on one side and all the hunger for resolution on the other. The desperation or “pessimism” that is generated by this genuinely irrational barrage has tempted some Jews to hold other Jews responsible, preposterously, for the suffering of Palestinian Arabs. Anti-Semitism thrives on the “hopeful” idea that if Jews are responsible for a crisis, it can be easily solved by the Jews’ transformation, or elimination. Some Jews, seduced by this irrationality, help to stoke its fires.
When the current enemies of the Jews first chose the universities as a primary battleground in America, they met little or no opposition from liberal administrators or faculty, including Jewish faculty. Anti-Semitism, after all, is just an idea—is it not?—and ideas, which is what universities traffic in, can be the springboard for the best of human endeavors. Indeed they can; but they are also the springboard for the worst, and not even God can help those who fail to distinguish between the two. Anti-Semitism, among the very worst of human inventions, has by now thoroughly corroded Arab societies and with great force and determination is making its way back into Europe. Can America prove exceptional by recognizing the threat and fighting it off?
 BDS Is An Anti-Indigenous, Pro-Colonial Movement
First and foremost, as I have alluded to in my opening paragraph, BDS is neither about human rights or co-existence. The goal from the outset has always been to dissolve Israel and replace it with an Arab Palestinian state, thereby restoring the country to Arab colonial domination. Barghouti himself made this clear when he openly boasted of his desire to “euthanize” Israel, and that the outcome of BDS would not be a two state solution, but “a Palestine next to a Palestine.”
Other prominent BDS supporters, such as As’ad Abu Khalil, were even more candid, saying that “justice and freedom” for Palestinians is “incompatible with the existence of the State of Israel.” And what would happen to the Jews in such a state? Only time can answer that question, but given the obscenely high rates of antisemitism throughout the Arab world, it is safe to say that deportations and massacres (against Jews) are far more likely than anything resembling peaceful co-existence. This, however, is of no concern to the BDS movement or its sympathizers.
Second, although the dominant narrative in Israel/Palestine discourse is that Palestinian Arabs are the “true” indigenous occupants of the Holy Land, a cursory glance at the history of the region paints a very different picture. Palestinian Arabs, as their name directly implies, are a subgroup of the larger Arab nation whose origins lie in the Hejaz province of what is now Saudi Arabia. Their presence in the Levant largely dates back to the 7th century AD, when Arabian armies colonized a significant portion of the Middle East and nearly all of North Africa. And even though today’s Palestinians share a considerable amount of genetic material with diaspora Jews, indigenous status is lost when one fully adopts the mantle of the colonizer. Throughout their conquests, Arabs have oppressed, subsumed, and eliminated countless indigenous cultures while imposing their own via brute force. Israel was just one of the many regions that came under Arab colonial rule, and Jews (at least those who remained after the earlier Roman occupation) were just one of the many indigenous peoples they subjugated. The Dome of the Rock was deliberately built on the site of the fallen Temple, and was intended to be a symbol of humiliation to the Jews.
"Courage: The Reason I'm an Israeli-Arab Diplomat Not a Palestinian Refugee"
Israeli-Arab diplomat George Deek weaves together his family history, his childhood and his hopes for the future, bringing the audience at the StandWithUs UK Annual Event to their feet.




