[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 03/05 Links Pt2: Chloe Valdary at AIPAC 2014; The Royal Tour of Israel with PM Netanyahu ~ EoZ

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 03/05 Links Pt2: Chloe Valdary at AIPAC 2014; The Royal Tour of Israel with PM Netanyahu

From Ian:

The acting out and vitriolic language against Israel that so often defines campus anti-Israelism may make the activists feel good about themselves for striving for social justice, but, as journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has contended, these are hollow efforts, that “[i]nstead of investing money and efforts in organizing Israel Apartheid Week, for example, the self-described ‘pro-Palestinians’ could dispatch a delegation of teachers to Palestinian villages and refugee camps to teach young Palestinians English. Or they could send another delegation to the Gaza Strip to monitor human rights violations by the Hamas authorities and help Palestinian women confront Muslim fundamentalists who are trying to limit their role to cooking, raising children and looking after the needs of their husbands.” What was Abu Toameh’s conclusion about this misdirected effort to support the Palestinian cause? “What is happening on the U.S. campuses,” he wrote, “is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state. It is not really about ending the ‘occupation’ as much as it is about ending the existence of Israel . . ,” and “we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.”

Defender of Israel Responds to Racist Attack

Today’s FrontPage Interview guest is Chloe Simone Valdary, a junior and international studies major at the University of New Orleans (UNO). In her short time on campus, Ms. Valdary has distinguished herself as a passionate defender of Israel and Zionism, creating the organization Allies of Israel, one of the lone pro-Israel groups at her university. Ms. Valdary is also the assistant director of special programs for the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (ISBI) and blogs for Arutz Sheva and the Times of Israel. In addition to being featured by the Jewish Press, BET.com, Breitbart.com, the Jerusalem Post, among others, Algemeiner named Ms. Valdary one of the top 100 people positively affecting Jewish and Israeli life. Recently, Ms. Valdary’s advocacy has elicited the ire of anti-Israel activists, one of whom resorted to racist attacks against her.

At AIPAC, Student Activists Make Themselves Heard

The conference was an unequivocal display of support for the alliance between the United States and the State of Israel, and the list of speakers was typically impressive. Party leaders were joined by senior Senators John McCain and Robert Menendez and Secretary of State John Kerry - all of whom stressed the mutual benefits and shared moral values which underline the continued alliance between the two countries. From the Israeli side the list of dignitaries was no less impressive: from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to opposition leader Isaac Herzog, as well as a number of other Knesset Members including Economics Minister Naftali Bennett.
But in between the big names, Arutz Sheva took the time to speak to some of the 2,300 student activists who attended the event, many of them for the first time.
One such activist was Chloe Valdary, a student from New Orleans whose Declare Your Freedom initiative - launched just last year and set to take place for the second time later this month - is gaining ever more attention on US campuses.

Pro-Israel Activist Chloe Valdary @ AIPAC PC 2014

Netanyahu Praises Scarlett Johansson in AIPAC Speech

Johansson stepped down as a global ambassador for the human rights group Oxfam International, which had criticized her for serving as pitch woman for SodaStream.
“Everyone should know what the letters B-D-S really stand for: bigotry, dishonesty, and shame. And those who oppose BDS, like Scarlett Johansson, they should be applauded,” Netanyahu said. Channeling the 1939 movie “Gone with the Wind,” the prime minister said, “Scarlett, I have one thing to say to you: Frankly, my dear, I DO give a damn.”
Also on Tuesday, Hollywood sources reported that Johansson is expecting her first child with her fiancé, Romain Dauriac.

Isi Leibler: The insanity of providing platforms for our enemies

Anti-Zionist charades from the far-left-wing American Jewish community are now a daily occurrence. We witness the manipulations of the reprehensible BDS movement, J Street’s efforts to encourage the US administration to pressure Israel, and the frequent hosting by universities of radical anti-Israel speakers. As disturbing as these developments have been, we have tended to discount them as the workings of the radical Left.
But now, American Jewish anti-Zionists are engaged in an aggressive campaign to gain acceptance by the mainstream Jewish community. In the name of freedom of expression and open dialogue, radical Jewish liberals and well-heeled Jewish armchair progressives are pressuring Jewish organizations to provide platforms for those engaged in vicious efforts to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state. Their efforts are being enthusiastically promoted by the increasingly anti-Israeli liberal media, especially The New York Times.

Noam Chomsky in the Crimea

Go to London or of any other Western capital and here is what you will not see. You will not see mass demonstrations against the Russian invasion of the Ukraine swaying down the same streets in which the liberal-left marched against the invasion of Iraq. You will not hear prominent left-wing voices emphasizing that Putin is attempting more than an invasion; that the Russian Federation – and what a benign word ‘federation’ is for a revived Tsarist autocracy – is the last of the European empires, and is seeking to expand its borders, as empires always do.
In short, the activist left will not tell its followers that we are witnessing imperialism: not ‘cultural imperialism’ or ‘neo-colonialism’ or any of those other catchall, thought-forbidding phrases, but the real thing.

