03/17 Links Pt2: BDS from within; The Power of Words: There Never was a Palestine, sic

From Ian:

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Alex Chalmers: Antisemitic anti-Zionism and the scandal of Oxford University Labour Club

Alex Chalmers was co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club until he resigned in February, alleging that a ‘large proportion’ of club members had ‘some kind of problem with Jews’, while many used the slur ‘Zio’ and voiced support for Hamas. A controversy erupted and the Labour Party is now conducting an enquiry into antisemitism at the club. Chalmers argues here that the root problem is the poisonous ideology of antisemitic anti-Zionism which is bad for Diaspora Jews, bad for the Left, bad for Israelis and bad for Palestinians.
At the Labour Party Conference back in September 2015, the Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn addressed receptions held by Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East (LFPME) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). At both events he delivered relatively similar speeches in which he talked about the psychological toll that the conflict takes on both Israeli and Palestinian children and the need for both sides to compromise and negotiate. LFI received the speech enthusiastically, but at the LFPME event there was outrage. One attendee shouted ‘this isn’t about peace; this is about justice’, to enthusiastic applause from a large proportion of the room. When Benn tried to respond, he was heckled by people calling him a ‘disgrace’ and saying that he should not be Shadow Foreign Secretary.
This attitude of ‘justice’ over ‘peace’ is a damaging trend that has come to characterise much pro-Palestinian activism. That is to say, the demands of Western activists living in relative comfort have become progressively more detached from the aspirations of the actual people whom they claim to be defending. Whilst support for a two-state solution amongst Palestinians is lower than it has been historically, in the last 12 months, polling conducted by the Palestine Survey and Research Group has found that it is still the preferred outcome of between 45 and 51 per cent of Palestinians. Contrast this with the logo of the UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign which features the entirety of ‘historic’ Palestine with no mention of Israel.

Hotovely schools Harvard law students on Judea-Samaria

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) spoke on Wednesday afternoon with 50 law students from Harvard University's honors program.
As part of her ongoing efforts to campaign for Israel's rights in its Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, Hotovely took the opportunity to speak to the students about the criticism against Israel over it's presence in the region.
"The time has come to return to the legal truth according to international law - the 'occupation' is a lie from the Palestinian libel factory, together with the claims of apartheid, this is slander disconnected from the legal reality," she said.
Hotovely continued, explaining, "the State of Israel did not occupy Judea and Samaria in 1967 from the state of Palestine, because there never was such a state. Jordan was illegally in possession of the territory, and we liberated Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in a defensive war."
"After they were unable to defeat us in war throughout the years, the stage of delegitimization began; the BDS movement negates the state of Israel's right to exist, and the way to fight it is by revealing the lies and letting the truth be heard throughout the world."

The Power of Words: There Never was a Palestine, sic

You may have noticed that I never refer to the Arabs here, terrorists or not, as "Palestinians," sic or the Land I live in as Palestine, sic. And yes, the "sics" and the italics and the quotation marks usually accompany the word/s when I do use them.
It really bothers me, professionally as writer and pundit, when people do use the word. And when those who use the word are otherwise excellent writers and thinkers on the "Right," like Evelyn Gordon, I really get upset.
Are Palestinian Stabbings Ending? - by Evelyn Gordon
She should know better than that.
By calling those evil psychopathic Arab terrorists by the name/adjective "Palestinian," sic she is perpetuating the dangerous myth/lie that there is a people, place and history called "Palestine," sic.
There is no excuse for this at all!
We Jews are not in a "conflict" over a Land we and the Arab terrorists both "own" or have ties to. We are struggling against squatters and nomads who have no national history here. The only nation native to the Land with a history of rulers is the Jewish People. All other rulers were invaders.

Is Hollywood Preparing to Use Theodore Herzl Biopic to Denigrate Israel?