FIFA to host Israeli and Palestinian soccer heads
FIFA says it will host the leaders of the Israeli and Palestinian soccer federations within days, seeking an agreement before the governing body’s congress this month.
The Palestinian Football Association wants Israel suspended from world soccer because its security forces restrict movement of players in the West Bank and Gaza.
The PFA defied FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s wishes by pushing for a vote of 209 member countries on May 29 in Zurich.
FIFA says Blatter met Israeli soccer leaders on Wednesday and told them “any member association that is fulfilling its statutory duties should not be suspended.”
The Israeli federation has said the issues are political and beyond its control.
Tight security as Tunisia hosts Jewish pilgrimage
An annual Jewish pilgrimage to Africa’s oldest synagogue in Tunisia began in a festive atmosphere Wednesday, despite tight security after the Bardo museum massacre and warnings of planned attacks.
Around 200 Jews joined the pilgrimage on the island of Djerba in southern Tunisia, voicing defiance as they chanted and lit candles at the Ghriba synagogue.
“I could not miss this,” Janet, a 54-year-old Israeli of Tunisian origin, told AFP. “It was important for me to make this pilgrimage, whatever the risks.”
Believed to have been founded in 586 BC by Jews fleeing the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, the Ghriba synagogue has long been a pilgrimage site, especially for Jews of Tunisian descent.
A Tale of Two Societies: When a President’s Hero is a Terrorist
The first female Fatah terrorist captured by the Israelis was Fatima Bernawi. In October 1967, Bernawi placed a bomb in the Zion Cinema in Jerusalem. Note, by the way, that the attack did not take place in “occupied territory,” except in the sense that Fatah considers even pre-1967 Israel to be “occupied Palestine.”
By sheer chance, the bomb did not explode. Bernawi was captured and sentenced to life in prison for attempted mass murder. Unfortunately, she was released after 10 years as a “gesture” in honor of the visit to Israel of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. That was a terrible mistake by the Israelis. It helped create an expectation about releasing terrorists when, in fact, Israel should have always maintained that Arab leaders who are against terrorism surely would not want terrorists to be set free.
Shortly after the establishment of the PA in 1994, Bernawi was rewarded with the position of chief of the women’s section of the PA police. That, too, was an outrage. The PA should have been told in no uncertain terms, by both Israel and the U.S., that no terrorists should be rewarded with government jobs. Such rewards send a message that terrorists are heroes and should be emulated—exactly the wrong message to send to young Palestinians.
The fact that the U.S. helped train the PA police makes the situation even more outrageous. American government personnel were training a convicted bomber. Imagine if Bill Ayers were to apply for a position in his local police department. Would anyone in his right mind say he should be hired?
Bernawi, like Ayers, never expressed any regret for her terrorism. To this day, she regards planting a bomb in a movie theater as an act of heroism.
Fatah’s official web site, announcing Abbas’s decision to present Bernawi with a medal, hailed her as “one of the first Palestinian women to adopt armed self-sacrifice operations after the start of the modern Palestinian revolution.” (Translation courtesy of the Middle East Media and Research Institute.)
So there you have it. An American president who distances himself from a terrorist, and an American society that utterly rejects terrorism. A Palestinian president who embraces terrorists, and a Palestinian society that treats mass murderers as heroes.
Two societies, two different sets of values, two different ways of life. Perhaps there is nothing Americans can do to change the PA. But why must $500 million in U.S. aid continue to be sent to the PA each year? American taxpayers would not want to subsidize Bill Ayers; so, why is their money being used to subsidize Fatima Bernawi?
The vicious campaign against Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ever since Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s latest book “Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now” came out at the end of March, the writer who should be celebrated as a “hero for our time” has been maligned in numerous articles. It was arguably no surprise that Israel-haters like Max Blumenthal would try to denigrate Hirsi Ali, but it was pathetic to see that supposedly serious media professionals like Al Jazeera presenter Mehdi Hassan promoted Blumenthal’s smear campaign on Twitter.
The latest attack against Hirsi Ali describes her as “dangerous” and sets out to explain why “we must reject her hateful worldview.” The sub-header hints already at the major reason: endorsing Hirsi Ali “insults and mocks a billion Muslims” – and as we know from many incidents, that can indeed be very “dangerous”… But of course, nobody knows that better than Ayaan Hirsi Ali herself.
What is particularly noteworthy about this attack against Hirsi Ali is that it is authored by a very successful self-described “Muslim” woman whose own life-story and life-style is quite unthinkable in any Muslim country. Indeed, in an interview Rula Jebreal gave to an Italian blog in 2009, she described herself as “married to Western values ​​of freedom and democracy, secularism and tolerance.”
A Jew in Bradford
Welcome to Gallowayland.
This is what I think as I drive into Bradford.
In two hour’s time I will be punched in the head.
The squinty moon-face of one of Britain’s most ferocious orators glares from the street posters, capped by a black fedora.
RoadTrip1-transparent-iconGeorge Galloway has turned the constituency of Bradford West into his own world, catapulting into parliament as a Muslim-grievance politician from Britain’s most Islamic city.
Galloway, a former Labour Party MP, has got his seat by using anti-Zionist rhetoric, whilst suing critics who say he is anti-Semitic. His political genius is to have twigged that Bradford’s multiculturalism is a mirage: He now plays the city’s Pakistani clan politics, of family controlled votes, for power.
British civility has collapsed in Bradford’s elections.
Daniel Gordis: Criticism Follows Israeli Aid to Nepal
Israeli humanitarian aid, however, is unique in that it invariably evokes cynicism. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch (an organization so hostile to Israel that even its founder rebuked it in disgust and later left the organization), tweeted “Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel's making in Gaza. End the blockade!”
Israelis, too, have joined the pile-on. Haaretz, Israel’s hard-left-leaning paper of record, couldn't help but point out that “once again, Israel is shining during a disaster thousands of miles away. But the people down the coast are another thing.” (Haaretz didn't mention that Gaza’s Hamas government is sworn on destroying Israel, and unleashed a war against Israel’s citizens this past summer.) Another Haaretz column insisted that “Disaster relief feeds the illusion that we can somehow be clever, creative and cooperative enough to make the world absolve us of everything else that is wrong with what we do.”
Some Israelis, though, have had enough and are beginning to push back. In what started out as a Facebook post that eventually went viral and become a blog entry on the Times of Israel website, Haviv Rettig Gur wrote:
If I hear one more time that Israel's field hospital in Nepal is somehow connected to the conflict with the Palestinians, I'm going to permanently block the person saying so on the grounds that they're stupid. Here's the thing: Israel is an entire … country, with all the complicated impulses and competing agendas of any human society. … The IDF doesn't go to Nepal to avoid the Palestinian issue. It goes because Israelis have honed emergency medicine into an art form, and because the IDF has never quite shed its founding culture of adventurousness, and, above all, because there are people out there who desperately need help.
The Biggest Mistakes Pro-Israel Advocates Make #3: How to Actually Know What You’re Talking About
You don’t have to be a genius to understand that if you are caught giving out wrong facts, you lose your credibility. Since a lot of the anti-Israel activists are well-trained professionals, we have to work so much harder than they do as they are quick to exploit any holes in our logic or story. Their activists know how to draft resolutions, infiltrate student governments, and captivate their audiences to the point that they’re all over these innocent students before we get a chance to sneeze, let alone say “Am Israel Chai.” Therefore, they get to frame and direct the argument. Fortunately for us, the facts, and history, are on our side, and the other side is the one that is twisting facts and ideas. Another advantage is that pro-Israel activists tend to be more educated on the issue, because the antizionist viewpoint usually belongs to someone who was too lazy or had too much at stake to pick up a nonrevisionist history book. However, even those of us who are educated tend to make mistakes, especially given how biased and misinformed sources we trust such as politicians, the media, NGOs, and even the UN often are. The most common errors are 1) that Arabs (“Palestinians”) are indigenous to Israel and 2) That the settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. I’m going to debunk those two myths because they are so ingrained in the discourse that they are seen as truth, even among most pro-Israel students.
