[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 12/30 Links Pt2: Fatah: Synagogue killers glorified as Islamic Martyrs; Europe's Year of the Jihadist ~ EoZ

From Ian:

PA official news and Fatah: Synagogue killers glorified as Islamic Martyrs

Posting a picture of the graves of the two terrorists who murdered 5 Israelis in a synagogue in West Jerusalem last month, Abbas' Fatah movement glorified them with the supreme Islamic status of Shahids - "Martyrs... who ascended [to heaven]":
"This is the place of eternal rest of Martyrs (Shahids) Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal of Jabel Mukaber [neighborhood] in occupied Jerusalem, who ascended [to heaven] a month and a half ago during an operation (i.e., terror attack) at an occupation synagogue in occupied Jerusalem. Early morning today, they were escorted to their graves at Al-Sawahreh Al- Sharqiyeh."
[Fatah's Facebook page, "Fatah - The Main Page", Dec. 25, 2014]
Fatah called the terror attack "an operation at an occupation synagogue in occupied Jerusalem." On Nov. 18, 2014, the two Arab terrorists from East Jerusalem entered a synagogue in Jerusalem and attacked worshippers with guns, knives and axes, killing 4 worshippers and a police officer. 7 people were injured, 3 of them seriously. The terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli police that arrived on the scene.
The Palestinian Authority's official news agency WAFA likewise honored the murderers with the supreme Islamic status of "Shahids" who were "escorted... to the place of their final rest":
"Yesterday [Dec. 25, 2014], the citizens of Jerusalem escorted the bodies of Martyrs (Shahids) Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal, from the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood of south-east Jerusalem, to the place of their final rest in the Al-Sawahreh Al-Sharqiyeh cemetery, after they were held by the occupation for 37 days, and transferred to their relatives after midnight." [From WAFA, official PA news agency, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 26, 2014]

Is Israel an apartheid state? Answers from someone who'd know

Today living in Jerusalem, [Benjamin] Pogrund, 81, is arguably the most vocal — and perhaps best placed — critic of equating Israel with apartheid South Africa. "The apartheid accusation is a deadly one," he said. "It's something that people can relate to. It sounds so straightforward and direct and easy. The fact that it's built on a foundation of simple untruths and exaggeration and distortion is another matter."
Pogrund knows apartheid up close, the original kind. One of the most prominent Jewish opponents of the South African apartheid regime, he was a close confidant and personal friend of Nelson Mandela. In 1961, as his paper's African affairs reporter, Pogrund helped the future president organize an illegal strike.
"Mandela and I met secretly and regularly," Pogrund recalled in David Saks's 2011 book "Jewish Memories of Mandela." "We had a system of sending messages to arrange to meet, which would either be at a friend's house in Fordsburg, or when I would drive to a street corner at night, pick up Mandela — his worker's overalls disguise did little to hide his tall, imposing figure — and we would sit in my car in a dark street and talk about the strike campaign."
In "Drawing Fire: Investigating the Accusations of Apartheid in Israel," which came out in July, Pogrund ardently argues against comparing South Africa with the Jewish state. At the same time, he makes plain his utter disapproval of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians.

