02/16 Links Pt2: The Middle East's Conflicts Are About Religion; BDS is a moral failure ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Vic Rosenthal: A world without Jews (2012)

Thanks to Facebook’s ‘memories’ feature, I was reminded of this post from four years ago. I liked it so much I am re-running it. No need to change a word.
Thought experiment time:
Perhaps one day, the Jews of the world will finally become fed up. Maybe they will build an enormous spaceship and take their arguments to another planet (we know Jews are smart, so they could do this).
What would happen on that planet might be interesting, but I won’t speculate, although it’s tempting to wonder what a Jewish planet would be like. Like Israel without the foreign workers, terrorism and reserve duty?
I’m more interested in what the Earth would be like. Imagine a Middle East without Jews (the Iranian regime does this all the time). Pity the ‘Palestinians’, whose culture would suddenly lose its raison d’être. After a few days of enjoying the nice cars and buildings the Jews left behind, they would have to create a real identity for themselves.
Suddenly there would be very little interest in supporting the ‘refugees’. Who would care about them? Not the Arab countries, who treat them like garbage now. I expect there would be fighting between various factions, some Islamist and some secular. Hizballah would take control of the North, Hamas the South, and Fatah the East. The UN would feed them, at least for a while. Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. would each supply its favored faction with weapons, and they would fight until most of the land was swallowed up by its neighbors or under control of various militias.

Anti-Israel activists hating on Bernie Sanders

Bernie must know about this potential problem on his far-left flank. From the get-go, Bernie has been targeted by far-left wing and anti-Zionist websites. In early May 2015, the anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website wrote:
Sanders is also getting points for opposing the Iraq War, which Hillary Clinton supported, and he supports the Iran deal. But I’ve seen no one apart from Juan Cole, in this excellent summary of Sanders’s Middle East views, point out his yeoman defense of Israel during its assault on Gaza last summer. In July Sanders formed part of the “unanimous consent” to a resolution to support Israel in its attack, a resolution Salon’s David Palumbo-Liu said at the time “does more than confirm U.S. Senate support for Israel. It pushes that statement beyond any rational or ethical or moral framework imaginable.”
In a famous encounter at a town hall meeting in Vermont near the end of the onslaught– video below–, Sanders got so angry at pro-Palestinian constituents who were obviously deeply upset by an assault that had killed 500 Palestinian children that he told them to “shut up.”
Similarly, recently a write at the anti-Israel Middle East Monitor framed the left-wing objection to Sanders as progressivism being incompatible with Zionism, Is Bernie Sanders a civil rights campaigner or a loyal supporter of Israel?
But it hasn’t only attacks from authors. Remember the woman who, in early August 2015, took over the stage at a Bernie rally in Seattle, then shouted at the top of her lungs just inches from the face of the person introducing Bernie?
It was a defining moment in the campaign, and it signaled the aggressive tactics that Black Lives Matter protesters would take at other events. While Hillary Clinton and some Republican candidates faced hecklers or mild disruption, that initial Bernie event was the most aggressive.
The woman who yelled at Bernie and took over the stage was anti-Israel Block The Boat activist Mara Willaford [who claims to be a palestinian and black].

Britain to prevent publicly funded bodies from boycotting Israeli goods

Publicly funded authorities in Britain will be prevented from boycotting Israeli goods under new government procurement guidelines.
The new regulations will be announced by Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock during an upcoming visit to Israel, the Guardian reported Monday.
According to the guidelines, such boycotts are considered by the government ministers to be “inappropriate, outside where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the government,” the Guardian reported.
Plans for the guidelines were first announced in October.
“We need to challenge and prevent these divisive town hall boycotts,” Hancock said, adding that the guidelines “will help prevent damaging and counterproductive local foreign policies undermining our national security.”
A spokesman for Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn told the Jewish Chronicle that the guideline plan is “an attack on local democracy.”