Presbyterian Church’s guide is dead wrong about Iranian Jewry

On a monthly basis I come across dozens of articles from Western news media and even from the Iranian regime’s state-run news outlets claiming that Jews live in supposed peace and total freedom in Iran — or that Jews even enjoy something close to a “paradise” in Iran. While most of these outrageous claims about the supposed “lovely” lives of Jews in Iran are laughable, often times as an Iranian Jewish journalist I feel compelled to set the record straight when a more reputable publication or organization makes blatantly false statements about Iranian Jewry. Such was the case when I was given a January 2014 copy of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s recent publication of their booklet “Zionism Unsettled, a Congregational Study Guide”. This booklet not only makes unsupported and completely inaccurate statements about the lives of Jews in Iran today, but it distorts the history of Iran’s Jews just to advance their own anti-Israel agenda.

South Africa Minister Compares Israelis to Nazis in Written Statement Distributed by UN Human Rights Council

The UN Human Rights Council - the UN's top "human rights" body - continues to provide a platform for the dissemination of antisemitism during its current session in Geneva, Switzerland. On day two, March 4, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa, spoke to the Council and distributed a written statement now posted on the Council's web-site. In it she analogizes Israeli actions to that of the Nazis:

BDS Movement Will Fail, Netanyahu Says at AIPAC

BDS is “bad for peace” because it hardens the Palestinian position and “makes mutual compromise less likely,” said the prime minister. He noted that Israel is the only Middle East country that protects Christian worship, gay rights, and freedom of the press.
“The BDS movement is not about legitimate criticism, it’s about making Israel illegitimate,” he said. “It presents a distorted and twisted pictured of Israel to the naïve and the ignorant.”
“Those who wear the BDS label should be treated exactly how we treat any anti-Semite or bigot… The boycotters should be boycotted,” Netanyahu added.

BDS Fail – Jake Lynch

Dan Avnon this week took up a Sir Zelman Cowen scholarship at Sydney University’s Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, after Professor Lynch, who heads the university’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, turned him down. The move sparked an explosive academic stoush and an international court battle.
In an exclusive interview, Professor Avnon broke his silence to tell The Australian he believed Professor Lynch deserves a “red card” for refusing to sponsor him because the Sydney academic supported the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

Court upholds conviction of Irvine protesters

During the speech, the protesters interrupted Oren repeatedly, calling him a “mass murderer” and a “war criminal.” The heckling caused him to pause his speech amid calls for order, and he curtailed his hourlong speech to 12 minutes.
In 2011, the students were charged and subsequently convicted of violating a state law prohibiting the disruption or breaking up of a lawful assembly. The appeals court upheld the conviction. The defendants face up to a year in prison.

Palestinian students launch protest at California Hillel

The Israeli Soldiers’ Stories program, organized in conjunction with StandWithUs and the Multicultural Council, hosted soldiers Matan and Tamir on Thursday afternoon to a crowd of nearly 100, according to the Poly Post, which did not use last names out of fears for participants’ safety.
Palestinian students attended the event in what began as a silent protest, as students sat in the crowd with tape over their mouths, holding aloft signs decrying the treatment of the Palestinians. However, the demonstration quickly escalated as protesters began to shout and chant, drowning out the lecturers as soon as they began to speak.

What the Guardian won’t report: West Bank settlement building has DECLINED under Bibi

Ha’aretz was one of the sites reporting the ‘dramatic’ increase in housing construction, and they used the following graph which illustrates housing starts in the West Bank each year, beginning in 2001.
As you can see, though housing starts did increase dramatically in 2013, based on numbers from the previous year, construction for the nearly five years Netanyahu has been prime minister shows a decrease from the previous four years when Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon were in power. From 2009 through 2013, there were 7477 housing starts in the West Bank, while from 2004 through 2008 there were 9293 starts. So, under Netanyahu, there has been a nearly 20% decline in West Bank construction in comparison to the five years before he became prime minister. (Netanyahu was sworn in on March 31, 2009)

Anti-Israel activist David Zirin sports a new blood libel

Anti-Israel activist David Zirin is leading the vanguard to deprive Israelis of their human rights by asking international bodies to discriminate against Israelis based on their national origin. He is hardly an impartial party.
A recent article by Zirin published in the Nation comes darned close to blood libel, continuing the egregious and anti-Semitic meme of Israel shooting Palestinian children for sport. Never mind in this case that the two "children" in question were older teen aged boys who may have been planting a bomb at the time.
He writes " This is only the latest instance of the targeting of Palestinian soccer players by the Israeli army and security forces"
No, David. They were not targeted because they were "soccer players". They were targeted because they were seen allegedly planting a bomb.

