01/31 Links: Ban Ki-moon is Justifying terrorism; Where Providing Water Is a Crime ~ EoZ

From Ian:

The Anti-Defamation League demanded a clarification from Ban of his remarks, which it called “highly disturbing.”
CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Ban’s remarks were “incredibly short-sighted.”
Like Lauder, Greenblatt warned of the likely consequences of Ban’s statement: “These comments will not only serve to further embolden Palestinians seeking to attack Israeli civilians, but also undermine the global struggle against terrorism by making inappropriate distinctions and rationalizations.”
Ban did not speak in his own defense, but his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, briefed reporters in New York on Wednesday. “Anyone is free to choose what they like or dislike from the secretary-general’s speeches. Words can continue to be twisted, but the grave reality cannot be obstructed,” he announced.
Moreover, Dujarric added, Ban “stands by every word” in his address to the Security Council. “He condemns the stabbings, vehicle attacks and shootings by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians,” Dujarric said, repeating that dubious restriction about “targeting Israeli civilians.”
He added, apparently in Ban’s name, that “nothing justifies terrorism.” But this is precisely what his boss attempted to do. Since his spokesman has invited us “to work together to fight the sources and the causes that fuel that terrorism,” we should join the UN in the worldwide campaign it should launch to wipe out anti-Semitism.

David Collier: A letter to the University of Kent – antisemitism on campus

I wish to register a formal complaint against the university of Kent for allowing and promoting antisemitism within campus. In your university I heard mention of the ‘Elders of Zion’. A 100-year-old fake text that details the minutes of a non-existent meeting where Jewish leaders discussed their goal of global Jewish hegemony. It is a forgery responsible for spreading the disease of antisemitism and played a pivotal role everywhere that Jews were persecuted or slaughtered.
Hitler referenced the ‘Elders’ in Mein Kampf and it was taught as a factual document in Nazi schools. It has been claimed that the forgery served as the Nazis’ “warrant for genocide”. You can no more wave the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in my face than you can wave a swastika. There is no ‘context’ that allows for it. What I heard at an event on your campus was raw antisemitism.
Amira Hass said was that what we see today is the result of deliberate planning by a hidden group of Jews called the ‘Elders of Zion’. It was all planned. In a liberal democracy that bends to the will of the elected government, the idea of hidden plans and puppet masters is the stuff of conspiracy theorists. This is a conspiracy about Jews and secret plans for domination. You can listen to the comment itself here:

Richard Millett: I ask my question to Israeli Arab MK visiting London through a torrent of abuse.

So with two minutes left I rose and spoke. I just about managed to ask Dr. Yousef T. Jabareen how could he accuse Israel of oppressing its Arab citizens, of being undemocratic and of so underfunding the Israeli Arab education system when he himself was a Member of Parliament, a lecturer at the University of Haifa and Tel-Hai Academic College, had studied in Washington and was now here in London verbally attacking Israel?
I received such loud boos, hisses and abuse as I stood there that I swiftly took my seat. Needless to say I would have asked the same of Dr Durgham Saif, Professor at Al-Quds University in Abu-Dis, who also studied and lectured in Washington and who is a member of the Israeli Bar Association.
But by then I had already been shouted at by the Baroness for “disrespecting the meeting”.
In fairness to Dr Jabareen he listened to my question and answered, albeit unsatisfactorily. He simply complained that he was not allowed to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque and that many Israeli Arab leaders were banned from leaving Israel.
Meanwhile P21 itself is quickly becoming a hub of hate with constant anti-Israel lectures to the wider public. During the Q&A a young Romanian woman said she loved Jewish culture but not what Israel was doing to the Palestinians and she asked what she could do to help. Malia Bouattia said she should join the BDS movement.
One audience member did ask why we don’t hear from the other side to which Ben White, laughably, responded that Israel’s message is dominant in the media so there is no need to have any balance at events like today’s.