From the uber-left Channel 4: BDS: councils could face penalties over Israeli boycotts

Danny Danon: Alliance of shared values

Critics of Israel often like to point to the policy disagreements that we have with the American administration from time to time as some sort of harbinger signaling the end of the special relationship between our two countries. Nothing could be further from the truth. This week US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, a senior member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, is visiting Israel. This is yet another indication of the strength of the historic bond between the governments, and the people, of these two great democracies.
Our government will soon sign a new Memorandum of Understanding with the Obama administration. While the exact amount of American aid included in the understanding is not yet determined, we already know that it will be of historic proportions. With the current MOU actually expiring only in 2018, the fact that President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are committed to signing the agreement now signals the close cooperation between our two administrations.
When you add this MOU to the military and intelligence collaborations over the past seven years, you understand the level of commitment of the American government to Israel’s security and wellbeing.
America’s support for Israel is much deeper than this or any past administration’s official bilateral relationship.

The Middle East's Conflicts Are About Religion

A meme is gaining traction within American government and media, and it goes like this: The conflicts of the Middle East aren’t about religion. Jihadist violence? Garden-variety criminality, the president says. Young people flocking to ISIS? “Thrill-seekers,” posits the secretary of state, who are desperate for “jobs,” per a State Department spokeswoman. Iran’s belligerence? A reaction to ostracization, a former embassy hostage insists. Sunni-Shiite bloodletting? Jockeying for power, the pundits conclude.
It’s not just a false narrative, but a dangerous one. It’s true that the Middle East offers no easy policy options: witness Syria, where the choice of sovereign increasingly appears to be between the Islamic State and Islamic Republic (but neither of which, we’re told, takes Islam all that seriously). Still, if we’re to even try to address the region’s maladies, we have to first correctly diagnose its disease.
It’s not that religion is the only force at play. It’s not that the ranks of jihadist groups don’t also include common criminals, or that leaders never use religion to their own cynical ends (Saddam Hussein’s Faith Campaign is one salient example). It’s that these phenomena are relatively minor compared to the vast influence religious belief still wields across much of the Middle East and the broader Islamic world.
It is, of course, near impossible to empirically demonstrate the motivations behind human actions, whether individual or collective. That doesn’t mean, however, that our only recourse is to project our own motivations onto societies for which they don’t fit. The debate over the religiosity of groups like ISIS, or of regimes like Saudi Arabia or Iran, is largely confined to the Western chattering classes. In the Islamic Middle East, the influence of faith is more often than not taken as a given.

VIDEO: Jewish Flight From Rising Anti-Semitism Serves as Warning to Whole of Europe

The flight of Jews from mainland Europe following a sharp rise in anti-Semitism should be a warning to the rest of the population, a prominent Jewish organisation has warned. Jewish migration to Israel has doubled in the last two years, with many more opting to flee to America and even Britain in the wake of a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
While all eyes have been on the massive influx of migrants from Islamic countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, comparatively little attention has been paid to the equally historic movement of Jews out of Europe, and France in particular.
In fact, as Breitbart News pointed out in January, the ongoing exodus of French Jews comprises the largest trans-migration of Jews since the formation of Israel in 1948. Some 8,000 headed for Israel in 2015, while many others migrated to the UK or the US.
In a newly released video, the Campaign for Antisemitism has said that this is not just a problem for Jews, but is a problem for the whole of European society, chillingly warning: “the Islamists and Nazis attacking Europe’s Jews hate you too.
“History shows us time and again – hate that starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews.”

Let’s talk about migrants

Adam Levick: The Government is banning discriminatory boycotts against Israel because it's on the side of the victims

Most Jews around the world indeed view current calls to exclude Israeli Jews from the international community in the context of the dark history of such measures.
They also naturally question the motivation of putatively sophisticated Europeans. They see the unimaginable brutality and oppression in the Arab Middle East – which includes the violation of the rights of women, gays and political dissidents, and even (as in Syria) industrial-scale killing and torture. Yet perversely they believe that the only country whose citizens deserve to be boycotted is the one that, according to a 2013 study by the NGO Freedom House, has the best human rights record in the region. It also just so happens to be the only one with a Jewish majority.
Though many Jews are secular, most thankfully are imbued with a rich and edifying tradition which explains that "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; and there is nothing new under the sun". Try as they may, no degree of sophistry employed by boycott proponents can possibly convince us not see this modern day political attack through the lens of Jewish history, nor to avoid reaching the conclusion that – as in every generation – resistance to this current anti-Jewish campaign is a moral imperative.
Especially given the recent upsurge in anti-Semitism in the UK, legislation against such discriminatory boycotts puts the Government on the side of the victims, and gives those who have always viewed the movement through the lens of racism just cause to feel morally vindicated.