Western leftists stand up for their comrades in Islam

Islamic State's totalitarian ideology is clarified in Dabiq magazine and Flames of War, a documentary that justifies its genocidal barbarity using propaganda concocted by the 1960s communist Left. In socialist and Islamist propaganda, the West is portrayed as an imperialist colonial leviathan that stands between eternally oppressed minorities and the second coming of international socialism. The utopian socialists and Islamists both promise world peace — after their bloody revolutions, of course.
Reality is an enduring irritant in the smooth passage of totalitarian propaganda from its political elite to the masses. The internet has revealed the intimate violence of life in socialist and Islamist states, whose totalitarian ethos descends on the wings of a promise of peace and equality.
North Korea uses the UN to market itself as a champion of peace. Islamists claim to represent a religion of peace. Socialism is sold as the politics of peace. On December 16, as Australians mourned our first victims of Islamic State terror on home soil, the jihadist who terrorised our nation, Monis, could be found on Wikipedia's list of peace activists, cited as an "Australian Muslim cleric, anti-war activist". The list includes socialist Noam Chomsky, pedophilia advocate Allen Ginsberg and anarchist Emma Goldman.
In November, members of Britain's socialist-communist party Left Unity proclaimed that the Islamic State caliphate had "progressive potential" because it opposed "Western-imposed nation-states" in the Middle East. Repeating the ignoble lie that "Western domination" gave rise to Islamic State, Left Unity socialists John Tummon and Mark Anthony France issued a diktat: "The European Left has to acknowledge and accept the widespread call for a caliphate among Muslims" as "an authentic expression of their emancipatory, anti-imperialist aspirations". They praised the caliphate for its "strong internationalism" while heaping criticism on the West for its dedication to secularism. (h/t Alexi)

David Singer: Remembering Australia's First Jihadist Attack – 1 January 1915

The Department of Veteran's Affairs announced last March that the centenary of the Battle of Broken Hill on 1 January 2015 would not be formally commemorated by the Australian Government. That decision will now be seen in hindsight by many as a wise one indeed – following the fallout resulting from the horrific Martin Place siege perpetrated by self-styled Islamic cleric Man Haron Monis just two weeks ago that claimed his life and those of two innocent civilians.
However Nicholas Shakespeare has written a novella – Oddfellows – based on this little known event – to be published by Random House in January, ensuring this centenary will not pass unnoticed. Shakespeare has written a poignant article – "Outback Jihad" – in which he graphically describes what the locals call "The New Year's Day Tragedy":
'The tragedy was a desperate response, in the least likely spot, to a jihad announced on the other side of the world. On 11 November 1914 – 100 years ago this month – the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V, and caliph of all Muslims, who had earlier signed a treaty with Germany, declared a holy war against Great Britain and her allies, "the mortal enemies of Islam". The Turkish sultan's call overlooked the Christianity of his own allies in Germany and Austria-Hungary, and was virtually ignored by Muslims, save for some small-scale mutinies in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and in Broken Hill where two disaffected "Turks" decided to launch a suicide mission under a homemade Turkish flag. Their target: a train of 40 open ore wagons carrying more than 1200 holiday-makers…

Jimmy Carter: From Nobel Prize to 'Terrorist' Ties

Reagan had strongly backed Israel since 1948, and much of the ethnic Jewish press was more against Carter rather than it was for either Reagan or Anderson.
"Originally, they expected him to be very supportive president," Bard said. However, "Jews turned on him in droves in the election," he added, "which really was indicative of how severe his policies were viewed, not just toward Israel but also toward the country as a whole."
Many Jewish leaders believe that these issues now fuel Carter's public support for Hamas and other anti-Israel groups that have been endorsed by the Obama administration.
President Barack Obama is reportedly considering whether to impose sanctions on Israel in an effort to stop housing construction projects in eastern Jerusalem. The possibility arises as the administration is lobbying strongly against new prohibitions on Iran over its illegal nuclear weapons program.
"All you have to do is read the Hamas charter, and you know what their motivations and goals are — and they repeat them constantly in public," Bard told Newsmax. "They don't hide what their objectives are, and Carter's always thought that if people would just sit down with him in a room, he would be able to convince them of the err of their ways and things would be all right.
"But he just doesn't understand — doesn't want to understand, apparently — what these groups really believe, and he'd rather simply believe in what he wishes things were rather than what they really are." (h/t Alexi)

Michael Lumish: To Hate or Not to Hate?