David Horovitz: US espionage and Hamas tunneling highlight malaise in Israeli defenses

Israel professed itself to be “disappointed” but “not surprised” by the revelation Friday that the US and UK have been hacking Israeli air force drone and fighter jet communications for the past 18 years. Excuse me? If this came as no surprise to the Israeli authorities, why didn’t they do anything about it?
Israeli leaders brag endlessly about what a cyber powerhouse we are. And yet our most sophisticated communications, it turns out, have been continually decrypted for the best part of two decades. Tell me, did we not change the encryption process for 20 years? And if we did, was the encryption so amateurish as to present no challenge at all to American and British state hackers?
Some Israeli security sources have been strenuously asserting over the weekend that the breach is of little material consequence — in part because, after all, the US and UK are our allies, not our enemies. In truth, however, the revelations raise all manner of troubling questions and issues.
For a start, they make a mockery of the relentlessly hyped, supposedly unprecedented level of intelligence-sharing between Israel and the United States. In fact, the US clearly does not remotely trust Israel to provide it with full intelligence cooperation. (On Sunday we learned the US and UK even reportedly spied on our missile defense tests.) In fact, the US routinely engages in espionage against the Jewish state. In fact, the US would have known in real time if Israel had gone ahead with its much-threatened strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. One can only wonder how the US, opposing any such strike, would have acted — what practical steps it would have taken — when its spyware told it that the Israelis were gearing up to attack.

Where Providing Water Is a Crime

How do you build a state for people who don’t want it built? That’s the obvious question that emerges from the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of Rawabi, the first new Palestinian city. It’s a flagship project that international diplomats routinely laud as a model of Palestinian state-building, but it has won no such praise from fellow Palestinians. Instead, the very people it was meant to benefit are now accusing Rawabi’s founder of collaboration with the enemy for having committed such horrendous crimes – this is not a joke – as providing residents with electricity and running water.
Rawabi was founded with the goal of providing decent, affordable housing for middle-class Palestinians – theoretically a goal that should be welcomed by the Palestinian Authority and its residents, who routinely complain to the international community about how wretched their situation is. From the start, however, the PA did its best to undermine the project; despite repeated promises of support, it refused to provide even the basic infrastructure that most governments routinely provide to new residential developments. Thus as JTA reported last week, Rawabi’s water and sewage system, streets, schools and medical clinic were all financed, like the houses themselves, by entrepreneur Bashar Masri and the Qatari government.
The PA even tried to prevent Rawabi from obtaining running water, by refusing, for five long years, to convene the joint Israeli-Palestinian water committee that’s supposed to approve all new water projects. Rawabi got its water only when Israel finally lost patience and approved its connection to water mains unilaterally.

3 Israelis wounded by PA gunman at West Bank checkpoint

Three Israeli soldiers were wounded on Sunday when a member of the Palestinian Authority security forces opened fire at an IDF checkpoint near Beit El in the West Bank. He was shot dead by forces at the scene.
Magen David Adom emergency services said that two victims were in serious condition with wounds to the neck and thigh, respectively, and one was lightly hurt.
The shooter drove up to the Focus checkpoint in a car, was asked for his ID, and opened fire with a handgun, injuring the three soldiers. Palestinian reports named him as Amjad Sakari, 35, and said he was a member of the Palestinian Authority security forces who was working as a bodyguard for the Ramallah district attorney.
“Forces at the scene responded to the attack and shot the assailant, resulting in his death,” the IDF said in a statement.

US oleh even more motivated to join IDF after terrorist attack

"I'm never scared. Even though I was stabbed, I will give my all to the army," said a 17-year-old pre-military academy student who sustained light wounds on Saturday after being stabbed in the back near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City.
"God willing, I want to serve in Sayeret Matkal (the IDF's elite reconnaissance unit). This stab wound won't change my plans," said the highly-motivated teenager, who only one month ago immigrated to Israel from New York in order to join the IDF.
Resting in his hospital bed in Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center, he recounted the incident: "I didn't see the terrorist coming. He came from behind and stabbed me. He ran to the right and I ran to the left. There were two [terrorists] there and they both had knives. They looked around 12 or 13 years old. I knew right away that I was stabbed because I saw him with the knife."
His friend, who was with him at the time, added: "We were walking, and then the two guys with the knives came. One of them tried stabbing me and I thought he got me in the back, but it was only his hand. They were chasing after me and my friend.