Student groups at 5 universities join BDS movement
Representatives of student representative councils at five South African universities announced that they would begin pressuring their schools to cut ties with Israel on Monday.
Speaking at a press conference in Pretoria, student leaders from the University of South Africa, Cape Town University of Technology, Mangasutho University of Technology, Durban University of Technology and the University of the Western Cape stated that their respective SRCs had all adopted resolutions to " join the academic and cultural boycott of Israel."
The students said they were following a 2011 mandate of the South African Union of Students which urged "all SRCs, student groups and other youth structures to strategize and implement a boycott" and that they would push their respective universities to divest from Israel. In pursuit of this goal, the student groups will also "be auditing our universities' investment funds and service providers to ensure that companies that are in violation of the BDS call and complicit in the Israeli Occupation...are excluded from investment funds and service contracts."
On Wednesday Mcebo Dlamini, the president of the Wits SRC, was terminated after posting "I love Adolf Hitler" on Facebook, underscoring the significance of the challenges facing Jews on South African campuses. In March students at the University of Cape Town were appalled to find posters swastikas and images of Adolf Hitler plastered around their campus as part of a campaign to remove a statue of British businessman and colonialist Cecil John Rhodes.
Airbus with Saudi Arabian logo turns up at Ben-Gurion Airport
The arrival of jumbo jet with the logo "Saudia" to Ben-Gurion Airport overnight Tuesday generated a stir in the Israeli media on Wednesday after surprised airport workers spotted the plane.
The plane in question, an Airbus A330-300 devoid of passengers, arrived from Brussels to Tel Aviv for routine maintenance work with the Bedek Aviation Company, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), officials said. A European client that works with Bedek for plane maintenance happens to lease its jets to various corporations, including Saudia, they explained.
"IAI confirmed that the Airbus came to IAI facilities in order to have maintenance work done due to an agreement that IAI has with a European company that leases the plane to Saudi Arabia," a spokeswoman for IAI told The Jerusalem Post.
Typically, routine maintenance on such planes takes about a few weeks, officials said. (h/t J_April)
CNN Fails Again, This Time With Yemen Reporting
Of course, it wasn’t as though CNN wasn’t able to cut away from Baltimore at all. So what did CNN cut away from Baltimore for? CNN cut away from Baltimore, not to cover civilian casualties of war in Yemen, but to cover Sunday’s protests in Tel Aviv. Because Israel, as we know, is The Most Important Story On Earth. (CNN coverage of the Tel Aviv protest, of course, neglected to mention that, unlike in Baltimore, the police officer whose actions spurred the protests was immediately suspended and is to be removed from the police force.) CNN also managed to spare a few minutes Monday morning for Peter Beinart to blame the victims of the attack on a free speech event in Texas on Sunday.
Civilians dying in Yemen, like civilians dying in Iraq or civilians dying in Syria, just don’t merit the same level of attention from CNN as civilians dying in Gaza. By featuring such images with such relentless prominence when Israel is involved, and by omitting them totally or nearly totally in other cases, CNN is adding to the misperception that Israel acts with disproportionate force, and the misperception that only Israeli wars produce widespread civilian casualties. Rather than informing its viewers, CNN is just adding to the misinformation.
Guardian parrots Palestinian propaganda in claim that Avigdor Lieberman doesn’t live in Israel
We often complain that the Guardian’s reporting on Israel – even when not in violation of the accuracy clause of the Editors’ Code – is consistently tendentious. That is, most of their straight news stories (reports as opposed to op-eds), by the intentional use of biased language or through obfuscatory prose, implicitly promote a particular point of view within the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Peter Beaumont provided an excellent example of such ‘views as news’ reporting in a story published on May 4th titled ‘Israel’s foreign minister resigns, throwing coalition in doubt‘.
Here’s the penultimate paragraph in Beaumont’s report:
Lieberman was unusual in the world of international diplomacy in not having his residence in the country he represents, instead choosing to live in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which Palestinians claim for their future state.
Guardian amplifies Breaking the Silence’s baseless allegation of Israeli racism
Beaumont opens by noting that the BtS report relies on “testimonies provided by more than 60 Israeli soldiers who fought in last summer’s war in Gaza” which he concludes raises “serious questions over whether Israel’s tactics breached its obligations under international law to distinguish and protect civilians”.
Tellingly, Beaumont failed to note that Breaking the Silence had reportedly “declined to share any of the evidence or testimony it collected from soldiers [to the IDF] with it before publishing”, thus preventing “the IDF from investigating any alleged wrongdoings uncovered in the report itself”.
Indeed, it’s next to impossible to fisk the soldier accounts cited in Guardian report, because they lack details necessary to research the specific incidents they’re allegedly recounting, including one soldier account cited by Beaumont suggesting that the IDF operation was compromised by anti-Arab racism.
BBC editorial guidelines flouted in promotion of ‘Breaking the Silence’ booklet
Obviously that introduction – like Frank’s closing description of the organization as an “Israeli advocacy group” – fails to clarify to audiences the political aims behind ‘Breaking the Silence’ and notably Tim Franks made no effort to challenge Stoller with regard to his claim that “we are not subcontractors of anybody” despite the group’s considerable foreign funding.
Another interesting aspect to the BBC’s multi-platform promotion of the claims made by ‘Breaking the Silence’ is the fact that its booklet of testimonies was published on the same day that the two above BBC reports appeared and yet as of the morning of May 4th, the booklet was only available in Hebrew. Despite that fact, the BBC managed to produce a written report in English within a matter of hours and to arrange World Service radio interviews not only with Stoller but also with the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and with the IDF spokesman with similarly impressive alacrity.
No less remarkable was Tim Franks’ promotion of the notion of ‘war crimes’ on two occasions during the twelve-minute segment. Franks asked Stoller:
“If you’re imputing that war crimes were committed – and it sounds as if you are – isn’t that the province of the International Criminal Court?”
He later asked Bensouda:
“In terms of the allegations that have been made today, how far would they constitute war crimes if they could be substantiated?”
Josh Bornstein: White supremacists stole my identity to spew hatred on the Times of Israel
The storm was all but over within 36 hours. Unlike other victims of social media shaming, I did not lose my job. On the contrary, my work colleagues rallied around me.
That said, there is another digital twist to this bizarre and disturbing experience. Before the offending article was torn down, an image of it was placed on another site. Despite vigorous attempts to have it removed from the internet, it still continues to be peddled online. As a result, I have received more threats.
A genuine blogger, Daniel Sieradski, was prompted by my experience to do some online detective work about this episode. He discovered that a few weeks before the fake blog began to be published by the Times of Israel, a post appeared on a website foreshadowing what was to come:
“Using a fake Jewish name, profile, and photo, I got myself a blog on The Times of Israel,” the post read. “These people believe I’m really a Jew.”
Sieradski’s work led me to a site that appears to have been created by a neo-Nazi group based in the US. In one of their posts, the group denigrates me as a “subversive Jewish parasite”, a “human rights activist”, “open borders advocate” and “staunch supporter of hate speech laws”. The same photograph of me that was published by the Times of Israel appears on this website; this time with a yellow Star of David emblazoned on my forehead.
France’s National Front founder Le Pen suspended from party
France’s National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen was suspended from the far-right party his daughter Marine now leads after a disciplinary hearing on Monday.
Patience with the 86-year-old rabble-rouser has run thin within the party in recent weeks after he reiterated his view that the Nazi gas chambers were merely a “detail of history” and made comments about defending the “white world.”
A special meeting of party members will be called “within three months” to decide whether to strip him of the title of honorary president of the National Front (FN), a party statement said.