Many biopics tend to cast their subjects in a very positive light.
The Wind That Shakes The Barley, a 2006 film about the Irish War of Independence against the British, presents an unequivocally pro-IRA viewpoint. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Spike Lee’s 1992 Malcolm X, a hagiography of the admittedly complicated but undoubtedly antisemitic figure, is in the United States National Film Registry as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant film.” That’s fair. Although the film glosses over Malcolm X’s antisemitism and conspiracy theories, that’s not its job. The Oscar-winning 1982 biopic of Mohandas Gandhi ignores many of the more unsavory aspects of Gandhi’s life. That’s how these kind of films are. They’re on the side of their protagonists.
So you can imagine my surprise when I read in Variety that H2O Motion Pictures is making a biopic of Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism.
That they would make a movie about Herzl is in itself nothing remarkable — Herzl certainly led an interesting life, from his years as a struggling playwright, to his manic travels across Europe to meet with whatever national leaders would see him, to his unusual and arguably tragic family life.
What surprised me is that Sidney Blumenthal is attached to the project, both as an executive producer and as a member of an advisory board to “ensure [their] approach to the story [is] as well balanced as possible.” Frankly, this is appalling.

Israel's Response to Palestinian delegate in CSW60

"Instead of focusing on the real reasons and the roots of the Mistreatment of women in Palestinian society, the Palestinians prefer to blame Israel.”
Israeli diplomat Michal Sarig-Kaduri, delivered remarks today during a meeting of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women, in response to a statement delivered by the Palestinian delegate.

Don’t Blow Up AIPAC Over Trump

If Donald Trump had decided to stick to reality television and not run for president, the big controversy about the upcoming AIPAC conference would be about the appearance of Bernie Sanders. Sanders is not an open foe of Israel, but he has been a proponent of an “even-handed” policy toward the Jewish state and has even expressed the opinion that its creation is the cause of strife in the Middle East. In a non-Trump universe, an AIPAC speech by the Vermont senator would have provoked talk about some kind of demonstration of distaste for him by pro-Israel activists at the conference. But we do not live in such a universe. Instead, almost all of the attention is on an increasingly nasty debate about whether the Republican presidential frontrunner should have been invited to AIPAC’s annual jamboree and/or whether he should be greeted with anger rather than the usual gratitude for what is likely to be a pro-Israel speech.
That AIPAC would get caught in the middle over the battle over Trump was inevitable. Many liberals have been taking shots at the umbrella pro-Israel lobby group for a long time because they chafe against its principled and bipartisan approach to rallying support for the Jewish state. What most people — including some that support it — don’t understand is that AIPAC succeeds because it is focused like a laser on one issue and does its best to avoid becoming entangled in partisan politics.

Student activists: AIPAC won’t let us protest Trump

In the face of threats by some conference attendees to protest Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s appearance at its annual policy conference next week, an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffer sent out an email missive to student activists warning them that any disruption could result in the rescinding of their conference credentials and blacklisting from all future AIPAC events. The organization later distanced itself from complaints that it was unfairly targeting students, and said that the email was sent in error and without authorization.
In the email, received by a number of college students on Monday and seen by The Times of Israel, the AIPAC staffer wrote that “I am acutely aware that there may be speakers at this year’s Policy Conference whose views you do not agree with.” The email did not specify which speakers might be objectionable to attendees. The organization announced on Friday that Trump would address the annual gathering in Washington, DC, which takes places this year from March 20-22.
“If you choose to disrupt the program, understand that you will be removed, your conference credentials will be taken, and it will be the last AIPAC event you attend,” the email warned. While the letter was sent to some students registered for the conference, it was not sent to all students registered, and the criteria for inclusion were not clear.