BDS is a moral failure

Those who participate in singling out and attempting to hurt Israel through boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns are anti-Israel and not pro-Palestinian as they often claim. The purpose of BDS is purely anti-Semitic, meant only to inflict harm on Israeli businesses and the Israeli economy and not to help the Palestinians or any others for that matter. If this were not so, those who support BDS would recognize that many Palestinians and Arabs freely and happily work for Israeli companies on both sides of the imaginary “Green Line.” When Israeli industries and factories suffer, Palestinian and Arab workers suffer too.
The BDS crowd either has no conscience or has forgotten the lessons of history. If the church and others who know, or should know, right from wrong fail to stand up against any and all efforts and campaigns which single out Israel and the Jews as somehow deserving of being held to a different and higher standard, then they are failing to recognize the evil at the heart of BDS and anti-Semitism. Such moral failure paved the way for six million innocent people to be murdered for no other reason than Jewish blood coursed through their veins and it must never happen again. Sadly, though, as the Holocaust becomes a distant and fading memory, far too many are loosing any sense of shame at harboring anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiments. It’s almost become fashionable to hate Israel and this is especially egregious when talking about Christians and church leaders who are either indifferent to Israel or who are members of those denominations which have spearheaded BDS campaigns. After all, BDS is purely a campaign against Israel which is antithetical to the Word of God.

New York State Must Support Anti-BDS Legislation

Recently in Chicago, progressive activists embarked on an LGBT conference to voice their disdain for Israel. Advocates of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement did not approve of two Israeli gay rights activists speaking at a reception during the “Creating Change Conference,” despite the Jewish state’s international leadership on gay rights.
During the reception, Jewish attendees found themselves cornered by a mob of protesters, physically forbidding them from leaving – calling for Israel’s demise as well as using antisemitic slurs. Ultimately the police were called and the Jews had to leave by police escort and through a back door.
This is the BDS movement and discrimination is its core value.
For over a decade, anti-Israel forces have hidden behind the “human rights” label to delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist. The BDS movement was born when progressive activists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) hijacked a UN conference on racism, seeking to equate Zionism (the return of the Jewish people to their homeland) with racism. The 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa set the stage for antisemitic forces to attack Israel through economic, political and cultural means. But these days, anti-Israel rhetoric and antisemitic incidents finding fertile ground on college campuses, coupled with the European Union’s recent adoption of product labeling that singles out the Jewish state, make it imperative to call out and confront the BDS threat.

Pro-Israel Students Launch Coalition to Oppose Latest BDS Motions at McGill

A new coalition of students has united to oppose efforts by activists to boycott and divest from Israel at McGill University, The Algemeiner learned on Sunday.
“This year, we intend on launching a broader movement #EnoughisEnough in light of the repeated attempt to pass BDS motions,” Aliza Saskin, the organizer of the Vote NO McGill coalition told The Algemeiner.
The movement will work toward “creating reforms on campus to prevent the student government from taking stances on contentious political issues that only divide the student body.”
The new coalition was formed in response to the establishment of the McGill BDS Action Network and its promotion of a new BDS motion at the student association — the third in 18 months at the Montreal school — which will be put to a vote at the undergraduate Students’ Society of McGill University General Assembly on February 22.

Blaming the messenger: Vassar Pres says social media mischaracterizes campus anti-Semitism

Vassar College has been rocked by a series of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic events.
Apparently the President of Vassar, Catharine Hill, has received numerous alumni complaints and concerns, because she issued a statement to alumni seeking to allay their concerns. But in the process, the President sought to shift the responsibility by blaming “online publications” and “social media” for the controversy.
I don’t know if the President included Legal Insurrection in her criticism, but please scroll through our Vassar College Tag so you can see how thoroughly we have documented all our reporting.
As background, anti-Israel activism has led to anti-Semitic incidents in 2014 and 2016. Among other things, in 2014 Jewish students who stood up at a campus-wide forumwere mocked and jeered by a raucous crowd of students and faculty, a class was picketed and a professor forced to cross a picket line of ululating students because the course involved a trip to Israel (and the West Bank), Students for Justice in Palestine posted a Nazi cartoon on social media, and pro-Israel displays were vandalized.
Just recently, a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution campaign kick-off by SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace, followed by a faculty-sponsored event at which Israel was accused of engaging in an experiment to “stunt” Palestinian bodies, led to anti-Semitic messages on campus Yik-Yak.