Le Pen described his supension as a “criminal act.”
Hungarian Holocaust Denier Ordered to Study the Holocaust
A Hungarian prosecutor on Tuesday ordered a man to read up on the Holocaust after he shared a picture on social media depicting Auschwitz as an imaginary fun camp, reports the AFP news agency.
The 33-year-old, from Gyongyos east of Budapest, must visit a Holocaust museum and read a well-known history book on the period, the chief prosecutor in Heves county said in a statement.
The picture, made by an unknown person, showed the entrance to the former death camp in Poland with the sign "Auschwitzland, the world's largest fairytale camp!" Around 4,000 people saw the image.
To avoid criminal charges, the man must also convince supervisors over a two-year period that he is unlikely to repeat the act, the prosecutor said, according to AFP.
In February 2010, the Hungarian parliament made denying the genocide committed by the Nazi regime a crime punishable by a maximum three-year prison sentence.
Amal Clooney Stirs Controversy Wearing Met Gala Gown by Disgraced Designer John Galliano
Amal Clooney, the Lebanese human rights lawyer who rose to prominence last year after marrying famed actor George Clooney, prompted a social media uproar after revealing that disgraced designer John Galliano had designed her gown for the Met Gala on Tuesday night.
Ahead of the prestigious event,Vogue magazine posted on Instagram a photo of Clooney, 37, being fitted by Galliano into the voluminous red dress before heading out to the star-studded event with her husband. Also appearing in the shot was Anna Wintour, the powerful Vogue editor-in-chief who has been working to rehabilitate Galliano after he was fired from Christian Dior four years ago over an antisemitic rant.
Social media users said they were disappointed by Amal’s decision to wear the design by Galliano. One Instagram user said, “So a human rights lawyer is being dressed by a vicious antisemite? Hideous.” Another wrote, “I thought she was a human rights lawyer? I am so disappointed by her choice to wear something by Galliano.” Yet another said she was “surprised and confused” by the choice.
“I use to be a fan of her work and now I think she may be just a phony. Such a shame she wouldn’t see the hypocrisy,” another noted.
Looted Nazi painting returned from Louvre to heirs
A 17th-century painting that was looted by the Nazis from a prominent Jewish art curator in Munich and ended up at the Louvre in Paris is being returned to the heirs of its rightful owner.
The painting, “Portrait of a Man,” was recovered by the French government and the US Department of Financial Services’ Holocaust Claims Processing Office, which has helped recover more than 100 Nazi-looted works of art and returned some $171 million in assets to victim’s families.
Before World War II, “Portrait of a Man” was owned by August Liebmann Mayer, a renowned art historian and curator, according to the Department of Financial Services. After the Nazis rose to power, Mayer was forced to resign his positions at the Bavarian State Paintings Collection and the University of Munich, and on March 24, 1933, he was arrested and the property in his Munich home was seized.
In 1935, Mayer was able to flee to Paris, but his home was again looted when the Nazis captured the city during the war. Mayer eventually was deported to Auschwitz, where he died on March 12, 1944.
Walking While Jewish In Montevideo
We’ve featured many videos of the street harassment that accompanies Walking While Jewish in many European cities, including Paris, Copenhagen, Malmö and parts of Britain.
So here is a change of pace.
Chabad produced a video of one of its Rabbis spending 10 hours walking through Montevideo, Uruguay.
An amazing thing happened.
Nothing. Other than some compliments.
Jewish sister suffragettes on display in new UK exhibition
In October 1913, three Jewish women were thrown out of London’s New West End Synagogue during the Yom Kippur service after loudly declaring, “May God forgive Herbert Samuel and Sir Rufus Isaacs for denying freedom to women; may God forgive them for consenting to the torture of women.”
The women were members of the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage (JLWS), an organization founded in 1912 dedicated to attaining votes for British women. The JLWS also campaigned for equal religious and communal rights for women within the Jewish community and its membership included both Liberal and Orthodox rabbis as well as notable Anglo-Jewish families such as the Montefiores and the Zangwills.
Although the League was largely law-abiding, the 1913 Yom Kippur disturbance resulted in its members being branded by the Anglo-Jewish press as “blackguards in bonnets” – a description that is the title of a new, small exhibition at the Jewish Museum London.
Timed to coincide with the United Kingdom’s general election on May 7 and running until May 22, Blackguards in Bonnets looks at significance of the British Jewish women and men who were involved in the struggle to gain electoral representation. From awareness-raising tea parties, rallies and lectures to more militant actions such as hunger strikes and acts of arson, the exhibition shows this political movement crossed the class and religious spectrum.
Israeli Food Tech Startup to Make Sugar Taste Twice as Sweet
Israeli greentech startup DouxMatok believes that they will revolutionize how manufacturers and consumers worldwide use sugar.
“DouxMatok’s technology will allow for a reduction of 30-60 percent of sugar in a product, depending on the application, and with no effect on taste,” CEO Eran Baniel told Tazpit News Agency.
Baniel added, “When we tested it in the UK, our product had the exact same taste profile as un-adapted sugar, with none of the aftertaste caused by artificial sweeteners.”
For health-conscious individuals with a sweet tooth, these are enticing promises.
In recognition of their breakthrough, Baniel’s company won “Best Company” at the “Agravest 2015″ event, last week. Agravest, a yearly conference organized by Israel’s Ministry of Economy, Trendlines Agtech, and GreenSoil Investments, took place at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Israel-born chef wins America’s top foodie prize
The James Beard Foundation on Tuesday awarded Israeli-born chef Alon Shaya with America’s top food prize, naming him Best Chef in the southern region for 2015, following three consecutive years he had been nominated as a finalist in the category but ultimately failed to win the prestigious award.
Shaya, executive chef at Domenica in New Orleans — a restaurant he opened in 2009 with John Besh — left Israel at age four and grew up in Philadelphia.
The ex-Tel Avivian cook is known for adding a bit of Israeli flavor to Italian dishes, particularly on Jewish holidays. He says he “spent most of his time in the kitchen with his mother and grandmother, which instilled in him a passion for cooking,” according to a biography featured on Domenica‘s website.
Dana Cowin, the editor-in-chief of the prestigious Food & Wine magazine, named Domenica as one of her top restaurants of 2012. In the same year, New Orleans Magazine honored Shaya as “Chef of the Year” as well. Domenica is regularly awarded “Best Hotel Restaurant” by Gambit Weekly and appears as a Top Ten restaurant in the Times-Picayune’s Dining Guide.
In Photos: Israeli clowns help ease trauma in quake-hit Nepal
A team of five medical clowns from Israel is in Nepal visiting earthquake victims to ease trauma effects and to reduce pain and anxiety among children and adults in communities and hospitals.
More than 7,500 people were killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless by the April 25 earthquake in Kathmandu.
Israel opened a field hospital in Kathmandu last month to help treat the thousands of Nepalese injured in the massive earthquake, and its rescue teams continued to help comb the rubble for survivors.
The rescue teams are operating under the command of the Nepalese military, which is directing them to various sites.
Israel a big player in Microsoft’s big data future
The future of Microsoft is big data analytics – squeezing meaning out of the trillions of bytes of data that will soon be in “the cloud,” that amorphous repository of the bits and bytes where nearly everything we do online is stored.
It’s not just online. In an Internet of Things future, said Yoram Yaakovi, CEO of Microsoft Israel’s R&D Center, data will be collected from a wide variety of devices and appliances, from refrigerators to washing machines, uploaded to the cloud for analysis.
And Israeli technology, he said, will be at the forefront of figuring out how to use this data for the benefit of users. Israel, Yaakovi added, has the start-ups, engineers, ideas and experience to leverage technology and “provide real insight into data so we can use it for our benefit.”
5-minute car battery charger on its way
StoreDot made headlines when it unveiled its prototype instant phone battery charger at last year’s Microsoft ThinkNext exhibition in Tel Aviv. The FlashBattery/FlashCharger unit could be available on smartphones by the end of this year.
In another bombshell, the Israeli company announced at yesterday’s 2015 ThinkNext that it intends to demonstrate its five-minute ultra-fast-charge car battery at this time next year.
This groundbreaking technology would enable drivers to charge their car batteries in less time than StoreDot needs to explain how it works.