The FA must show that Anelka ruling is no empty gesture

After much foot-dragging, the English Football Association (FA) last week finally acted over Nicolas Anelka’s infamous “quenelle” gesture. Sadly, its ruling was somewhat confusing, concluding that the gesture is anti-Semitic, but that Anelka did not intend to express or promote anti-Semitism. And yet, as Anelka admitted, his quenelle was a message of support and solidarity for his friend Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a man convicted of anti-Semitic hate speech on seven occasions, infamous in Anelka’s native France precisely for his bigotry.
The idea, as the FA would have us believe, that Anelka was unaware of the quenelle’s true meaning is disingenuous at best. Although the FA laudably ordered that Anelka attend an education programme, it is perhaps the FA which also needs some schooling. The quenelle stands for something very sinister. It is part of a dangerous new face of anti-Semitism which cannot be left unchecked. Sadly, the FA is not doing all it might to kick it out of football.

Belgian athlete suspended for anti-Semitic quenelle move

The European governing body of soccer, UEFA, announced the punishment on Tuesday against Omar Rahou, who made the gesture several times at a European Championship match of futsal, a variant of soccer, in January while celebrating scoring a goal for his team, Chatelineau, against Romania in Antwerp, the website of the Dutch Algemeen Dagblad daily reported.
Rahou, 21, may appeal the sanction, which is the minimum punishment for racist abuse at UEFA matches after the organization toughened its disciplinary rules last May.

Wiesenthal Center Calls on Moroccan Culture Minister to End Anti-Jewish ‘Hatemongering’ at Casablanca Book Fair

Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) once again called on Moroccan Culture Minister Mohammed Amine Sbihi to end the proliferation of anti-Semitic literature at the Casablanca Book Fair, following his previous failed commitment to do away with the hate books.
The center published examples on Monday of offensive titles at this year’s event in its fifth annual report on anti-Jewish incitement at the Fair, known as SIEL (Salon International de l’Edition et du Livre), which was held from Feb. 13- 23, 2014.

Polish police arrest vandal of Jewish tombstones

The suspect, who was not named, was arrested last week at the Jewish cemetery of Andrychow, 30 miles southwest of Krakow, the news site Wadowice24.pl reported Tuesday.
At the 18th-century burial site, he had knocked down 13 tombstones before police officers arrested him, according to the report. The man, who lives in Andrychow, has several prior convictions and is unemployed, the report also said.

Israeli drones to patrol Brazilian skies during World Cup

Brazil’s Air Force has purchased two new $12 million drones from Israel, to patrol the skies during the FIFA World Cup. The football extravaganza begins in just over three months.
Manufactured by Elbit Systems, the drones are expected to provide crowd surveillance above Brazil’s soccer stadiums during the competition.
“The intelligence-gathering electronic and optics technologies of Elbit and our Brazilian partners are perfectly suited for the homeland security challenges at these events,” said Elbit CEO Bezhalel Machlis.

‘IDF Spokesman in Spanish,’ With Help From Fuente Latina, Seeks to Reach 500 Million Spanish Speakers (INTERVIEW)

On the sidelines of the 2014 AIPAC Policy Conference, IDF Captain Roni Kaplan, a Uruguayan-Israeli with Russian and Polish roots, told The Algemeiner in an interview that, with the help of Fuente Latina, the world’s leading Spanish-language programs have allowed him to bring the IDF’s point of view to new audiences.
“There are 500 million Spanish speakers in the world, but, unfortunately, with so many other battle fronts, the IDF never has been able to focus on the people in this region, until the IDF Spokesman made a conscious decision for this to become a new front for us,” Kaplan said.

Alzheimer drug pioneer to get Israel Prize

Rivastigmine — commercially known as Exelon — is one of the most important drugs to have emerged from Israeli medical research labs in recent years. It’s so significant, in fact, that its chief developer, Prof. Marta Weinstock-Rosin, is to be awarded the Israel Prize for Medicine this year for her work.
The most prestigious award in Israel, the Prize is presented in an official state ceremony on Israel’s Independence Day, presided over by the president, prime minister, Knesset speaker and Supreme Court president.

Post-Oscars, PM unveils tourism TV show in Hollywood

After meeting with US President Barack Obama, addressing American officials and speaking at this week’s annual AIPAC policy conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday made his way from Washington to California to unveil a TV tourism program that, once aired, is expected to bring hundreds of thousands more tourists to Israel.
The program, produced and hosted by CBS travel editor Peter Greenberg, is an hourlong show presenting Israel’s tourist sites in a new light.
The production, created for Greenberg’s “Royal Tour” show and two years in the making, features footage shot the length and breadth of Israel, with Netanyahu himself introducing Israel’s major tourist spots.