The Jewish people have every reason to despise Arabs and Muslims.
{How do you like that statement?}
In fact, the Jewish people have every moral reason to despise Arabs and Muslims.
This is because the Arab and Muslim majority population in the Middle East has oppressed the Jewish minority in that part of the world since the time of Muhammad.
According to Efraim Karsh - the founding director and professor emeritus of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College, London - there was at least 200,000 Jews in Israel at the time of the Arab-Muslim conquests in the 7th century but that by the nineteenth-century 95 percent of the Jewish population was wiped out, leaving a mere 24,000 in the area by the time Samuel Clemens showed up to wonder where everyone had went.
{See Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, Yale University Press, 2010, pg. 8.}
The truth is that while Christians were beating the crap out of Jews throughout the Medieval period in Europe, the Arab-Muslims were doing likewise within Israel.
The Arabs have treated the Jews with little more than contempt and violence since they first started chopping off our heads in the 7th century for refusing submission.

Shmuley Boteach: An annus horribilis for Israeli PR

The past year saw a ferocious fight for the survival of the Jewish state, both military and in PR. Israel defeated Hamas on the Gaza battlefield, though amid serious casualties. But in the PR war, Israel suffered an outright loss. Four months after the war, Israel is under greater international assault than ever before. It's no longer the paranoid who see the world ganging up on Israel. It's the politically aware.
In the coming year we may see sanctions against Israel from the EU. As if that weren't shocking enough, there have even been press reports of possible sanctions from the Obama administration. What is certain is that the PR onslaught will continue. Israel's implacable enemies smell blood and, like the bloodthirsty sharks they are, will press their case.
This coming year the momentum needs to reverse. The time has come for us to bolster our ranks. We need to expand the draft of Israel's defenders, as more and more of us join in the battle for Israel. And of particular importance are the two arenas where Diaspora Jewry can contribute most: in the media and on campus.

Europe's Year of the Jihadist

Among the trends of 2014 – "Gone, Girl," Lena Dunham, and $55,000 potato salad – was another the list-makers seem to have missed: it was also a very good year for Islamic jihad. And while this was true on the battlefields of Syria and the cities and villages of Pakistan, it was true, too, in more subtle ways throughout the West – and especially in Europe. It was, for instance, the year of Mehdi Nemmouche's slaughter of four Jews at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
It was the year that Belgium itself was named a "terrorist recruiting hub" by the Wall Street Journal. And in Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands, pro-Islamic State demonstrations laid bare the growing support of terrorism and Islamic jihad among Europe's expanding Muslim population – all while politicians either stood back or even contributed to the praise.
Throughout 2014, Europeans faced pro-IS, anti-Jew demonstrations in Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London and The Hague, and the establishment of "sharia zones" in London, Wupperthal, and elsewhere. True, such zones do not necessarily delineate areas in which sharia law, rather than state law, applies. But the term helps them define those largely-Muslim neighborhoods whose residents tend to be radical and who often support jihadist movements both at home and abroad.

Reuters, The Forward and Media Jihad

A gorgeous 11-year-old became the latest victim of Islamist savagery. Her name is Ayala Shapira. She was set on fire in the most cowardly act imaginable.
Ayala was riding in the car with her father when the Arabs pounced on her with firebombs. Yes (as in Scriptures) they choose the defenseless.
As we prayed and continue to pray for Ayala's speedy and complete recovery, The Forward ran with Reuters, so forget tears and compassion and an understanding heart. Forget a moment to pause and reflect. Instead they used the incident to rush their politics, always to the most extreme detriment of the Jewish State.
The Israellycool website provides a more rounded account of how The Forward ran the story courtesy of Reuters. But I choose to focus on two passages, this first: "The [Israeli] military did not say whether the victims of the attack were settlers, who are bitterly resented by many Palestinians."
Really? So if the victims were settlers, implies The Forward, it's okay. It's open season. Jews are fair game. Moreover, this sort of gutter journalism does not trouble itself from separating fact from opinion, as in "bitterly resented by many Palestinians."
Who asked for the editorial -- and can it be that the "bitter resentment" more accurately expresses the view of Reuters and The Forward?

