[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 08/12 Links Pt2: Ryan Bellerose: One Week As A Jew; Robin Williams R.I.P. ~ EoZ

From Ian:

First off let me explain something. I am Metis [indigenous Canadian]. My family has experienced firsthand, the abuses you read about when you study residential schools and generational abuses. I understand very well what racism and bigotry mean. Again, I personally have experienced it first hand. But it was the reaction of people to the attack on some of my Jewish friends at a political demonstration that really sent it home to me. I already explained, I’m not converting, I even explained why, albeit in a humorous (yet truthful) way.
I decided that in order to really understand what Jewish people go through, I was going to “become a Jew”. Unlike that dude who tanned and took some pills to become black in that movie, I didn’t really have to do anything difficult. All I had to do to incur the hatred and enmity that comes along with being Jewish, was put on a hat.

“Yarmulke March” planned for Copenhagen to protest anti-Semitic violence

For years we have been documenting the rise of anti-Semitic violence in Europe masquerading as anti-Zionism, in a coalition of Islamists and Leftists in places like Malmö, Sweden.
Copenhagen, Denmark also has this history, so much so that the small (6,000-8,000) Jewish community all but stopped showing Jewish symbols in public. In 2012, the Israeli Embassy advised Israelis visiting Denmark not to wear a Yarmulke (aka Kippah or skull-cap) or other similar religious symbols in public.
The threat on the streets continues, with a Jewish school in Copenhagen just this month forbidding its students from wearing yarmulkes in public:
In Copenhagen it was more of the same, including a Palestinian woman who shouted “Heil Hitler”:
"In Copenhagen it was more of the same — only it wasn’t solely Muslims who confronted us. Danes wanted to know where we stood on the Israeli-Gaza conflict, and they weren’t shy to ask. I don’t mind a healthy debate, but this was loaded. Our answers were irrelevant. They wanted an excuse to rage, and in a country with very few Jews — especially ones so easily identifiable — we became the perfect victims…."

Michael Oren says he left CNN of his own accord

CNN had hired Oren as “a Middle East contributor” in January. According to his contract, he was not allowed to appear on other channels.
Mondoweiss, a pro-Palestinian website, quoted sources “knowledgable [sic] of the situation” saying that Oren was stripped of his job “after internal dissent within CNN that Oren’s classification as an ‘analyst’ was not suitable.”
But a spokesperson for CNN confirmed Oren’s version of the events. “Michael Oren requested that CNN suspend his agreement with the network so that he would be free to support and defend Israel before the international community during the current Gaza upheaval,” the spokesperson told The Times of Israel.
“CNN agreed to Ambassador Oren’s request to suspend the contract and he has continued to appear on our air as a guest.”
Oren said he would consider reinstating his contract with the network after Operation Protective Edge ends.

Hate emerges from beneath the surface: Antisemitism in the UK (July 2014)

July 2014 now joins January 2009 as a month when war between Israel and Hamas caused antisemitism to spew forth across Britain. If this latest round of Middle East violence has now ended, then we may expect the antisemitism to gradually diminish: but this hatred has again been revealed, even if most of the time it lies beneath the surface. Are British Jews (and those elsewhere) to be forever held hostage to a seemingly intractable conflict in which totalitarian Jihadists are sworn to destroy Israel at whatever cost?
Members of the public expressing fears and concerns to CST have referenced this in different ways. One said she felt “stuck in a swamp“. Another said that the hatred had come from “ordinary people, not what or who we expect it from…its the underlying antisemitism, and now that they’ve put it out there, how are we supposed to put it back?“. It may sound trite to speak of Jews defriending others on Facebook, but anecdotally, this seems to be happening again and again, with Jews deeply upset by what this conflict has revealed about those whom they believed to be their friends (in all meanings of the word).

Jewish Anti-Zionism? Not in Our Name

And like many of the cults that come and eventually go, this one is apparently in a growth phase. At least that’s what Rebecca Vilkomerson, the head of Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in a recent interview. The same report noted that J Street members disillusioned with that organization’s craving of mainstream acceptance are finding a new political home further to the left.
Should this exodus continue, we may find that the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” Jewish left, which was all the rage five years ago, is eclipsed and rendered irrelevant. More American Jews are understanding that every time Israel is compelled to defend its own citizens, the cries of “genocide!” will surely follow—and that is a cry they reject decisively. Equally, a smaller but still visible number will continue to organize themselves as the Jewish section of the movement to abolish the Jewish state.
Any debate over how to regard these organizations shouldn’t encourage comparisons with J Street. For all my strong disagreements with J Street, I believe they are committed to a two-state solution. I cannot say the same about Jewish Voice for Peace and those of the same ilk. They are, quite simply, the enemy, and we must guard against them. They have embraced anti-Zionist eliminationism in the name of Judaism. For that reason, while I still—just about—believe that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, I cannot envisage making peace with the Jewish haters of Israel.