"126 year old Palestinian remembers the Nakba" (update)

From Turkey's Anadolu Agency:

Rajab al-Toum, a 126-year-old Palestinian man, says the history books fail to accurately describe the days that followed the Palestinian Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic), which coincided with the establishment of Israel on May 15, 1948.

Al-Toum still vividly recalls events, including the atrocities committed by Jewish terrorist gangs against the local Palestinian population – memories that still bring tears to his eyes.

"The massacres that took place at the time remain etched on my memory," al-Toum told Anadolu Agency.

Already 59 years old when the Nakba occurred, al-Toum had been working on a farm in Beersheba (in what is now southern Israel) when violent Zionist gangs forced hundreds of thousands Palestinians to flee their homes and villages.

He remembers seeing Jewish soldiers dragging a young pregnant Palestinian woman away before killing her in front of her husband and children.

"I trembled in fear when I saw this," al-Toum said. "I was afraid they would kill me too."
Given that the oldest verified person ever was 122, and the oldest person alive is almost 116, it appears that his claim of massacres is as accurate as his claim of how old he is.

In an earlier interview:

When the British ruled, the Palestinian story began and revolutionaries emerged, he said. “I was with them and I had a gun; I knew how to carry it and shoot. We used to go at night and destroy bridges used by occupiers.”
See also Israellycool from last year where he doesn't seem to remember how many children he had.