Brandeis President Condemns Lack of Sympathy for Murdered Officers

Following a week of heated debate over a student's tweets expressing "no sympathy" for two NYPD officers murdered in Brooklyn on Dec. 20, Brandeis President Fred Lawrence issued a statement condemning a "lack of sympathy" for the murdered officers. In his statement Lawrence roundly condemned the anti-law enforcement statements of the student leader as well as the threatening messages sent to both students involved, but also defended the "free expression rights" of all students.
The controversy began when a Brandeis student representative posted anti-law enforcement tweets expressing "no sympathy" for the execution-style murder of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. When student activist and TruthRevolt contributor Daniel Mael's report on those tweets went viral, pressure mounted from students and alumni for a response from the university. Many alumni and students took to online forums to express their "shame" and outrage for the university's failure to discipline the student responsible for the tweets, while some students attempted to pressure the administration to discipline Mael for reporting on the tweets. Both students involved reported receiving threatening messages, raising the issue of student safety on campus.
Monday President Lawrence responded, roundly condemning the statements that began the controversy as well as any threats against students, but he was also careful to defend the rights of students to voice their opinions and freely report.

Brandeis Radical Who Insulted Murdered NY Cops is Backed by Students for Justice in Palestine

Khadija Lynch, the Brandeis University student whose obscene tweets about the recent murder of two New York City police officers have become a national scandal, won the backing of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP,) a violently anti-Semitic group, when she ran for election as a student senator in 2013.
Lynch's tweets about the murdered officers were highlighted by Daniel Mael, a leading pro-Israel activist on the Brandeis campus, in an article for the Truth Revolt website that subsequently went viral. Mael, who has energetically countered SJP's activities on campus, is presently facing harassment and calls for his expulsion from university radicals who have decried him as a "white supremacist" for the offense of drawing attention to Lynch's extraordinary online rant, which included such missives as "i just really dont have sympathy for the cops who were shot. i hate this racist f**king country" and "amerikkka needs an intifada. enough is enough."

Warsi 'Shocked' By 'Abuse' From Jews, After She Defended Hamas

Former Conservative Party Chairman Sayeeda Warsi, who resigned from government in protest at Israel's war on Hamas, has expressed her shock at the anger her behaviour caused amongst British Jews. On Twitter today she claimed she had received "vitriolic emails" from people "self identifying as British Jews."
Warsi had become Britain's first female Muslim cabinet member when David Cameron became Prime Minister is 2010. But it all came to an end when she left government claiming Britain should have been more critical of Israel over Operation Protective Edge, in which the country launched rocket attacks on sites used by Hamas to bomb Israel.
Baroness Warsi's comments led to an immediate backlash from North-West Friends of Israel (NWFOI) , a group that campaigns against boycotts of the country and against anti-Semitism in general. From it's official Twitter account the group replied to Warsi asking her to "reflect" on her "lack of condemnation of Hamas for hiding its terrorists amongst civilians?"
In the exchange, which included a number of others, Warsi attempted to explain her actions by claiming the others were "justifying abuse against her."

The Reuters Photographer Who Specialized In Bias

The following photo is included in part one of the Reuters' feature The Photographers' Story, in which "Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic, unusual and breathtaking pictures of 2014 in news, entertainment and sports."
Reuters photographer Suhaib Salem explains:
"I was covering the celebrations by Palestinians moments after the declaration of a ceasefire that ended 51 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Throwing sweets and chanting slogans, people took to the streets, riding vehicles and motorcycles, to celebrate what they said was victory over Israel.
Moments before taking this picture, the battles between Israel and Gaza's militants were taking place and explosions could be heard till the truce was announced. The scene was special as children were smiling, holding a pistol and a weapon, and showing no sign of fear."
Yep, there's nothing quite as "special" as a couple of little boys smiling while brandishing weapons, all while celebrating a non-existent "victory" that involved thousands of their own people dying thanks to the actions of their terrorist comrades.
Seriously, Reuters, you might want to consider hiring less biased photographers.