Brendan O'Neill: The one piece of 'whataboutery' that Israel-bashers have no answer to

Things have become extremely grim in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, and our governments are complicit in the grimness. The government of Kiev, backed by Washington, London and most EU nations, has for three months been ruthlessly shelling and firing missiles into built-up areas of eastern Ukraine. It has stepped up its campaign in recent weeks, in the wake of the shooting down of a passenger jet by the Eastern rebels. The impact of Kiev's assault has been dire. Around 1,500 people have been killed. This includes elderly people and children. In the space of two months, more than 100,000 refugees have fled eastern Ukraine for other parts of the country, while more than 150,000 have fled into Russia. That is a quarter of a million wartime refugees, here in Europe. Not even hospitals in eastern Ukraine are safe: the women of a maternity hospital in Donetsk have had to go underground to give birth in safety. "I can't believe we have got to this point: giving birth in a cellar", said one woman.
So then, what about Ukraine? Why the silence from radical protesters who claim to oppose terrible wars that impact on civilians and which our governments facilitate or inflame? Never mind Isis or Assad – it's true that little could be achieved by protesting against them. But why not protest about Kiev's assaults on Eastern Ukraine and call on our governments to stop supporting, advising and providing equipment to Kiev? Ukraine is a thorn in the side of anti-war leftists because it completely explodes their claim that there is nothing odd, nothing prejudiced, about their myopic focus on Israel. If these protesters truly were consistent in their loathing of war, especially wars contributed to by our governments, then they would have marched and tweeted and shouted about Ukraine as much as they have done about Israel. But they haven't. There's something different about Israel, something which gets leftists' blood pumping in a way that no other war or state or crisis on Earth does. Anti-Israel campaigners can't be surprised by all the speculation about their true motives when they have singularly failed to explain why the militarism of the Jewish State makes them weep and wail more than the militarism of any other state, including other states supported by our governments.

Is cowardly Edinburgh fit for a global arts festival?

Liz Lochead, the main high-profile critic of the Israelis’ appearance in Edinburgh, has her own performing schedule there this month. It would reinforce the illiberal stance that she has legitimised if anyone disrupted her poetic readings. One suspects that any hecklers would be silenced and speedily ejected; arrests perhaps following.
Arik Eshet, the company’s spirited artistic director, afterwards expressed his astonishment at the police stance and about being left in the lurch by the festival bureaucrats .In an affluent, supremely middle-class city with academic, media, ecclesiastical and cultural elites, the only people who offered gestures of sympathy to him and his cast were other performers.
The fate of an Israeli theatre company, completely apolitical compared with many of the Edinburgh acts, show how phoney Edinburgh’s image as a Mecca for Western culture in fact is. Twice, Israeli actors were hounded by the mob and shunned by people in high places who had the chance to uphold a city’s good name, but simply flunked it.
Does the ‘Athens of the North’ with craven cultural bureaucrats, complicit police and mealy-mouthed politicians deserve to hold a world-ranking festival any more than Qatar merits being host of the 2022 World Cup? On its performance in the summer of 2014, I very much doubt it.

John Bolton: Opinion: Congress Must Defund the Worst of the United Nations’ Institutions

Three U.N. agencies in particular have demonstrated serious, sustained bias against both Israel and the United States, starting with the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. In recent weeks, based on press reports and Hamas accusations, Pillay has repeatedly accused Israel of war crimes because of Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza, saying, “None of this appears to me to be accidental.”
The facts are precisely the opposite: Israel, like America, goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties but Pillay’s intemperate allegations graphically demonstrate her ideological prejudices.
Her worst moment came when she criticized the United States for “not only provid(ing) the heavy weaponry which is now being used by Israel in Gaza,” but also almost $1 billion for the Iron Dome missile-defense system. She complained that Iron Dome was “to protect the Israelis from rocket attacks … . But no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling.” Pillay thereby demonstrated both the U.N.’s typical, utterly blind moral equivalence and also implicated America in Israel’s alleged war crimes. There is simply no reason we should tolerate such behavior from international bureaucrats.