BDS from within

Time after time we see how self-hating leftist Israelis serve as the impetus for anti-Israel activity around the world. Whether it’s Breaking the Silence providing slanderous anti-IDF material to the European Union or Gideon Levy feeding the international media outlets with his latest anti-Israel diatribe, this phenomenon of “BDS from within” is causing irreparable and increasing damage to Israel.
Just this week the Israeli Sociological Society announced its decision to boycott Ariel University because it’s “not located in Israeli territory,” a nonsensical decision that has already been picked up by every major international media outlet and utilized to further the BDS agenda.
“Useful idiots” is an unfit and undeserving title for Israeli BDSers, as they are fully aware that they are complicit in the BDS movement’s goal of eliminating the State of Israel as the Jewish state.
The unfortunate reality is that these people are not interested in peace or equality. They want the same thing as the heads of the BDS movement – a Middle East without Israel.

On Israel Apartheid Week, many pro-Israel students choose silence over conflict

For the most part, however, pro-Israel students at the Ivy League school seemed to be laying low, and the week passed largely uneventfully. The anti-Israel groups hosted lectures, screened films and staged dance performances, while Columbia’s largest pro-Israel student group, Aryeh, hosted a lecture by anti-divestment law professor Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern University that attracted about 80 people. The pro-Palestinian groups drew their loyalists, the pro-Israel students spoke to their constituents and the vast majority of Columbia students paid little attention to either.
That, say many pro-Israel activists on campus, is what success looks like when it comes to Israel Apartheid Week. As the annual event has become a fixture on college campuses, many pro-Israel activists say their most successful strategy is simply to ignore it.
“Being out there devolves this into color war; it makes both sides look crazy,” said Daniella Greenbaum, a Barnard junior and president of Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel. “We want to have elevated discourse on Israel. That’s why we’re not out there this year.”
Dozens of university campuses around the world now mark Israel Apartheid Week. Usually scheduled anytime from late February through early April, the weeklong series of student-organized events is meant to highlight alleged Israeli misdeeds and promote the BDS campaign. Anti-Israel speakers deliver lectures, students mount public demonstrations and guest columnists publish pro-BDS Op-Eds in campus newspapers.
At some campuses, the events prompt open conflict between anti- and pro-Israel students, and students on both sides have complained of being harassed.

Latin American MPs sign resolution supporting Israel and opposing boycotts

Lawmakers from 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries signed a resolution affirming their support of Israel and calling to fight boycotts, a document obtained by The Jerusalem Post Thursday confirmed.
The parliamentarians met at the Israel Allies Foundation’s Second Annual Latin America Summit on Israel, which took place in Miami last week. MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) and US Congressmen Ed Royce (R-CA) and Eliot Engel (D-NY), chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The Israel Allies Foundation, founded by former minister Rabbi Binyamin Elon, works with parliaments around the world to mobilize political support for Israel based on Judeo-Christian values.
The resolution the Latin American lawmakers signed states, in Spanish, that they “unequivocally declare, personally, our support for the Jewish people to live in peace, safety and security in the Land of Israel” and that “strong relations between the Western Hemisphere and Israel are crucial to the spread of freedom, democracy and justice around the world.”
As such, the legislators encouraged their governments to increase efforts to strengthen ties with Israel.

Friends of the IDF raises record $33.1 million at New York gala

The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces organization raised a record $33.1 million at its annual New York Gala on Tuesday.
The largest contribution of the evening -- $10 million -- was made by Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson.
"With everything that is happening in Israel these days, it's more important than ever to give back to the IDF," Dr. Miriam Adelson told Israel Hayom. "The attendees here understand that the IDF doesn't just defend Israel, but also stands on guard for all Jews around the world. In the same way, the whole world is beginning to understand that the State of Israel is a protector of the Western world and three major religions. Recently, the anti-Semitism that has been raging around the world has caused a feeling of deja vu to the days before the Second World War. But then I remember that now we have Israel and the IDF."
Addressing the gathering, Sheldon Adelson said, "If Israel and the IDF had existed before the Second World War, the assumption is that the Holocaust would not have taken place. It is our duty to take care of the IDF."
The FIDF recognized the Adelsons as "Defenders of Israel" for their contributions and support over the years for a variety of causes in both Israel and the U.S.