IDF says it foiled car-ramming attack on West Bank highway

Israeli soldiers thwarted an attempted car-ramming attack on Route 443 in the West Bank north of Jerusalem, the army said Sunday afternoon.
A Palestinian man attempted to run over soldiers manning the Maccabim checkpoint along the major east-west highway, which dips through portions of the West Bank. Troops opened fire on the speeding car, thwarting a potential attack, the IDF said in a statement.
The alleged Palestinian attacker sustained a number of gunshot wounds and was taken to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital for medical treatment.
Sunday’s attack — the latest in a months-long wave of deadly Palestinian car-rammings, stabbings and shootings — came a day after an Israeli-American teenager was wounded in a stabbing in Jerusalem and four days after an Israeli man was seriously injured in a stabbing in a settlement north of the city.
Route 443, which connects the capital to Tel Aviv and traverses the West Bank for some 15 kilometers, has been the scene of several attacks in recent months, including a deadly stabbing in the settlement of Beit Horon a week ago, and a fatal attack on soldiers at a gas station along the highway in November.

UN chief ‘alarmed’ at Hamas vow to keep building Gaza tunnels, rockets

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed “alarm” Saturday at Hamas’s pledge the day before to keep building attack tunnels from Gaza into Israel and to advance the development of rockets to fire at the Jewish state.
Ban’s remarks came days after he prompted furious criticism from Israel for remarks that the Jewish state allegedly legitimized Palestinian terrorism.
In a statement issued by his spokesperson, the UN chief said remarks and actions like those undertaken by Hamas do “serious disservice” to Gaza’s population, and endanger efforts to rebuild the coastal enclave devastated in three rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas since 2008.
“Such statements and actions put at risk reconstruction, humanitarian and development efforts by the international community and Palestinian and Israeli authorities. They also do a serious disservice to the long-suffering people of Gaza,” said Ban.
The UN chief also reiterated “his condemnation of terrorism in all its manifestations,” a reference to a row that erupted earlier in the week, when he drew fire in Israel for stating that the current wave of Palestinian violence could be rooted in “frustration.”

German paper uses Nazi language to blame Israel for Palestinian terrorism

An article in the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) has been accused of mimicking Nazi rhetoric by placing the blame for Palestinian terrorism squarely on Israel’s shoulders.
Titled, “Israel suffers for its cycle of revenge,” an article last week by the newspaper’s Israel-based correspondent, Peter Münch, quoted from an interview with Said Zidani, a Palestinian philosophy professor at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, in which he said Palestinians murder Israelis not only out of “desperation but [as] an act of resistance...”
According to the article, Zidani’s remarks did not amount to justifying the violence.
Experts on anti-Semitism thought differently.
“Such headlines project classical anti-Jewish stereotypes onto the Jewish state,” Prof. Monika Schwarz-Friesel told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. Schwarz-Friesel has made an exhaustive study of anti-Semitic language in Germany.
“The stereotype of Jewish revenge/vengefulness is an age-old Judeophobia concept that was articulated by the National Socialists,” she said. Schwarz-Friesel cited the infamous 1943 Posen speeches of SS head Heinrich Himmler calling for the extermination of European Jews. In addition to his call to murder all Jewish adults, Himmler urged the elimination of Jewish children to prevent them from seeking vengeance.

IsraellyCool Ahmad Manasrah Shot Execution Style But Still Alive

Clearly we’re just as good at executions as we are at genocide.
Not long ago Aussie Dave posted about London Jew haters protesting to free Ahmad Manasrah, the 13-year-old palestinian kid who stabbed a Jewish kid his age.
Well it continues now with yet another demo called for outside the Israeli embassy in London:

Shot execution Style by the Israelis and left to die in the middle of the street! no evidence against him he was kicked, abused & lay dieing in a pool of blood from multiple injuries and a headshot wound! Refused ambulance treatment & later tortured to make a false admission of a Crime!
Now he will be illegally trialled as a Adult under the new israeli policy making anyone over 14 years of age an Adult!

So what if Paris recognizes a Palestinian state?

There are two ways to look at the French threat to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state if the stalemate in the peace process persists.
We’ll get to the “it’s a serious challenge for Israel” folks lower down. But those who aren’t overly perturbed by the Paris ultimatum say: So what? Paris is free to convene an international conference to try to break the deadlock and get the two sides to make the concessions necessary for a peace deal. Since this outcome seems unlikely — or more accurately, utterly unrealistic — France can go ahead and recognize a “State of Palestine.” Such a move will be condemned in Jerusalem as unhelpful on the path to peace and celebrated in Ramallah as a great victory against the occupation. But declarations and recognitions change nothing on the ground.
A sovereign Palestinian state was not born in 1988, when Yasser Arafat proclaimed independence, or in 2012, when 139 states voted to grant “Palestine” nonmember observer state status at the United Nations, or in 2015, when the Palestinian flag was raised at UN headquarters in New York.
So French recognition of Palestinian statehood would be merely that: words on a piece of paper, and perhaps a solemn declaration by President Francois Hollande and another stately but ultimately meaningless photo op for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Netanyahu: French bid rewards Palestinian intransigence