The Independent Turns to Partisan Sources

The current Palestinian push for statehood at the UN is a subject that covers many areas of analysis from international law, diplomacy, the workings of the UN and Israel-U.S. relations. In its reporting of the story, The Independent refers to the probability that the U.S. would use its veto at the UN Security Council and turns to an "expert" for a quote:
"Staunch US opposition to the latest Palestinian UN resolution to end Israeli military occupation and establish a Palestinian state is part of a long line of actions taken by the Obama administration to shield Israel in international forums," Josh Ruebner, policy director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, told The Independent.
Josh Ruebner is not an expert or academic source but a member of a radical umbrella organization whose website openly promotes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and refers to Israel as an "apartheid state."

Bad news for Ali Abunimah: UK gov't reports continued use of 'Antisemitism Working Definition'

Late last year we noted that Ali Abunimah – an American born, anti-Zionist commentator who's been legitimized by both the New York Times and the Guardian despite a record compromised by antisemitism – falsely characterized the Working Definition of Antisemitism as "an abandoned draft text."
While it's narrowly true that the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the successor to the European Union Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), doesn't include the Working Definition on their website (since their mandate differs from EUMC), a significant number of American and EU government and law enforcement agencies continue to use it to help determine whether incidents are antisemitic.

More narrative-inspired reporting from Bethlehem by BBC's Yolande Knell

Knell's over-simplified claim of a "dwindling number of Christians in the Holy Land" misleads audiences by failing to distinguish between Israel – where Christian communities thrive and grow – and the PA ruled areas where their numbers continue to decline. Of course the vast majority of Palestinians in the PA-controlled territories do not live under "Israel's occupation" at all with control of Bethlehem, for example, having been handed over to the PA in accordance with the Oslo Accords two decades ago. However, Knell continues to promote the mantra which has dominated previous BBC reports on the topic of Palestinian Christians, according to which emigration is entirely attributable to factors connected to Israel. And as we have seen in much other BBC reporting on the issue, Knell studiously avoids the long-standing but under-reported topic of intimidation of Christians.

Should BBC News allow its agenda to be dictated by social media?

Social media is of course by nature both superficial and easily manipulated to create a level of 'noise' way beyond the actual significance of a story by focusing on its eye-catching sound-bites alone. How many of the Tweets and posts which placed the "bombardment of Gaza" in third place actually originated from a small number of political activists and how such activism serves the interests of Hamas' PR war is not a topic which Satchell saw fit to address.
Satchell stated: "What we like, share is now influencing everything – including the news."
That of course can only be the case if news services allow social media to influence their agenda. Among the questions BBC audiences may be asking is why they even need the mainstream media to act as an intermediary between them and what they can already discover for themselves (for free) and do they actually want the content provided by their news service to be dictated by the Tweets and Facebook posts of interest groups and anonymous subscribers to those services and others.

'Homeland' Season Finale Stirs Controversy After Comparing Menachem Begin to Taliban Leader

In the season 4 finale episode, which aired on Dec. 21, CIA black ops director Dar Adal, played by F. Murray Abraham, justifies a deal he made with a Taliban leader by referencing Begin. He makes the remarks in a conversation with former CIA director Saul Berenson, a Jewish character played by Mandy Patinkin.
"Menachem Begin killed 91 British soldiers at the King David Hotel before becoming Prime Minister," Adal said, referencing the 1946 bombing at the King David hotel in Jerusalem carried out by the Irgun, a right-wing militant Jewish organization headed by Begin.
Herzl Makov, director of Israel's Menachem Begin Center, said the reference amounted to slander against the former prime minister and Israel.
"To say, 'Begin killed'? He wasn't even there," Makov told Israeli news service Ynet. "The underground resistance group was under his command, and he took responsibility. In addition, three warnings were given to the British to vacate and their commander refused. So there is a dramatic difference between the two cases compared."
"For me, it is like saying that [Begin and Homeland's Taliban leader] are both terrorists, just like saying they both wore brown shirts," he added. "It is surprising specifically because Homeland is based on the Israeli [TV series] format Prisoners of War."