A Middle East Conflict No Longer About Land

Instead, the Palestinian leadership knows that it can exploit the sensitivities of democracies around the world to gain moral ground on the Israelis. It uses institutions like the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, which are the foolhardy product of good intentions, to wage a different kind of war, a war in which the West has failed in its responsibility to be unequivocally partial. This is a battle not about land, over which you can negotiate, but about the ethos of civilizations, which cannot be subject to negotiation and which certainly shouldn’t invite evenhandedness.
The Palestinian leadership has long ago recognized that suffering and oppression among its own people equate to power and longevity. Freedom, on the other hand, depends on choices. We choose to be prosperous; we choose to be productive; and we choose to vote from office those who fail us. The residents of Gaza should take an inventory of their burned-out landscape and their shattered dreams and ask themselves whether their leaders have succeeded or failed. The answer is obvious. Unfortunately for the Palestinians and apparently most of the international community, the question remains elusive.

From Israel's Press: Conversations with a Blasé Israel

One outcome can be pointed to for sure: we have stopped getting worked up. Threats, combinations of expressions and well-used mantras that up until the beginning of July gave us goose pimples, now elicit a bored yawn.
Goldstone/Schabas, for example. Before the beginning of the operation they warned us that if we –Heaven forfend – enter Gaza, we will find ourselves facing Goldstone Report II. One month and 5000 rockets later, it does not seem as though that prospect frightens anyone. We have been subjected to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the raised eyebrows of (leftist newscaster) Yonit Levi, so that Goldstone or his replacement is not going to be the one to pass judgment on us. And if, when we are about to get into our car, we find his report tucked under the windshield, we will brush the dust off it.
Our expectations from the world have gone down to zero and even lower than that. Now that a respected international organization of doctors has accused us of war crimes, we will not fall from our chairs if it also embraces the claims of a Hamas spokesmen who said that the IDF was told to obtain the blood of Palestinian children in order to bake bread. Of course, we'll tell them. Of course we have to bake our pitas with Palestinian blood, it's so that the Palestinian spleens and hearts that we reaped in the last blood libel won't be rejected when we use them for transplants.

When We Said Never Again, We Meant It

Israel is a land where people make - and have always made - daily and life-long sacrifices, rolling up their sleeves to develop and master major necessary life-contributing and life-fostering endeavors in the fields of agriculture, science,research, medicine, technology, and of course defense strategies and weapons.
Israel has accomplished these major feats despite having its hands always tied behind its back to varying degrees, having to deal with created organizations and nations that openly seek its ultimate demise while being cheered on by ignorant supporters scattered throughout the world.
Israel does not exist because it beckons to the calls of apologists or terrorist sympathizers. Israel exists because its focus is on doing what is right not only for its survival, but for the protection and advancement of the civilized world as a whole.

France No Longer a Home for Jews Fleeing Persecution

And French Jews, who mostly hail from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, are also experiencing a sense of deja-vu. Bernard Abouaf, a journalist of Tunisian-Jewish descent who witnessed the Rue de la Roquette riot, wrote on his Facebook page that the whole scene looked like a re-enactment of the storming and torching of the Great Synagogue in Tunis during the Six-Day War in 1967: a traumatic event that accelerated the flight of Tunisian Jews to France or to Israel.
France also served as an escape route for Jews in Algeria after violent outbursts there, such as the Constantine pogrom – 80 years ago this week, when nearly 30 Jews were murdered. Mind you, this was long before the creation of the State of Israel – proving that anti-Jewish persecution in the Muslim world is not linked solely to the Jewish State. And in 1962, when Algeria gained its independence after a bloody war, Jews understood that they were not welcome. The community of 160,000 Jews fled – lock, stock, and barrel – to France.
Now it looks like France gave these Jewish refugees just a temporary respite from persecution. For the second time in a generation, Jews are moving on.