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday took France to task for its latest Israeli-Palestinian peace talks pitch, saying the proposal would spur Palestinian inflexibility by guaranteeing recognition of a Palestinian state in advance.
“This will be an incentive for the Palestinians to come and not compromise,” Netanyahu said of the proposal in a press briefing before the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had announced Friday that France would shortly try to convene an international conference with the hope of enabling new Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but that if the effort hit a dead end, Paris would recognize a Palestinian state regardless.
“The substance of negotiations is compromise and the French initiative, as it has been reported, in effect gives the Palestinians in advance reasons not to do so,” Netanyahu said, adding that he expected the French to take their peace-making efforts seriously. “I believe that we will see a sobering up on this issue. In any case, we will work to bring this about and our position is very clear: We are prepared to enter into direct negotiations without preconditions and without dictated conditions.”

US and Britain snooped on Israeli anti-missile tests

The US and Britain reportedly monitored details of a rocket developed by Israel to test its anti-missile defense systems, as part of a massive eavesdropping program revealed last week.
The Americans and British gathered information about the Black Sparrow missile, which mimics the flight path of an incoming ballistic missile and has been used by Israel in tests of the Arrow and Magic Wand defense systems, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday.
It was not clear from the report how the data was obtained or if it was taken directly from intercepted transmissions during flights of the Black Sparrow .
On April 1, 2015, a Black Sparrow was successfully intercepted during a test of the Magic Wand anti-missile system, also known as David’s Sling, the report said.

US envoy deflects spy revelations, touts ‘record’ Israel-US intel ties

US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro declined Friday to discuss revelations that his country and Britain have been spying on Israeli military operations for almost two decades, insisting instead that security cooperation between Jerusalem and Washington is at “an all-time high.”
“I will not relate to intelligence issues,” Shapiro told Channel 10 television in an interview conducted in Hebrew. “I can say that the cooperation between our intelligence services, and all the information and knowledge that we share through these channels is really exceptional, and at an all-time high.”
Israel’s military censor approved for publication earlier Friday that American and British intelligence services have spied on the Israeli air force for at least 18 years, after cracking the IDF’s special encryption system for communication between fighter jets, drones and army bases.
The two countries have reportedly used this access to monitor IDF operations in Gaza, watch for a potential Israeli strike on Iran, and keep tabs on the drone technology that Israel exports. Israel said later Friday it was disappointed but not surprised by the revelations.

The US Mosque Obama Has Chosen For His First Presidential Visit Has Deep Extremist Ties

The Baltimore mosque President Obama has chosen as the first U.S.-based mosque to visit during his presidency has deep ties to extremist elements, including to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The White House announced on Saturday that Obama will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) on Wednesday. He has visited several mosques overseas as president but has resisted visiting one in the homeland. The purpose of the trip, according to the White House, is to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.”
But ISB is a curious choice for Obama’s first domestic visit.
The mosque is a member of a network of mosques controlled by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a Muslim civil rights group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror case. Several executives with that organization were convicted of sending money to aid the terrorist group Hamas.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Kerry To Female Staff: Wear Burkhas When I Phone Zarif (satire)

US Secretary of State John Kerry ordered the women among his office’s staff to don modest attire in keeping with Islamic sensibilities when he is on his daily phone conversations with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, Department sources reported today.
Following the Vatican’s expression of religious sensitivity in covering nude statues when President Hassan Rouhani visited the compound last week, Kerry came to the realization that was has been missing from the dynamic of his contacts with his counterpart in Tehran was a demonstration that the US is genuinely interested in accommodating Iran’s interests. According to staff members, the secretary told them that it would be easier for the two diplomats to reach understandings on key issues if he, Kerry, could “really see where Javad is coming from.” As such, they said, the secretary ordered all female State Department employees whose duties cause them to appear regularly in his proximity either to come to the office in a burkha or to keep such a modest outfit at the office for when he must phone Zarif.
“I am sure that each of us desires to maximize empathy and understanding in our dealings with Tehran,” wrote Kerry in a memo distributed to Department staff. “To that end, starting February 1 of this year, all female employees of this department will adorn themselves in the traditional Islamic garment known in many places as the burkha, so that we can adopt the right setting for generating a true meeting of the minds when I converse with my Iranian counterpart. Even such minor inconveniences can go a long way to fostering greater understanding between these two great societies, and I thank you for your cooperation in this regard.” The memo also included a list in the DC area of shops specializing in the sale of such garments.