BDS vs Bruce: Boycott activists urge Springsteen not to play Israel

No date has been set , no contracts signed, but the long knives have been drawn by vehement anti-Israeli activists intent on preventing a Bruce Springsteen concert this summer in Israel.
Soon after a Ynet report earlier this month sparked rumors of a Springsteen Tel Aviv date being added to his summer European tour in support of The River boxed set, the online campaign to lobby against the Boss entering the promised land.
Multiple tweeters launched a #CancelTelAviv hashtag and shared a poster targeting both Springsteen and Jennifer Lopez, who is also rumored to be bringing her summer tour to Israel.
An organization called The Jewish Voice for Peace, who evidently think that Springsteen singing "Crush on You" in Hayarkon Park is a detriment to peace, created their own poster that pleads: "Dear Bruce, Please don't perform for an apartheid state."

Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein calls for protest at an Oakland synagogue

Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein has called for protest at an Oakland synagogue, and has led a letter writing campaign directed towards local community leaders. Why he thinks our local community is his business is a mystery. He is spurred on, no doubt, by little more than his own elevated sense of self-importance and his own humorless existence.
In his cross-hairs is comedienne Roseanne Barr, who is scheduled to appear at Congregation Beth Abraham later this month.
Such criticism is particularly rich coming from Richard Silverstein who openly shills for the terror-supporting International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
Roseanne Barr's long journey of self discovery has led her back to Judaism and Israel. We wrote about it last year, before an earlier Bay area appearance was cancelled

Famed Palestinian entertainer DJ Khaled endorses Sabra for an epic BDS fail

With Super Bowl fever gripping the Bay Area, a colossally smooth and creamy BDS fail almost went unnoticed.
Although Sabra is made in America, its been an object of hate for the BDS holes for years, because of its Israeli roots
Palestinian record producer and personality DJ Khaled was in the Bay Area at a variety of Super Bowl events, sponsored by Sabra, the "official dip of Super Bowl 50". Khaled has over 2.7 million followers on Twitter, all of whom were able to watch his repeated shout out to Sabra on social media and in local meet-ups.

Following Orange BDS flap, Partner goes green with new brand

Israeli cellphone provider Partner, which has been known by the licensed brand name Orange for 17 years, debuted a new sea-foam green logo and brand on Tuesday following a BDS flap with France-based Orange SA.
“This is a special day for the Partner Group, which is embarking on a fascinating journey with our new brand, a journey in which our goal is to evolve into the most interesting and successful communications group in the State of Israel," said Partner Chairman Adam Chesnoff.
In June, Orange CEO Stephane Richard reportedly told a crowd in Cairo that he would cut ties with Israel if possible, despite having recently signed another 10-year contract extending the brand licensing to Partner. In the firestorm that followed, Richard came to Israel, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and declared his "love" for the Jewish state, noting that Orange had high-tech ties in Israel, including a subsidiary and an accelerator, and had no plans to cut off relations.
It is "ludicrous to think that our business development plans in Israel are in any way the result of political pressure," he said at the time. His company, he added, was simply ready to end its brand licensing agreements.