IDF benefit gala in New York City draws Natorei Karta protest

Dozens of Natorei Karta members protested outside the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan Tuesday night, while inside the Friends of the IDF was holding its annual flagship gala in the presence of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, UN Ambassador Danny Danon and many prominent Jewish philanthropists.
An attendee who did not wish to be named told The Jerusalem Post that the ultra-Orthodox protesters stood outside the entrance of the hotel screaming at those who entered. They held signs saying “Support to Israel is not supporting Jews or Judaism” and “Judaism rejects Zionism” among others.
“They were calling to boycott the event, boycott Israel and boycott the IDF,” the attendee said. “They even screamed that Israel has no right to exist and told people not to go to the gala.”

Black Trans Rights Activist Cancels Speech at Brown Hillel after Anti-Israel Protests

Transgender rights activist and bestselling author Janet Mock has cancelled her scheduled speech at Brown University’s Hillel after coming under criticism from campus pro-Palestinian activists for appearing at the school’s Jewish student center.
Mock, an African-American trans woman, was scheduled to speak on Monday at Brown/RISD Hillel as part of a year-long series of lectures on LGBT rights organized by the Jewish student group Moral Voices.
But her decision to speak there was criticized by some students, who argued in a petition that it was inappropriate for her to appear at Hillel because the group “has consistently defended and even advocated for the Israeli state’s policies of occupation and racial apartheid.” The petition also accused Hillel of being complicit in “pinkwashing,” or promoting Israel’s positive record on LGBT rights to distract from its mistreatment of Palestinians. The petition clarified that they were not against Mock speaking on campus, so long as she did not do so at Hillel.

HonestReporting Australia!

For all our HonestReporting friends in Australia and New Zealand, we are happy to announce the launch of our new initiative to fight anti-Israel bias in the media based “Down Under.”
For years we have heard from readers in Australia and New Zealand that there is a great need to take on the anti-Israel bias of the media there. Sometimes, we have featured these stories here on our main global news site. But often, there are biased stories that we believe would be of most interest to those directly affected, and that we should provide those subscribers with a separate HonestReporting Australia communique.

Daphne Anson: Australia's Carr Fumes on Behalf of "Arabic" Voters

A report by journalist John Lyons in The Australian newspaper claimed this week that Mary Easson, one of five members of the New South Wales branch of the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue group (AILD) (which since its formation in 2010 has sent over 30 Aussie trades union and Labor Party (ALP) officials on fact-finding trips to to Israel), "is also a lobbyist for the Australian subsidiary of one of Israel’s ­largest arms manufacturers [Elbit]" and "has also played an active role in the emotive ­debate within the Labor Party over its policy towards Israel".
And Dr Colin Rubenstein, executive director of The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), which sends journalists on fact-finding trips to Israel, declares:
“As noted by AILD, their program of sending union officials to the Middle East is not and has never been funded by Elbit or any other arms manufacturer, regardless of the indirect connection of one AILD director, Mary Easson, to that company, and no matter what John Lyons chose to imply ...
The only real news story here is that there is an organised campaign, as we have seen in the NSW ALP recently, to try and stop Australian political and opinion leaders going to the Middle East, meeting leaders and experts from both sides and learning the truth about the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. This campaign is determined to seize on anything, however tenuous, to try and discredit such trips, despite how much they have enriched the debate in this country. Unfortunately, Australian journalist John Lyons seems all too willing to lend his pen to this campaign.”

Lars Gule tries to launch an attack against Israel… Again

Our favourite little wannabe terrorist, now wannabe academic is once more trying ambush Israel. Back in the 70ies he was stopped by the Lebanese police as he was carrying bomb material in his backpack [to kill Israelis]. The typical courage of an extremist lefty terrorist.
Now, adorning himself with the title assistant professor at an academic institution that more than once has opened the doors to Islamist extremists, he is on the frontline again (no sorry, trying to stab from behind, thats his style) to boycott Israel.
lifted from miff.no, google translate
Once again Lars Gule attempts to harm Israelis
In 1977 Lars Gule enlisted in the service of a terrorist organization who three years earlier had perpetrated a massacre against 25 schoolchildren and teachers. He was stopped in his own attempted attacks by Lebanese police. This time it only the assistant professor’s colleagues who can stop him from harming Israelis.