Anti-Israel movement hijacks MLK Day again

It is a highly racist approach, seeking to exploit racial tensions by portraying Israel — and Israel alone — as the cause of problems it has nothing to do with. As we saw recently in Chicago at an LGBT conference and Oberlin College, because “intersectionality” theory portrays Israel as uniquely evil in the world, the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism quickly blurs.
This year, we are aware of two attempts to co-opt the memory of Dr. King by putting on anti-Israel events as part of MLK Day activities. There likely were many more that we don’t know about.
At George Mason University, the MLK Day Program featured and event by Students Against Israeli Apartheid showing an anti-Israel film.
George Mason’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Multicultural Education (ODIME) tweeted out the event:
That same George Mason office promoted the event on Facebook, with a more detailed poster of the event, which from the logo in the lower right appears to have been produced by George Mason:
At Ithaca College, the MLK Day events were sponsored by the Office of Student Engagement and Multicultural Affairs (OSEMA). One of the events promoted the Black-Palestinian solidarity movement.

Israel Spy Vulture Released by Lebanon, Joins “Breaking the Silence” (satire)

The accused “Mossad Spy Vulture” captured last week in Southern Lebanon has been returned to Israel with the assistance of the United Nations, but that is not the end of the story. The vulture, known as Eddie, has decided to join the controversial IDF veterans group “Breaking the Silence”, known for their whistleblowing activities and testimony against Israel.
Not surprisingly, this move has led to quite a bit of animosity with some of his former comrades from the Animal Kingdom. In fact, Eddie and the famous Mossad Spy Dolphin have been busy trading insults on Social Media for much of the weekend. As the war of words escalated, the Daily Freier was able to speak with Eddie via Skype.
“The dolphin? What a showboat. It was always about him. Not only that, but he was also kind of a racist, always reminding me that as a mammal he was more evolutionarily advanced than I was. What a jerk.” Eddie continued to vent about his former comrades. “Oh and by the way….. All the goofy stories about Israel’s spying animals? 100% True. The kestrel that the Turks put through an X-Ray machine looking for spy equipment? Well they should have looked harder. The hummingbird that was interrogated by a Turkish counter-terrorism team? That was us. The sharks that stalked the beaches off of Sinai? Us again. The wild pigs that ravage the West Bank? We release them every night…… But don’t take my word for it……Just Ask President Abbas!!!!!!! The vulture captured by the Saudis in 2011? He’s my cousin by marriage….but we no longer speak. They’re all feasting on a sheep carcass right now near the Kinneret. But do I get an invite? No. Not that I’m bitter. Being a truth-teller is not an easy path.”
In an effort to move on, Eddie plans to tour University campuses along the East Coast as part of an “Interfaith Dialogue and Reconciliation” tour with the Hamas Bumblebee later this Spring

Palestinian political analyst incites to kill Palestinian Authority President Abbas

A Palestinian professor and political analyst sparked controversy over the weekend when he argued that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should be executed for violating Fatah's constitution.
Speaking on Palestinian TV on Friday, Abdel Sattar Qassem claimed that "Abu Mazen [Abbas] violates the Palestinian Revolutionary Penal Code issued by the PLO in 1979 and the constitution of the Palestinian Authority." According to Qassem, the Palestinian constitution states that the President of the Palestinian Authority is elected for a four-year term, while Abbas has already served 11 years with no elections. In addition, he claimed that the PLO Penal Code states that any PLO member who implements a policy of rapprochement with Israel or assistance to the Israeli occupation is to be executed.
Qassem's remarks against Abbas aroused furious responses from the Palestinian authority. Palestinian Minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs, Youssef Ideiss, spoke on Palestinian TV after Qassem, claiming that Qassem's remarks, inciting to kill the Palestinian Authority president, might bring about a civil war.