Israel’s Friend in Need

Nearly 5,000 delegates, from all 50 states, heard an array of top-tier speakers (including a stirring address from Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Ron Dermer, and panels with Elliott Abrams, William Kristol, and James Woolsey, among others). Then they lobbied Congress, with their principal talking point being that any final deal with Iran must deny it not simply a nuclear weapon but a “nuclear weapons capability … allowing Iran to develop all of the components of a bomb so long as they don’t put these components together is not a solution”.
At the Summit, Charles Krauthammer told the delegates he did “not know of an organization in the world more important to Israel than CUFI.” In the two weeks following the Summit, CUFI demonstrated–not once but twice–the kind of commitment that amply supports Krauthammer’s assertion.
On July 31, CUFI ran a full-page ad–reading “Israel’s Enemies Are Our Enemies/ Israel’s Fight is Our Fight/ We Stand with Israel”–in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. The ad cited the provisions in the Hamas Covenant asserting Islam will “obliterate” Israel; that there is no solution except “jihad”; and that Muslims are directed to kill the Jews.

Steven Salaita case is anti-Israel academic boycotters’ “do unto others” moment

As noted in an Update to my prior post, NYU Prof. Lisa Duggan, current President of the American Studies Association and a very aggressive supporter of the academic boycott, has tweeted out for University Presidents who opposed the anti-Israel academic boycott to come to Salaita’s assistance on grounds of academic freedom. That article was written by another anti-Israel boycotter, David Palumbo-Liu of Stanford.
There’s something beyond hypocrisy about this.
Duggan, one of the most vigorous enforcers of anti-Israel academic boycott who even organizes conferences devoted to pushing the boycott agenda, now seeks the help of those who reject her boycott actions on grounds of academic freedom?
I’ve tried to think of a better description than hypocrisy.
Update: Interesting take by a grad student at HuffPo, Anti-Israel Professor Shouldn’t Have Gotten a Job:
"Let’s relish in the irony for a moment: the same folks who advocate for the boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) of Israeli academics now claim that anyone should be able to express academic viewpoints without repercussions. Try telling that to Hebrew University professors in Jerusalem that the BDS-crowd wants to ban from American schools."

Sister of American Lone Soldier Killed in Action Seeks to Study in Israel

Paige Steinberg, 21, the sister of fallen U.S. immigrant IDF soldier, Max, has decided she wants to study in Israel, at a Tel Aviv-area college, Israel’s NRG News reported Monday.
Sgt. Max Steinberg, 24, from Beersheba, was killed along with seven other soldiers on July 20 in Gaza’s Sajayeh neighborhood, when Palestinian terrorists fired an anti-tank rocket at his lightly-protected APC (armored personnel carrier).
“Applying to schools in Israel,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Let me know if anyone has any recommendations!” she added to her friends.

Interior Minister Sa'ar: Jews can now make aliya together with same-sex partners

In a groundbreaking decision made on Tuesday, Minister for the Interior Gidon Saar instructed the Population and Immigration Authority and the Jewish Agency to grant Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return to the non-Jewish spouse of a Jew who together are legally married.
Reaction from the haredi world was however swift and scathing, with ultra-Orthodox MKs speaking out against the decision and haredi groups in the US also voicing intense criticism.
Sa’ar’s decision will mean that a non-Jewish spouse in a gay marriage with a Jew will be automatically entitled to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.

Historic first: IDF operates unmanned APC in Gaza

During Operation Protective Edge, the Israel Defense Forces used a unmanned armored personnel carrier, a first in history. The vehicle was used to deliver supplies to soldiers on the battlefield.
"This is history," Lt. Avidav Goldstein, the head of the IDF's unmanned vehicle unit, said. "I feel we really broke ground in this realm. This is the first time in history, throughout the world, that such a thing has been done."
The IDF modified an old M113 APC (the type of APC in which seven Golani Brigade soldiers were killed by an anti-tank missile in Shujaiyya), giving it the ability to carry several tons of supplies to soldiers in the field without endangering lives.

Israeli Arab Posed as Religious Jewish Woman to Smuggle Palestinians

An Israeli Arab woman smuggling Palestinian workers from the West Bank masqueraded as an observant Jew in order to elude inspection of her vehicle, Israeli Police said Monday.
Going on a tip, police stationed at border crossings between Israel and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) were, in recent days, on the lookout for potential human smugglers trying to evade inspection of their vehicles’ contents, NRG News reported.
On Sunday, inspectors nabbed the 20-year-old resident of the central Israeli village of Taibe, adjacent to the Green Line separating Israel proper from the disputed territories, as she tried to bring five Palestinian workers into Israel, illegally, hidden in her trunk, via the Rantis crossing.