UPDATE: In 2013 he was said to be born in 1885. So he must be 130!

(H/t Bob K)

Dialogue with a Western Leftist - The Video

I mentioned in the Nick Cohen article I had quoted earlier today that it would be perfect for one of those XtraNormal videos that have popped up all over the web.


Reader Angrybell actually made it!



I like his choice of actors.

Some real world Arab reaction to OBL death

Found on the comments section of Palestine Press Agency:

From Afghanistan:
Bin Laden is alive and will shortly appear on a YouTube video. And bin Laden will appear and talk about the latest news of Libya, will talk about the death of Qaddafi's son Seif al-Arab so as not to say that the video was done beforehand.


From Gaza:
Revenge from Al Qaeda of the people of monkeys and pigs!

From Gaza:
It is a Jihad Jihad, victory or martyrdomGod bless Sheikh Mujahid Osama bin Laden ....Oh God, bring him into His paradise, O Lord of the Worlds ....We as Muslims, we say a response is coming, God willing, the Almighty

From Gaza:
The doctrine of jihad and martyrdom has the love of the afterlife of eternal life and not a fake mortal life.Thus are men like Osama bin Laden.

From Gaza:
There will be reprisal for the spirit of the martyr Sheikh Osama bin; we will not forget you for what Sheikh sacrificed for the people, but you, O our sheikh and we will take revenge for you, O our sheikh

From Mesopatamia:
So long, master of martyrs.
What makes this especially interesting is that Palestine Press Agency is a pro-Fatah newspaper. This doesn't mean the readers are all Fatah supporters, of course, but it is interesting that not one Fatah supporter has commented that Bin Laden was anything but a saint.

Traveling, reading open thread

I'm going on a business trip to Florida, so blogging may be a little sporadic this week.

I will say that I am reading Tuvia Tenenbom's Catch the Jew, and so far it is fantastic. While no one of any religion or origin in Israel is spared from his acerbic wit, he does an amazing job hilariously documenting how EU governments and NGOs are paying millions of euros to Palestinian Arab projects whose only purpose is to instill hate of Jews. (Tenenbom is the one who documented that a B'tselem researcher denied the Holocaust to him.)

Tenenbom, who grew up haredi and since rejected religion, is skilled at gaining the trust of his subjects, by pretending to be a German or Arab or Austrian. Once Arabs and European do-gooders and self-hating Jews in "Palestine" trust him, they reveal the ugliness within them, all with smiles.


Britain, 1973: That Was the Support That Was (Daphne Anson)



In previous columns I’ve touched upon hostility shown at certain times by British administrators towards Zionism and Israel. In this, a continuation of last week’s column concerning the Conservative Heath government’s arms embargo during the Yom Kippur War, I want in fairness to offer a small taste of the pro-Israel sentiment that was the other side of the coin.

I was in London at the time, and attended the Zionist Federation’s huge pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square on a crisp autumnal Sunday afternoon, 14 October, at which speakers denounced the Heath government, the Foreign Office, the Arab aggressors, and the United Nations. The throng – which included well-known stars of stage and screen, including such non-Jews as Donald Pleasance – was estimated by The Times (15 October 1973) as 10,000 strong, but the Jewish Chronicle (19 October 1973) put the figure at 20,000. Speakers included the Israeli ambassador, Michael Comay, the Federation’s president (life peer Lord, formerly Sir Barnett, Janner), the president of the Board of Deputies (Sir Samuel Fisher), a former president of the Liberal Party (life peer Lady [Nancy] Seear), Conservative MP Hugh Fraser, and Labour MP Peter Shore. Chief Rabbi Lord Jakobovits recited a prayer. Lending support by their presence were the 89-year-old Jewish Labour life peer Lord (Manny) Shinwell, and the 89-year-old non-Jewish Conservative peer Lord Barnby. I can see the latter clearly in my mind’s eye: standing proud and erect in a tan-coloured overcoat, this right-wing aristocrat who spoke up for Israel in the House of Lords that week; to my disgust, the Jewish Chronicle failed to record his presence, even after I wrote to remind them of it.

To cheers, Hugh Fraser expressed his abhorrence of the fact that the government “should at this time be sending arms for a parade of independence in Dubai and denying to Israel, fighting for its life, spare parts for Centurion tanks”. Peter Shore condemned the deafening silence from the nations of the world regarding the Arabs’ premeditated attack on Israel on Judaism’s holiest day, and observed that it was extraordinary that at a time when the Soviet Union was pouring armaments into Arab countries British Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home had nothing better to offer than a unilateral arms embargo which would tilt the balance against Israel.

The rally passed a resolution calling on the Heath government and the UN to condemn Egypt and Syria and to assist in the promotion of a just and peaceful settlement, negotiated between Israel and the Arabs. As soon as the rally was over, the resolution, addressed to Edward Heath, was taken to 10 Downing Street.

When the arms embargo issue was voted upon in the House of Commons (the government carried the day 251: 175 with over 100 MPs abstaining or absenting themselves from the Chamber), seventeen Conservative MPs defied a two-line whip to vote against their own side. These rebels included all but two of the party’s nine Jewish MPs (one of the two was Robert Adley – real name Adler – for whom Jewishness was clearly a burden and who ended up as an Anglican): the remainder were Andrew Bowden, Hugh Fraser, Philip Goodhart (son of a Jewish father, Oxford jurist Professor A. L Goodhart), John Gorst, Tom Iremonger, Sir Stephen McAdden, John Maginnis, Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Mitchell, Ernie Money (yes, that really was his name; he sat for Ipswich), and Dudley Stewart-Smith. In addition, the Reverend Ian Paisley, the Ulster Unionist MP, flew from Belfast to London especially to vote against the embargo.