British Minister Vows to Combat 'Dark Forces' of Anti-Semitism

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles pledged to make extra funds available for additional security at Jewish schools. Pickles also promised a "zero tolerance" approach to the online hate crimes that have already targeted a number of leading British Jewish personalities, including Luciana Berger, a member of parliament for a constituency in the northern city of Liverpool.
According to Britain's Daily Express newspaper, Pickles added that new measures to counter anti-Semitism on campus would be introduced, while schoolchildren will be taught about the Nazi Holocaust.
In an oped for the same paper, Pickles mourned that "in 2014, there has been a revolting relapse of this ancient evil" while highlighting the intimate relationship between hatred of Jews as a community and hatred of the Jewish state.
"Institutions that should have stood up to this thuggish behaviour did not," Pickles wrote. "Like the Holborn branch of Sainsbury's (a well-known British supermarket,) clearing their shelves of kosher food to satisfy anti-Israeli yobs outside. This casual acceptance of anti-Semitism was outrageous."

More Than 20 Houses, Cars Branded With Swastikas in North London

More than 20 houses and vehicles were vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti, including swastikas, in north London on Sunday, Britain's Jewish News reported.
The attacks took place on Osbaldeston Road in Hackney during the evening. Locals woke up Monday morning to find the Nazi symbol drawn onto window panes, cars and a private ambulance. Shomrim, the Jewish neighborhood watch group, posted photos of the vandalism on Twitter. One photo showed swastikas drawn on the hood of a car beside the words "Jew" and "Sionist (sic) Out."
"We are committed to bring a stop to these senseless and mindless acts of vandalism, and are working closely with the police investigation to assist in every possible way," said Shomrim coordinator Barry Bard. "Similar swastikas have appeared in the same area over the past few weeks. Police are taking these incidents very seriously and are treating it as hate crime. I urge anyone with information to call 101."

Anti-Semitic Vandalism in Chicago and Philadelphia

Religious leaders, political officials and community members gathered in a Philadelphia suburb to denounce anti-Semitic vandalism at a Jewish family's home, where "Move Jew" was spray painted on the home's garage door.
"It was shocking," Samantha Raker, who lives at the Yardley Pennsylvania home with her father, Michael, said at the rally.
In Chicago, a synagogue and more than 10 nearby residential garages were vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.
Congregation Atereth Yehoshua and the garages in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of West Rogers Park were defaced over the weekend with slurs that included a Star of David accompanied by the words "F**k U," according to Fox 32, a Fox News affiliate.

Hundreds attend Zagreb mass in honor of 'one of Europe's biggest mass murderers'

Hundreds of Croatians attended a memorial mass in Zagreb on Sunday for World War II-era dictator Ante Pavelić, local media reported.
Pavelić's fascist regime was allied with Nazi Germany and was responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs were also murdered under his rule.
Protesters yelling "Oppose the glorification of fascism" and other anti-fascist slogans pushed against police, who blocked them from entering the church. In a video of the confrontation, posted on You-Tube, several policemen stood in a tight knot around the door of the church in falling snow, while others kept the opposing sides apart, at one point detaining a man who attempted to breach the lines.
The founder of the extreme nationalist Ustaše movement, Pavelić advocated armed rebellion against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and engaged in acts of terror in furtherance of this goal. After the Germans conquered Yugoslavia in 1941, he was installed as head of the new puppet state, described by Yad Vashem as a "fiercely cruel regime" in which "hundreds of thousands of Serbs and tens of thousands of Jews were murdered in death camps and in other awful ways, such as being thrown off cliffs or burned alive in their homes."
Following the war, Pavelić made his way to Argentina, where he was wounded in an assassination attempt. He died in 1957.