Hamas chief says no support from Iran in years

A senior Hamas official said his Gaza-based terror group has received no support from Iran since 2009, in a leaked phone call published in the Arab media on Sunday.
During the conversation, obtained by London-based daily A-Sharq al-Awsat, Hamas political chief Moussa Abu Marzouk is heard saying of the Iranians that “we haven’t gotten anything from them since 2009, and everything [the Iranians] are saying is a lie.”
The report did not specify when the phone call took place, nor with whom Abu Marzouk was ostensibly speaking.
Iran is widely believed to be funding Hamas, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group, and other proxy terror groups in the Middle East.
According to Abu Marzouk, whenever the Iranians offered their support, they conditioned it on Hamas acting as mediator to improve ties between the Islamic Republic and Sunni states such as Sudan.
Abu Marzouk also denounced the Iranians for their support of the Houthi rebels in Yemen, describing their role in the conflict there as “negative.”

Iran says it has ‘doubled’ efforts to develop ballistic missiles

Tehran has doubled its efforts to develop its ballistic missile capabilities in reaction to US attempts to stop it, a top Iranian commander said Saturday.
“We doubled our activities and the American demands from Iran had an opposite result,” the country’s Press TV quoted Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ (IRGC) Aerospace Force, as saying.
“Today, the enemies are bringing up the issue of missile-related sanctions and expecting us to back down. But, the IRGC’s reaction to this American demand will be aggressive,” he said.
Hajizadeh said the US was still a dangerous enemy to Iran, despite the signing and recent implementation of a nuclear deal between the sides, and the subsequent removal of many of the international sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Turkey says Russian jet violated its airspace, summons envoy

A Russian SU-34 jet violated Turkish airspace on Friday despite radar warnings, Turkey's foreign ministry said on Saturday, underscoring the bitterness between the two countries involved in Syria's war.
The Russian ambassador was summoned over the incident late on Friday, the statement said, adding that the violation was a clear sign that Russia wanted issues between the two countries to escalate.
"We are making a clear call to the Russian Federation not to violate Turkish airspace, which is also NATO airspace," the statement said.
"We are emphasizing once again that the unwanted consequences of such irresponsible behavior will belong fully to the Russian Federation," it added.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Russia on Saturday to "take all necessary measures" to ensure NATO airspace was not violated again.

PreOccupiedTerritory: At Least 45 Dead In Unimportant, Non-Israel-Inflicted Bombing (satire)

At least 45 people were killed and dozens more injured in a suburb of the Syrian capital today, in a triple bombing that was not perpetrated by Israel, and will therefore soon disappear from the international consciousness.
A car bomb exploded in Sayeda Zeinab, and then two suicide bombers detonated themselves as rescue work was occurring, according to witnesses cited by Reuters. The location, which boasts the oldest Shiite shrine in Syria, and the carnage, which so far includes 110 wounded, will soon drop out of the news cycle because no international bodies will call for an investigative commission into allegations of war crimes, as the bombing was not conducted by Israel.
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International quickly condemned the bombing, apparently by the Islamic State, as a violation of the Laws of Armed Conflict and of international humanitarian law, then lost interest as other events such as the existence of Israel grabbed their attention. After a flurry of head-shaking and stern words, the organizations determined that no more could be said or done on the matter, since it was not the Jewish State that had committed the atrocity, and that no further formal steps were necessary.
“This is a grave violation of the laws of war and quite likely a crime against humanity,” said Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth. “But by reacting to this event I have already departed from my self-imposed ratio of two anti-Israel tweets for every non-Israel-related tweet, and must now find two more things to criticize about Israel, so please excuse me.”

Vandalism Strikes Twice at Historic Jewish Cemetery in Connecticut

Two acts of vandalism were discovered at a historic Jewish cemetery in Connecticut recently, the Hartford Courant reported on Thursday.
Police were called to the Zion Hill Cemetery in Hartford on Wednesday morning, after an employee of the Association of Jewish Cemeteries was doing an inspection and found 20 headstones knocked over in Dreyfus Lodge, a plot in the cemetery.
A day later, Leonard J. Holtz, former president of Congregation Ados Israel, was walking in the cemetery and discussing the recent vandalism when he discovered 15 monuments that had been knocked down in the congregation’s plot.
Ados Israel, the first Orthodox synagogue in Hartford, closed in 1986 after 121 years. Holtz is a caretaker at the cemeteries where the former congregants are buried. Some of the toppled headstones date back to the 1920s and ’30s