Egypt court dissolves Muslim Brotherhood party

The decision Saturday against the Freedom and Justice Party comes after a recommendation by the court’s advisory panel that noted the party’s leaders had already been accused, and in some cases convicted, of murder and inciting violence.
The recommendation added that the police investigation stated the party headquarters and offices were used to store weapons.
The government declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group late last year, accusing it of orchestrating a wave of violence to destabilize the country after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member.

Yazidi child in Israel for surgery

Wisam was born in northern Iraq 17 months ago with life-threatening congenital heart disease. His family is one of 200,000 adherents of the Yazidi faith who have escaped to the mountains near their hometown of Sinjar under persecution by the Islamic State, the al-Qaeda terrorist group offshoot formerly known as ISIS.
Despite the tragedy playing out at home, Wisam’s father accepted an invitation to bring the toddler to Israel for free life-saving treatment at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon through the Israeli humanitarian organization Save a Child’s Heart (SACH). The father and son arrived in June, and Wisam’s surgery was performed on July 10 by Dr. Lior Sasson.
Earlier this summer, SACH doctors performed free heart surgery on five ailing Palestinian children and admitted gravely ill children from the West Bank and from Gaza. A free weekly cardiology clinic for Palestinian children has continued to stay open even as Holon, along with the entire Tel Aviv area, has frequently endured air-raid sirens due to missile launches from Gaza.

JPost Editorial: End Iraq terror

The deafening silence from the West was similar to that which has greeted previous genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and Sudan, where lip-service was paid too late for crimes that could have been prevented. The reticence to use the word “genocide” and admission by Western politicians that it would obligate them to actually do something created a legacy of shame.
With Iraq, the situation has almost been repeated. Muslim regional powers, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran have proved callous in the face of the Islamic State, despite the fact that it threatens all of them. US President Barack Obama decided on August 7 to launch air strikes on Islamic State targets, concentrating on defending US diplomats and advisers serving near Erbil. He noted that “as the request of the Iraqi government, we’ve begun operations to help save Iraqi civilians stranded on the mountain. As the Islamic State has marched across Iraq, it has waged a ruthless campaign against innocent Iraqis.” Yesterday, a US State Department spokeswoman confirmed that they would supply the Kurds with arms.
Obama’s actions have created a backlash in some US circles. Harvard Prof. Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby, argued that while humanitarian assistance to suffering minorities might be laudable, “[if] the history of the past 20 years teaches us anything, it is that forceful American interference of this sort just makes these problems worse.” Walt said “it is time to walk away and not look back.”

MSNBC Host Calls ISIS 'So-Called Terrorist Forces'

Georgetown sociology professor and guest MSNBC host Michael Eric Dyson on Monday labeled the genocidal Islamic jihadists of ISIS simply “so-called terrorist forces.”
Dyson, who filled in for liberal firebrand Ed Schultz on Monday, spoke to former Pennsylvania Democratic Congressmen Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy about a brief speech given by President Obama about the ongoing American operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Is It Over for Maliki?

It is hard to exaggerate the drama or the stakes of the leadership battle now playing out in Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is desperately clinging to power, even summoning elite troops to the Green Zone where the government is based. Yet many in his own Dawa party are deserting him. Enough Shiite politicos have turned against Maliki that his own State of Law slate (a larger grouping of Shiite parties which includes Dawa along with others) has nominated another candidate–Haider al-Abadi–as prime minister. Iraq’s president has now asked Abadi to form a government, which he has 30 days to do.
It appears that Maliki’s day may be done. There are rumors that even Iran, which in many ways is the strongest political actor in Iraq, at least on the Shiite side, is willing to see him leave office. If that’s the case then Maliki will find it impossible to mount a coup because the militias and sectarian military units he would need would be unlikely to march without the acquiescence of Iran. If, however, Maliki manages to cling to office somehow despite his rampant unpopularity, Iraq is unlikely to survive and all-out civil war becomes more likely. The Obama administration has been doing the right thing by pressing for Maliki’s departure and by standing behind the right of Iraq’s president to nominate a different prime minister.

If the Yazidis Were Mainstream Muslims, Would the West Still Save Them?

Yes, we know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Except the same good guys–the Kurds–and the same bad guys–ISIS–are in Syria too. The borders in this conflict have become essentially meaningless. There are enclaves we’d like to protect, minorities in the line of fire, and savage terrorists all throughout the region.
What’s the message to other groups, especially Sunni or Shiite Muslims, staring into the barrel of a gun? You’re not on the edge of extinction? You’re not being killed with certain kinds of chemical weapons, only other kinds of chemical weapons that aren’t on a random list, plus conventional weapons? You look or sound too much like the other guys for us to figure out who’s who?
We should save the Yazidis. But we should do so because it’s the right call, not because they look and sound distinctive enough for us to tell the difference between them and their enemies.