IsraellyCool: Video: Trailer For New Show 'Dig' (Partly Shot In Israel)

In June of this year, I blogged about Jewish actor Jason Isaacs filming a show in Israel, a fact that caused BDSholes like Ali "Abumination" Abunimah to seethe.
The trailer for the show has now been released, so I thought I would post it because 1) it looks good and 2) take that, BDS

DIG - Official Trailer (March 5, 2015) - New Event Series on USA

Israel's Bedouin Schools Flourish in Negev Desert

In the sandy dunes of the northern Negev desert between Arad and Be'er Sheva, 130 students who belong to a local Bedouin tribe, study at the Al-Sayed Technological School. One of the eight schools that the Israel Sci-Tech Schools Network operates for the Bedouins of Israel's Negev desert, the high school was built in 2010. The school's curriculum, which includes general studies, also has a special focus on electrician studies for boys and child daycare classes for girls.
"Before this high school and others that were established for the Bedouin community through the Israel Sci-Tech Network, many in the Bedouin population in the Negev simply didn't have a high school education available to them," said Shai Lewinsohn, the sci-tech network's director of Resource Development and External Affairs.
"There were Bedouin regional schools, but they were located far away from the isolated Bedouin tribes and therefore only a small percentage of Bedouin students were able to attend high school," Lewinsohn told Tazpit.
"During the past five years, education accessibility for Bedouins has undergone a major transformation, with high schools being built in the tribal districts themselves. Today around 90% of high school-age Bedouins are now being educated."

Revolutionary diagnostic technique identifies what lurks in your lungs

Microscopic foreign particles in the lungs of firefighters, welders, industrial workers and children cause respiratory problems of great concern to Prof. Elizabeth Fireman of the Institute for Pulmonary and Allergic Diseases at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
She has developed a bio-monitoring technique that's proven its value from Ground Zero to the playground.
Back in 1999, Fireman published her first paper showing how her revolutionary induced sputum (IS) and analysis techniques worked better than the more invasive bronchial lavage method in obtaining and studying mucus of Israeli factory workers to test for hazardous particles from inhaled dust.
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center terror attack on September 11, 2001, she flew to New York to bio-monitor 39 New York City firefighters who'd inhaled toxic substances at the disaster site, and compared results against a control group of Israeli firefighters. She identified toxic metals such as mercury in the rescue workers' lungs.

China to begin free trade negotiations with Israel in 2015

China will speed up free trade talks with six countries on the Arabian peninsula and begin trade negotiations with Israel next year, state media said on Tuesday, as Beijing accelerates efforts to sign such agreements.
China and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - started free trade talks in 2004, and a deal will help China cut costs on energy imports from the region, the official China Daily said.
"GCC countries consider China as a major market for their petrochemical products, and this (FTA) will assist those nations in their industrial development," Zhang Shaogang, head of the Commerce Ministry's international trade and economic affairs department, was quoted as saying.

Haifa Celebrates Diversity

Haifa, that other city by the bay, has been San Francisco's sister city for 41 years.
Among the many commonalities are a strong pride in celebrating their diversity, promoting multiculturalism, tolerance and coexistence.
From the J post
For the past 21 years, thousands of visitors have been attending the annual December weekend Holiday of Holidays Festival in Haifa.
This festival, which falls on the crossroads of Hanukka, Id al-Adha and Christmas, has come to stand for coexistence and multiculturalism. The festival runs until December 27, when the city invites visitors to enjoy theatrical and musical performances, vendors and art exhibits.

10 Israeli tech ideas that changed the world in 2014

This is the time of year that tech sites and tech pros come out with their "top 10 of 2014" lists, and Israeli tech pundits are no different. But what does "best" mean? The company that got the most investments? The firms with the best exits? The ones that won the most international awards?
A list could be drawn up of Israeli tech companies for each of those categories, and most of those lists would find it challenging to limit themselves to just 10. But in the final analysis, the purpose of tech is not development for its own sake, but to solve problems – to help people live healthier, more productive, more prosperous, and easier lives.