BBC’s Connolly turns R4 report on Duma case into racism smear

Connolly’s report then took a bizarre turn with the amplification of unfounded opportunistic allegations of Israeli racism from an official at the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department.
KC: “Elsewhere though the issue is viewed through different lenses. Palestinians say the same techniques have been used against them for decades. A clear double standard says Xavier Abu Eid of the PLO.”
XAE: “It’s basically that we’re not seen as equals; that’s a main point. We’re not equals of the [unintelligible] state. We’re not equals of the [unintelligible] equal rights. We’ve seen a transformation in Israeli society that it’s way more Right-wing and closer to religion. Many Israelis would justify what’s going on just by saying that we’re gentiles or non-Jews living here: that we don’t have the right to be treated under the same laws. Others would say no: you have the right to be treated under the same laws, however we have a special conditions that make us do this or that.”
At no point in this report were listeners told that the Israeli High Court of Justice outlawed the use of ‘moderate physical pressure’ during interrogations in 1999. At no point were they informed that the provisions for exceptions to that ruling in the case of an impending threat to civilian lives depend not on the suspect’s nationality or ethnic identity but to the practical issue of the threat he poses to others. Abu Eid’s baseless claims of racist discrimination and “double standard” are therefore an impediment to audience understanding of this story which – for reasons best known to themselves – the producers of this item nevertheless chose to amplify.

In which the BBC rehashes a press release and calls it news

Completely absent from this BBC report is any mention of Hamas’ appropriation of building materials imported into to the Gaza Strip and the connection between the diversion of construction materials to terrorism and the fact that thousands of people in the Gaza Strip still lack adequate shelter. That issue has of course been serially avoided by the BBC throughout the last year and a half and so audiences reading this report do not have the necessary background information to enable them to put this story into its correct context.
The report also avoids the topic of Hamas’ preference of spending millions of dollars on the reconstruction of cross-border tunnels rather than providing food and shelter for the population it controls. That again is a topic to which the BBC has avoided giving adequate coverage.
Likewise, the report makes no mention of the Palestinian Authority’s financial priorities which include giving grants and salaries to convicted terrorists from its general budget (supplied mostly by foreign donors) to the tune of millions of dollars a year.

Col Kemp: Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Politicized UN

The UN's assertion that the Saudi-led coalition has committed war crimes in Yemen is unlikely to be true. UN experts have not been to Yemen, depending instead on hearsay evidence and analysis of photographs.
The UN has a pattern of unsubstantiated allegations of war crimes against the armed forces of sovereign states. Without any military expertise, and never having visited Gaza, a UN commission convicted the Israel Defense Force of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians in the 2014 conflict. It was an assessment roundly rejected by America's most senior military officer, General Martin Dempsey, and an independent commission.
The Houthis have learned many lessons from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, groups also supported by Iran. Those lessons include the falsification of civilian casualty figures and their causes. The UN swallowed the fake Gaza figures hook, line and sinker, and are now making the same error in Yemen.
The Houthis exploit gullible or compliant reporters and human rights groups to facilitate their propaganda, including false testimony and fabrication of imagery.
Forensic analysis shows that rather than deliberately targeting civilians, the Saudis and their allies have taken remarkable steps to minimize civilian casualties.

Israel may be in trouble if Assad wins, former US official says

If the Syrian regime wins the civil war and Iran ends up on the Golan, Israel could have difficulty defending itself, said a former White House official on Monday.
Michael Doran called for a US policy that seeks to facilitate cooperation between allies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel to counter Iran. “Only the US can do that – pull them together.” If this does not happen, Israel could end up with Iranian forces and rockets on its border with Syria and “there is not much Israel can do about it.”
Doran, currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, was speaking to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem on a panel moderated by Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde.
Doran warned that the Syrian situation could “worsen quickly.”
US President Barack Obama “represents a trend in the national security elite, which sees Iran as a natural ally of the US. A very strongly held opinion, but they don’t like to advertise it because it is unpopular on the Hill,” said Doran, a former security adviser in president George W. Bush’s administration.

Turkey accuses Russia of firing missiles in Syria, killing 50 in schools, hospitals

Turkey on Monday accused Russia of an "obvious war crime" after missile attacks in northern Syria killed scores of people, and warned Kurdish militia fighters there they would face the "harshest reaction" if they tried to capture a town near the Turkish border.
An offensive supported by Russian bombing and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias has brought the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of Turkey's frontier. The Kurdish YPG militia - which Turkey regards as a hostile insurgent force - has exploited the situation, seizing ground from Syrian rebels to extend its presence along the border.
Almost 50 civilians were killed when missiles hit at least five medical facilities and two schools in rebel-held areas of Syria on Monday, according to the United Nations, which called the attacks a blatant violation of international law.
At least 14 were killed in the northern town of Azaz, the last rebel stronghold before the border with Turkey, when missiles hit a children's hospital and a school sheltering refugees, a medic and two residents said. Missiles also hit a hospital in the town of Marat Numan in the province of Idlib, south of Aleppo.