California Strengthens Proposed Anti-BDS Legislation

Sponsors of a bipartisan bill to prevent the California state government from contracting with companies that participate in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel are trying to narrow the bill’s focus to apply specifically to Israel.
Assembly Bill 1552 (AB 1552) initially targeted companies boycotting members of the World Trade Organization on the basis of “race, color, religion, gender or nationality.”
Amendments unveiled earlier this month by bill sponsor Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) make clear that the bill’s intended focus is the anti-Israel BDS movement. The amendments include a Legislative Declaration of Intent that specifically references Israel, and rewrites the opening paragraph to read, “… a public entity shall not enter into a contract … if the contracting company is participating in a boycott of Israel.”
After consulting with various stakeholders and fellow legislators, bill co-sponsors were concerned about the potential, unintended consequences of the broadly worded bill, and decided that their policy purposes were better served by making the language more specific.

New York Times Arts Section Likens Israel Air Force to ‘ISIS Thugs,’ Omits Jewish Identity of Major Fashion Designer

Some of the most egregious treatment of Israel and Jews in the New York Times comes not in the foreign news section or even on the editorial page, but in more traditionally innocuous “soft” sections, such as arts.
Such was the case earlier this week, when the front page of the Times “Arts” section carried not one but two separate stories displaying the newspaper’s classic clumsiness when it comes to the Jewish story.
One of the two pieces was a review by Times critic Michiko Kakutani. The review effusively praises a new book by NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, “And Then All Hell Broke Loose.”
The review includes this passage:
[O]ften, there is a surreal horror to his descriptions: the sight of 11 bodies of small boys, perhaps ages 8 to 10, killed in Qana, Lebanon, during an Israeli air raid in 2006; the memory of “a stray dog carrying a severed human head between its teeth” in Iraq; a heartbreaking interview with a 14-year-old boy who had a hand and a foot chopped off by ISIS thugs because he had refused to cooperate.
It takes quite a journalistic and logical leap to equate the Israel Air Force (IAF) with “ISIS thugs,” but in the construction of this review, the two are parallel items in a series, along with the man-eating dog. Missing entirely from this depiction of an IAF massacre of 11 “small boys” is any explanation whatsoever of what Israel was doing in Lebanon in 2006. It’s not as if that is a secret, after al

Journalist Group Defends ‘Incitement to Murder’

Amidst a wave of stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks against Israelis, the IDF shut down “Palestine Today,” a Palestinian Islamic Jihad radio/television station that had been broadcasting incitement to violence. The International Federation of Journalists had this to say:
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which represents 600,000 journalists across the globe, stands by its affiliate the Palestinian Journalists Union (PJS) in condemning this brutal attack against free press and ask for UN immediate reaction to the escalation of attacks against the press in the occupied territories.
The IFJ further accused Israel of a “wave of violence targeting journalists.”

BBC apologises after radio host tells listeners ‘Israel hasn’t really worked out'

The BBC has apologised after one of its radio presenters said on-air that Israel “hasn't really worked out” as a country.
BBC Radio London host Chris Rogers was hosting a phone-in on Tuesday about the refugee crisis when a caller asked: “Why can’t they put a load of them (refugees) in Africa?”
The presenter replied: “Is just dumping families from all over the world, with lots of different cultures and reasons for fleeing - is just dumping them in a new state, if we do Israel all over again, is that really the answer?
“I mean, Israel arguably hasn't really worked out, has it?”
A Board of Deputies spokesman called on Mr Rogers to clarify or apologise for remarks which he said were “off-hand, politically-loaded” and “most unfortunate”.