The Jewish Chronicle (16 November 1973) revealed that during the Yom Kippur War thousands of British non-Jews had offered to help Israel. The Israeli Embassy experienced jammed switchboards in the first week of the war owing to the numbers of Gentiles phoning to offer assistance or merely good wishes. The Embassy received 1,500 supportive letters during the conflict and several hundreds more in its immediate aftermath. “Unlike previous poignant occasions – such as the Munich massacre of Olympic athletes last year – there was not a single abusive and derogatory letter or one with even a hint of antisemitism.” Those offering material help included several British servicemen: for example, a former Royal Navy officer offered his motor launch to the Israeli navy, and when the offer was politely refused begged to be allowed to take it to Israel himself; two soldiers from County Durham who wrote “It would give us pleasure and honour to serve in your country against your oppressors”; a merchant seaman from Leicester who wrote of his preparedness “to adapt myself to any circumstances to fight for the Jewish cause” and to pay his own fare to Israel to do so. Six individuals offered their own private planes, complete with pilots, for Israeli reconnaissance flights. Then there were people such as the young Scotsman who turned up at the Embassy with rucksack packed, ready to fight for Israel; there were the Londoners who answered the call to give blood at the Marble Arch Synagogue for Israel’s war wounded; there were those who sent unsolicited gifts of money, even jewellery, to help Israel’s war effort.

There was the army major who, in a letter to The Times (30 October 1973) recalled that serving under General Sir Horatius Murray in Palestine during 1948 was “the period of my army service of which I am least proud”. Murray, in a letter to the same newspaper (26 October 1973) had written that back then he was “forced to shell Tel Aviv with 25-pounders and to attack with tanks” and that “this action proved successful”. “So it should!” observed the major sarcastically. “We found that to a large extent Tel Aviv was defended by women, children, and old men, and the sight of their sacrificed bodies sickened the most hardened British troops. The Jews have always paid the full price in blood for their tiny promised portion of the earth’s surface.”

A widespread perception abounded that churchmen had not been as outspoken as they ought regarding the Arabs’ attack and its timing. I haven’t looked into this issue enough to make an informed comment, but certainly that was the view of the rabbi of Manchester’s Reform Synagogue. Certainly, too, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, in a letter to one Zionist body wrote that his church, “which has a deep affection for the Jewish people, shares in the revulsion that hostilities should begin against Israel on the Day of Atonement, when the Jewish people were at prayer.” (It is, by the way, interesting to note that in a column entitled “Friends like these” [Jewish Chronicle, 15 October 1973], the Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, now almost 85, one of the most outrageous Israel-baiters in the House of Commons, decried the attitude of most of the British media, which, it seemed to him, appeared to rejoice in the chastening effect the war had so far wrought on Israel.)

One of the well-known personalities at the pro-Israel London rally mentioned above was the author Lynne Reid Banks, perhaps best known for her novel The L-Shaped Room. She read out score upon core of messages of solidarity from notable people unable to attend in person. I remember reading a stirring newspaper article during that war in which Ms Banks wrote (I believe I quote her correctly from a distance of 42 years) that the Jews of Israel – “their tiny sliver of a country” – deserved support from non-Jews “for all that we let them suffer in Europe”. It was a beautiful article and most welcome. More recently, however, Ms Reid Banks, although observing on her website that she is not a Jew, has, like her Jewish husband, Israeli ex-pat sculptor Chaim Stephenson, signed statements critical of Israel under the auspices of “Independent Jewish Voices”. IJA is an organisation which would appear to include a number of persons who are Jewish only by some accidental quirk of ancestry or other tenuous association. I wonder whether, were he alive now, Robert Adley would sign that body’s statements criticising Israel. There are certainly Jews who do so for whom such activity under those auspices is their only association with matters Jewish.

It seems to me that at the root of much of the pro-Israel sentiment that was being voiced at the time might have been rooted, to a greater or lesser extent, consciously or subconsciously, in an identification of modern Israel’s struggles against the Arabs with ancient Israel’s struggles against Pharoah, a remembrance of school scripture lessons. There were, of course, other factors at work: support for Israel in remorse for Jewish suffering down the centuries culminating in the Holocaust, and admiration for the Jews and what they had achieved not only in exile but in Israel too; the perception of Israel as an ally of the West, which contrasted with older perceptions that an independent Jewish State would be a tool of the Soviet Union. I’d like to discuss these matters more fully in later columns, but for now I’ll conclude on this note: traditionally taught “religious knowledge” is no longer on the British school curriculum, and comparatively few children imbibe the scriptures at home or at Sunday school. Therefore fewer and fewer have the opportunity to identify the trials and tribulations of modern-day Israel with the trials of ancient Israel or to perceive an organic historical link between the old Israel and its miraculous modern successor. It’s a problem, especially at a time of encroachments by so-called “Chrislam,” another topic that must await a later column.


Daphne Anson is an Australian who under her real name has authored and co-authored several books and many articles on historical topics including Jewish ones. She blogs under an alias in order to separate her professional identity from her blogging one.

UNRWA spokesman pathetically trolls for compliments (update)

I missed this bizarre tweet from UNRWA PR flack Chris Gunness:

He is trying to pretend he has a sense of humor about his crying on air last year and by making that bad Photoshop* from an old TV show, but his desire to have people tell him that they like him is real. 

And pathetic.

But if Gunness really wants to insert himself in a TV show, here's one that might work:


UPDATE: Gunness didn't make the first poster above; it was done at Israellycool.

Australian party's BDS costs its political leadership

Last week I mentioned that the Sydney, Australia suburb Marrickville intended to boycott Israel - at the cost of nearly $4 million.