ISIS relying on child soldiers, drugged fighters as grip on Mosul slips

As the battle for its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul looms, an increasingly desperate ISIS has replaced much of its depleted senior ranks with child soldiers and drugged foreign fighters ill-equipped to use what’s left of the terrorist army’s stolen armaments, according to both Kurdish and national intelligence sources.
Since ISIS captured Iraq’s second-largest city in June 2014, near daily skirmishes with Kurds and Iraqi national forces, as well as coalition air attacks, have taken a heavy toll on the battle-hardened former military officers who formed the terrorist army’s backbone. The attacks, as well as the 20-month isolation of Mosul, also have left ISIS weaponry destroyed or degraded, say experts.
“ISIS is really stupid. If they weren’t stupid they wouldn’t join ISIS.”
- Kamal Kirkuki, spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party
"In the beginning they had powerful weapons they stole from the Iraqi Army, but over time the coalition strikes have destroyed such weapons," Jaffar Ibrahim Eminki, deputy speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament, told FoxNews.com. “And ISIS is being defeated at many strategic points.”

Arab states are seeking nuclear weapons to counter Iran, Israel warns

Israel has picked up signs of the beginning of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as Arab states seek nuclear weapons to counter Iran, the Israeli defence minister has warned.
Moshe Ya'alon said Sunni Arab nations were not reassured by last year's nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers and were making their own preparations for nuclear weapons.
"We see signs that countries in the Arab world are preparing to acquire nuclear weapons, that they are not willing to sit quietly with Iran on brink of a nuclear or atomic bomb," Mr Ya'alon said.
The defence minister gave no evidence to back up his claims but Israel closely monitors the military activities of its Arab neighbours.
Israel and the Sunni Gulf countries do not have diplomatic ties but are known to talk through back channels and are united in their opposition to Iran.

Iran announces S-300 is now en route from Russia

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hossein Jaberi Ansari on Monday said that a shipment of advanced Russian S-300 missile defense systems is currently on its way to Iran, following many years of delay over sanctions against the transfer.
Speaking at a press conference, Ansari was quoted by Xinhua as saying, "the agreement for the delivery of S-300 systems has been finalized over the past months and they are being shipped to Iran."
He also said Iran and Russia have diversified their mutual cooperation, and have "remarkable" political and defense cooperation.
The sale of the S-300, originally conducted in 2007, has been repeatedly delayed due to Western pressure given that UN nuclear sanctions ban the delivery to Iran.
But in April, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lifting a ban on the delivery of the S-300 systems to Iran, explaining that his decision was motivated by Iran's drive to find a solution in talks over its nuclear program, which led to a controversial nuclear deal last July.

Vox Video Whitewashing Iranian Elections Sparks Backlash

Fresh on the heels of its widely–derided video of the modern history of Israel, Vox, the website known for its often incorrect explanations of complicated issues, mocked as “Voxsplaining,” has just released a video “explaining” how Iran can be a dictatorship and democracy at the same time.
In the three minute video, Vox’s explanation that Iran is a limited democracy is repeatedly undermined by its reference to Iran’s “supreme leader,” a ruler of unchallenged power who is, by definition, not subject to checks and balances.
The video, which was posted on Vox’s Facebook page, prompted dozens of critical comments. “The Supreme Leader controls the elections by allowing only his own candidates to run. This creates an illusion of democracy for the gullible westerners and strengthens the supreme leader in return,” one commenter wrote.
“Vox I just wonder if you are the news agency of Islamic Republic of Iran!!! and the reason is that, exactly like the Islamic regime leaders you ( deliberately or in-deliberately) tried to hide the important role of the Guardian Council of the Constitution,” added another.