Iraq crisis: 'It is death valley. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead'

I was on board an Iraqi Army helicopter, and watched as hundreds of refugees ran towards it to receive one of the few deliveries of aid to make it to the mountain. The helicopter dropped water and food from its open gun bays to them as they waited below. General Ahmed Ithwany, who led the mission, told me: “It is death valley. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead.”
Two American aid flights have also made it to the mountain, where they have dropped off more than 36,000 meals and 7,000 gallons of drinking water to help the refugees, and last night two RAF C-130 transport planes were also on the way.
However, Iraqi officials said that much of the US aid had been “useless” because it was dropped from 15,000ft without parachutes and exploded on impact. (h/t Canadian Otter)

Isis planned a terror attack against Carlsberg

Danish brewer Carlsberg was on the target list of the Islamist militant group Isis, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.
The outlet reports that a Carlsberg facility in suburban Kuala Lumpur was among the attacks Isis planned to carry out in Malaysia.
The South China Morning Post reports that Isis, or the Islamic State (IS) as it is now known, has expanded into Malaysia and Indonesia, picking up local followers inspired by its declaration of an Islamic caliphate. At least 19 Malaysians suspected of being linked to the terror organization have been arrested this year.

ISIS Supporters Attack Reporters w/Bricks… at the Hague

Several journalists were attacked: Telegraph reporter Alexander Bakker and his cameraman had to run for their lives , the camera of a journalist Novum was destroyed and all the journalists present had to watch out for countless flying bricks…
The bricks were thrown at the riot police who wanted to clear the streets, and also at the journalists who were just behind the riot police. With a brick can someone cause permanent injury and even death.
By the end of the demonstration, I fell into conversation with one of the (later arrested by the police) speakers of the pro-ISIS demo of July 24 … We had an animated discussion about the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators. I was given to understand in no uncertain uncertain terms that I should remain “neutral” as a journalist “otherwise you will incur harm, for example, if I find you somewhere.”

General: ISIS Is The Most Significant Threat To Middle East I've Ever Seen

Former Army Vice Chief of Staff General Jack Keane told Fox News Tuesday night that the terrorist group ISIS is “the most significant threat to the Middle East that I have ever observed.”
“On the same weekend, they launched a new offensive in Iraq, collapsed a Peshmerga, a much-acclaimed military force that’s part of Kurdistan. Also they took two oil fields, and now threatens the Mosul Dam. They did this on one weekend in two different countries simultaneously. Anybody looking at that knows that this is an organization of consequence, and it must be dealt with,” General Keane said.

Iran to Unveil its Own ‘Iron Dome’ Style Defense System

Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli, commander of Iran’s Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base, said on Wednesday that the latest defense systems will go online on September 22, according to comments made Wednesday to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency.
The missile defense announcement comes as the successes of Israel’s Iron Dome system are featured prominently in Western media outlets. Israeli officials have hailed the highly advanced system for protecting lives during the most recent conflict with Hamas by knocking many of the terror group’s attacks off course.
Esmayeeli, who did not reveal many technical details about the new equipment, said that the mid-range and long-range defense systems will be connected to Iran’s larger military apparatus.

Iran and Germany: A 100-Year Old Love Affair

According to Küntzel, German leaders have at least two other reasons for helping Iran defy the United States.
The first is German resentment of defeat in the Second World War followed by foreign occupation, led by the US. That resentment cannot be publicly expressed, if only because Germany is a member of NATO and needed US protection against Russia, an even more dangerous enemy, during the Cold War. If Iran thumbs its nose at the US, so much the better.
The second reason is that Iran is one of the few countries, if not the only one, where Germans have never been looked at as "war criminals" because of Hitler. For over 100 years, Germany has been the favorite European power of most Iranians. Germans reciprocate the sentiment by having a good opinion of Iran. Küntzel cites a number of opinion polls that show a majority of Germans regard the US and Israel, rather than Iran, as the biggest threat to world peace.