It looks like this foray of a left wing party into world politics has cost it dearly:

NOW we know that the meddling ideological extremism of the Greens cost them the inner-city seat of Marrickville in the NSW election last month.

What should have been a shoo-in in one of the most barmy left electorates in the country resulted in more than one-in-three voters rejecting the Greens because of Marrickville Council's Israel boycott, according to a poll by a Jewish group.

This is a boycott that, by the Green-controlled council's own figures, will cost it as much as $4 million to stop using Israeli-linked products such as Hewlett-Packard computers (apparently used at Israeli checkpoints) and Motorola telephones.

The voters were first to show some backbone, after abiding years of Green dabbling in Middle East politics. But last week Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd slammed the boycott as "nuts" and NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell threatened to sack the council if it doesn't reverse its stance.

Sensing the end of his dream run, even the Greens' supreme leader, Bob Brown, rejected the boycott and distanced himself from his failed state candidate, Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne, although he can't help offloading blame onto what he calls the "hate media" for costing his party the seat.

But he should look a little closer to home for the culprit.

Jake, a 55-year-old Jewish health professional with friends in Marrickville, was so incensed by the council's Israel boycott that he took three weeks off work to wage a guerrilla campaign against the Greens, plastering the suburb with posters late at night, accusing them of homophobia for boycotting gay-friendly Israel.

"I felt so angry," says Jake, who wants to remain anonymous. "I couldn't sleep at night, so I organised the posters, hired some utes and ladders" and enlisted the help of his son and his friends. Greens supporters harassed them, ripped down the posters, called police, and tried to intimidate Jake's young helpers, posting footage of them on YouTube.

On election day, Jake and his son organised 10 friends wearing T-shirts with "Boycott the Greens" logos to visit polling booths, prompting "Zionist pigs" abuse from greenies.

The Greens lost to Labor by fewer than 700 votes, in a seat they were favourites to snare.

The backlash was quite a shock to the Greens, whose extremist ideological baggage is at last costing them votes.
...
The Middle East conflict is not a game. Yet it has somehow become a vehicle for moral preening half a world way and a badge of belonging for lazy leftists whose talents are best suited to fixing potholes, which, by the way, abound in Marrickville.
Another BDS epic FAIL.

(h/t Zvi)

Officials downplay anti-semitic attack in Rochester

From WHEC, Rochester NY:

Brighton police are calling it a young person's prank in poor taste.

Officers say two young men soaked toilet paper in gasoline and lit it on fire in the middle of the street--in the shape of a swastika.

It happened just after 11 o’clock Saturday night in front of 30 Edgemere Drive. That's in between Southern Parkway and Eastland Avenue.

Police are not calling this a hate crime, but say two 17-year-old boys were apprehended last night and charged with aggravated harassment and arson. Their names are not being released at this time, as police believe they will be charged as youthful offenders. We do know that one young man is from Rochester, the other from Rush.

Investigators do not think the crime was directly targeting any person in the area.

Brighton residents we spoke to today commented on the timing of the crime occurring on the day of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Brighton Police say that based on their investigation, they have no information that makes them believe the crime was committed because of today's commemoration.
Callie (h/t) tells me that this was in a mostly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and across from a synagogue.

But I'm sure that this was just a coincidence that the "prank" occurred in a religious Jewish neighborhood.

Real Breaking the Silence 2: Another IDF soldier speaks

(Part 1 here)


Shachar Eilenberg, an IDF soldier who fought in Gaza, wrote down some of his experiences on Facebook in response to the "Breaking the Silence" release of anonymous "testimonies."

Operation Protective Edge - Khirbat Ikhza'a
In the early morning hours we identify two kids walking near a house we were staying in. Four combatants quickly accompany Company Commander Benaya Sarel as they go out to "pick" them, and bring them to us so we can interrogate and ask them what are they doing in an area that has been clear of civilians for the last week and a half, an area where fighting is taking place. After a quick interrogation by the Prisoner Interrogator and Benaya Sarel it becomes clear the kids came here looking for food and have no ties to Hamas. Benaya decides to give them some of our food and release them to their homes.

Operation Protective Edge - Khirbat Ikhza'a, the same house as the incident mentioned above.
We're in it for quite a long time and discover that due to a miscalculation of the amount of food we took, our team of 13 combatants is now left with just one Tuna [can]. In the kitchen of the house there's pasta that can feed the whole team. We explain this to the Company Commander and ask for permission to make the pasta. The reply we got was: "You made a mistake, you didn't take enough food, be strong and survive with what you've got. Eating from the the family's food is looting and we're not an army of looters".
And no, we didn't destroy the house after we left it.

Operation Protective Edge - the outskirts of Rafah.
1.8.14, 08:00, the humanitarian cease fire comes into effect.

Minutes after the the cease fire a biker emerges, we try to stop him, but because of the cease fire we can't - he manages to escape. Afterwards we realize the said biker is a Hamas operative sent to check our force's location and pass intelligence to Hamas.

A short while afterwards Benaya Sarel spots an unarmed "civilian" on the second floor of a nearby building. Again, just like in the first incident, Benaya decides to go "pick" the civilian and find out what's he doing in a combat zone, where for some two weeks and a half there are no civilians in sight.

The Command Squad, comprising of six combatants, goes out to bring the civilian to us for interrogation. When they reach the said civilian a strong explosion is heard and heavy fire is opened up on them. All this of course during the "humanitarian cease fire". From this incident Major Benaya Sarel, Lieutenant Hadar Goldin and First Sergeant Liel Gidoni did not return. Again, I emphasize, this was during a cease fire.

Who ever says our army is immoral and criminal is blind, and if the soldiers of such an army are criminals I'm a proud criminal.
(h/t K., Yoel)