Young Iranians are dodging the country's 'morality police' with a new app that uses the logo of a bearded man to show the location of patrols on a Google map

A new smartphone app which helps Iranians dodge the Islamic Republic's 'morality police' is proving popular with the young, tech-savvy population - but has quickly fallen foul of the authorities.
The Gershad app allows users who spot checkpoints set up by the morality police - who enforce Islamic dress and behaviour codes - to tag their location on a Google map with an icon of a bearded man, enabling others to steer clear of them.
The app was blocked by the authorities soon after it was released for Android devices on Monday but many Iranians have managed to bypass Internet restrictions by using a Virtual Private Network.
It is already trending on social media and has received almost 800 reviews on the Google Play app store, nearly all of them positive, although Google Play does not show how many times Gershad had been downloaded.
Gershad is seen by some as setting a precedent for 'digital protest' in Iran as elections loom and the country emerges from years of isolation following the lifting of international sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme.
'Technology has created an amazing opportunity to forge a cooperative solution to common social problems,' Gershad's secretive creators said.

Israeli company launches futuristic new outdoor lighting

A futuristic outdoor lighting system from Gaash Lighting was introduced at an Israeli “smart cities” conference in Eilat last week.
The Apollo line of luminaires (complete lighting units), the result of two years of R&D by this veteran lighting company owned by Kibbutz Gaash, features a modular design, low-consumption LED dyes and high-flexibility optics to fit any type of outdoor setting from parks to highways.
In addition, in the near future each unit can be outfitted with a box to house a choice of components including cameras, sensors and Wi-Fi to advance the smart city, safe city and Internet of Things (IoT) trends worldwide.
Each unit will have its own IP address to facilitate machine-to-machine control of functions such as turning on, turning off or altering the intensity of the light in response to real-time circumstances.
Smart outdoor lighting solutions are in ever greater demand worldwide as a way to cut down significantly on energy costs and environmental pollution. Over the next decade, it is estimated that at least 1 billion bulbs will be replaced with LED at the urging of governments across the globe.

New IDF Spy Camera Can Detect Terrorists Moving Through Fog

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has developed a new spy camera that will detect and identify people moving through fog, haze or heat waves, providing greater protection against terror attacks on soldiers’ bases.
Operators of the high-resolution “Savir” camera can see people, moving trees or plants from a distance of more than 2 kilometers (1.24 miles) and other images up to a distance of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles).
The Savir system can be used on land or sea, and as a day camera or a night-vision camera. Savir’s precision is better than IDF cameras’ existing radar imaging, which often proves inaccurate in detecting movement.

Beyonce wows Grammy crowd in Israeli-designed gown

Looks like Beyoncé is in an Israeli state of mind, with a pair of summer concerts reportedly scheduled in Tel Aviv and an Israeli-designed wedding gown draping her at the 58th Grammy Awards, where she presented Record of the Year.
Designed by Inbal Dror, a Shenkar-trained designer who worked in Italy before heading back home to Tel Aviv, the white and silver tulle gown featured an intricately embroidered shirtwaist-styled bodice, with thigh-high tulle cutouts on the skirt of the dress.
Despite the bridal theme, it had elements similar to the Freakum dress, another Israeli-designed piece worn in red by Beyoncé that was created by Alon Livne for her 2013 world tour.
Reports were overwhelmingly positive for Beyoncé’s bridal attire, according to Dror’s Twitter feed.

Lady Gaga uses Israeli-made Intel tech to transform into David Bowie

Lady Gaga’s Grammy tribute to David Bowie on Monday night (Feb. 15) was also an appreciation to Intel technologies, especially Israeli-developed vision tech.
The mind-blowing performance of Lady Gaga’s face being transformed in real-time to reflect Bowie’s various phases of his long career was possible thanks to Intel’s RealSense technologies, built in the multinational technology company’s Haifa offices.
Intel exhibited RealSense, its 3D vision technology that meshes a 1080p HD camera, an infrared camera and an infrared laser projector into one product, at the recent 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
“Lady Gaga had been speaking to Intel as early as September, brainstorming ways in which she could use technology to express herself in a way that had never been done before,” Paul Tapp, Intel’s director of technology, told Vanity Fair. “She’s an amazing dancer and she really pushes boundaries with fashion. She said, ‘Help me to go beyond these standard constraints.’”
In a ‘making of’ video, Lady Gaga says: “I’m always searching for new ways to create the impossible. So, on music’s biggest night I wanted to inspire the world using music and technology in a performance unlike anything we’ve witnessed before.”

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