French Town Resists Calls to Change Name from 'Death to Jews'

Leave it to the French. They didn't put up much resistance when Nazi's were marching through their streets and raising swastikas on the Arc de Triomphe, but you ask them to change the name of a town from 'Death To Jews' and they act like the 300 Spartans fighting off the the Persians at Thermopylae.
This is not a joke. "La Mort aux Juifs"is a small town in central France and its name translates to "Death To Jews."
The Director of International Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has sent a letter to France's interior minister to demand that the offensive name be changed. "It is extremely shocking that this name has slipped under the radar in the 70 years that have passed since France was liberated from Nazism and the (pro-Nazi) Vichy regime," he wrote.

SWC: Raoul Wallenberg Saved 100,000 Jews From Nazi Gas Chambers, Why Can’t Swedish Authorities Protect 700 Jewish Citizens?

Jewish human rights group The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday asked how famed humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg could have saved 100,000 Jews from Nazi gas chambers, while today’s Swedish government can’t protect 700 Jewish citizens from violence?
The provocative statement came as Sweden’s Jewish community was beset with vandalism, with a synagogue’s windows smashed at the weekend, according to the Sydsvenskan daily, while assailants threw glass bottles at the center’s rabbis Klein and Kesselman from speeding cars while screaming “f***ing Jews”.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate SWC dean, made his statement on Monday, the 100th anniversary of Wallenberg’s birth. He said, Wallenberg “would go on to become one of the greatest heroes of the Second World War when he volunteered to go to Budapest in 1944 and managed to save 100,000 Jews from being murdered in Auschwitz death camp.’”

Supremacist who killed man for Jewish-sounding name gets life

A white supremacist convicted of killing four people in three states — one because his name sounded Jewish — was sentenced to two life sentences for two of the murders.
David “Joey” Pedersen, 34, was sentenced Monday in a federal court in Portland, Ore., for the murder of Cody Myers of Lafayette, Ore., and Reginald Clark of Eureka, Calif., to concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Pedersen already is serving life a life sentence in prison in Washington State for the murders of his father and stepmother in Everett, Wash.

The Socialist Nazi Sympathizing Jew Who Led the Left’s War on Israel

I wrote about Bruno Kreisky last year in the context of discussing Austria’s Islamization. There’s no doubt that Kreisky was a real demented piece of work, on a par with Norman Finkelstein or M.J. Rosenberg.
"Austria’s Socialist Chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, despite being of Jewish ancestry, was fond of Muslim terrorists and Nazis. He had a habit of filling his cabinet with former Nazis while comparing Zionism to Nazism. His political success rested on a welfare state built with Soviet money funneled through commercial orders and turning a blind eye to terrorist attacks carried out with Soviet and Polish machine guns was part of the price.
Even though the two terrorists had shouted, “PLO”, Kreisky announced, “I am firmly convinced that the attackers had nothing to do with the PLO,” Instead he suggested that they had been out to sabotage “Palestinian interests.” During an interview, he offered that “the bad, unqualified treatment of Palestinians in Israel is one of the causes for these extreme actions.”

Introducing the smart garden

On a cold, rainy day last winter, electronics engineer Odi Dahan suddenly heard his garden sprinklers go on, right on schedule. In the year 2013, he thought, surely there must be an app to control an irrigation system and stop wasting water without needing to run out in the storm. But his Google search came up dry.
Having recently left the corporate world of communications and semiconductor technology in search of a startup idea, Dahan sat down that night and began working on the app that has become GreenIQ.
This Internet of Things (IoT) web app, which runs on the browser of any web-enabled device — iPhone, iPad, Android smartphone/tablet, PC or Mac – uses proprietary algorithms to adjust irrigation according to current and forecast weather. Last April, GreenIQ won first place in the StarTAU startup pitch night.

‘Honorary Jew’ Robin Williams, 63, found dead

Williams was pronounced dead at his San Francisco Bay Area home Monday, according to the sheriff’s office in Marin County, north of San Francisco. The sheriff’s office said the preliminary investigation shows the cause of death to be a suicide due to asphyxia.
Over the years, Williams had described himself as an ‘honorary Jew’ and in many of his skits channeled a stereotypical elderly Jewish lady, or alternatively, a New York rabbi. The legendary performer also played several Jewish, or at least Jewish-inspired, characters, most notably Tommy Wilhelm, in a cinematic adaptation of Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day.
Recently, Williams posted a picture on Twitter showing him with a white yarmulke on his head, while on set of the CBS TV show “The Crazy Ones.”
“Too late for a career change?” he wrote. “Rabbi Robin.”