Top Israeli honor eludes Goering’s brother, who heroically saved Jews

An upcoming BBC documentary is set to highlight the remarkable story of Albert Goering — the brother of Nazi minister and air force chief Hermann Goering — who is said to have saved hundreds of Jews and political dissidents during World War II.
However, despite the evidence pointing to Albert’s efforts to enable Jewish people and others to escape the Nazis, he is not in line for nomination as a Righteous Among the Nations, the highest honor bestowed by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Israel’s official Holocaust institute.
“There are indications that Albert Goering had a positive attitude to Jews and that he helped some people, but we do not have sufficient proof, i.e., primary sources, showing that he took extraordinary risks to save Jews from danger of deportation and death,” Yad Vashem told The Times of Israel on Monday.
Reports by the Gestapo, US Army interrogation records and survivor testimonies suggest that the younger Goering risked his life to save victims of the Nazi regime by obtaining exit permits for Jews and transferring their assets out of Germany. For instance, he is said to have secured the release of his Jewish former boss Oskar Pilzer, and to have helped Pilzer and his family escape from Germany. There is evidence Albert Goering also used his family connections to help get Jewish prisoners out of concentration camps, and to prevent the Gestapo from investigating his activities.

Minerva Labs wins inaugural Cybox contest

Cybox, a new contest that will annually select and announce the most innovative cyber defense startup in Israel, picked Minerva Labs as its first winner and the company most likely to make a significant impact on information security.
Minerva Labs — founded in 2014 by Edi Bobritzki, Erez Briman and Omri Moyal — has developed a novel, revolutionary product that protect systems from focused attacks without the need of prior knowledge, intelligence or recognition. In fact, the company’s patent-based solution created a new paradigm (prevention without recognition).
Minerva Labs was one of five companies selected to present its product in the Cybox competition that took place at the Cybertech 2016 conference. CyberTech organizers joined forces with Glilot Capital Partners to launch the Cybox contest.
“In the last years Israel has positioned itself as a source of innovation in the Cyber Security field. The CYBOX Contest will allow the next promising companies to get targeted exposure,” said Arik Kleinstein, CO-Founder & Managing Partners, Glilot Capital Partners.

Israeli screen-printed tights make sexy fashion statement

Dancers in the opening show for the Barneys New York 2014 holiday windows wore Stern Tights.
The “Women Fashion Power” exhibition last year at the London Design Museum was accompanied by a sale of Stern Tights in the museum shop.
Fashion bloggers love them and customers order them from four continents.

Ironically, the creator of the coveted collections of hand-printed luxury tights from Israel is more likely to wear jeans than hosiery.
“I wasn’t a tights person, but since I started making them I hear there aren’t products like mine out there and people want it,” says textile designer Gal Stern in a Skype interview from her Ramat Gan studio.

Israeli virologist hunting for clues to Zika outbreak

Since last May, a Zika virus outbreak in Brazil has coincided with an alarming increase in birth defects including microcephaly, an abnormally small brain.
More than 1.5 million Brazilians are infected, including some 2,000 pregnant women, and the virus is spreading explosively in Colombia, with cases also in El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.
The World Health Organization convened an emergency committee to discuss the pandemic expected to affect three to four million people, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned pregnant women to avoid visiting countries where Zika has been reported.
In response to this deepening crisis, Israeli virologist Dr. Leslie Lobel and a handful of colleagues around the world are stepping up their research of Zika and other arboviruses, so called because they are borne by arthropods, especially mosquitos.

Quality of life in Israel among world's highest, report says

Israel is enjoying relatively high economic growth compared to other nations, according to the biannual report by the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, which OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria was due to present to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
The report says that Israel's employment rate is high and increasing, and that per capita income, which stands at an average of $35,000 per year, approaches the per capita income of most advanced countries.
Moreover, the report says that the quality of life in Israel is among the highest enjoyed by OECD member nations. It rated Israel third in quality of life among advanced nations, after Japan and Switzerland.
Israel is better prepared that other OECD nations to deal with an aging population, but public expenditure on pensions is low, according to the report, which also said that Israel's banking and finance sector demonstrated impressive stability.

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