Chris Rogers on BBC Radio London


BBC World Service conflates fact and fiction in promotion of ‘racist’ Israel

Listeners then hear the following assertion from Gundar-Goshen:
“Well I think most Israelis interact with African migrants but they just don’t think about it. It’s the people who clean our houses. It’s the people who clean our table. Israel is a very white society. It’s not like here. So almost all the black people that you meet are illegal refugees and I think things that will sound racist here are not even considered racist in Israel. Like the sentence when he [the novel’s main character] says ‘they all look the same for me’. I think to your eyes like this is like someone would never even dare to say. This is something that you say only inside your heart. And in Israel this is actually something that you could say and be OK.”
The claim that “Israel is a very white society” can of course only be made if one ignores the fact that as of 2009, 50.2% of Israeli Jews were of Mizrachi or Sephardi background with origins in Africa and Asia. It can only be made if you ignore the 1.5% of the Israeli population of Ethiopian descent along with the Israelis with roots in places such as Yemen and Cochin, the African Hebrew Israelite community, around 10,000 black Bedouin of African descent and additional sections of Israeli society.
The BBC World Service did manage to ignore all that – with the result that listeners were fed information which, whilst it may well serve the purpose of promoting the interviewee’s work of fiction, certainly leaves them with a distorted and inaccurate view of the facts concerning a country which is actually far more diverse than “here” – i.e. the UK.

US says Europe needs 'working definition' of anti-Semitism

The US encouraged European governments to adopt a working definition of anti-Semitism while condemning the conflation of Diaspora Jewry with the State of Israel, during an international forum in Berlin this week.
Speaking at the third Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism in Berlin on Tuesday, State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Ira Forman welcomed the European Commission’s recent move to appoint its first coordinator on combating anti-Semitism and called upon individual member states to follow the continental body’s example.
Explaining that anti-Semitism is “evolving into new, contemporary forms of hatred, racism, and political, social, and cultural discrimination against Jews,” Forman lamented that “one virulent aspect is... conflating Jewish communities with Israel, using criticism of Israel as a pretext for anti-Semitism.”
Citing several occasions in which apparently anti-Semitic incidents were downplayed as being merely anti-Israel, including the scrawling of swastikas in Sweden and the firebombing of a synagogue in Germany, Forman said that it is vital to “define anti-Semitism clearly to more effectively combat it.”

Jan Gross’ Order of Merit

We Poles had our presidential race last year. In a televised debate—the most important debate of the race—the two main candidates asked each other questions. The first round of these questions, posed by candidate Andrzej Duda, did not deal with the state of the Polish economy, nor relations with Ukraine and Russia. It had to do instead with a crime committed over 70 years ago in Jedwabne, a village in northeastern Poland where Polish Catholics incinerated their Jewish neighbors. This event was uncovered decades later by Polish-American historian Jan Gross, now a professor at Princeton. Duda admonished his opponent, then-incumbent President Bronisław Komorowski, for allowing Poles to be “wrongfully accused by others for participating in the Holocaust.” He asked why the president failed to defend the good name of Poland.
The election was won by Andrzej Duda, the candidate who resolutely rejected the painful truth of Jedwabne. The new president then proclaimed a “new historical policy strategy,” which would enhance the perception of Poland in the world. That policy is already in place. And an important component of it is a campaign against Jan Gross. In January, President Duda went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for an opinion on the question of rescinding Gross’ Polish Order of Merit. According to his spokesman, the offices of the president had been inundated with letters bearing precisely this request from outraged citizens. The president could not simply ignore—or even silence—those voices.

49% of Poles think Israel is an aggressive country

The survey, commissioned by the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw, showed that only 13 percent of Poles define themselves as knowing a lot about Israel, only nine percent had met Israelis and 23 percent drew a blank, having no associations with the Jewish State.
This is the first such survey commissioned by the Embassy since the renewal of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1990. Twenty-one percent of respondents mentioned wars, riots and conflicts as the first things that they associate with Israel; 10 percent immediately thought of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Only 21 percent indicated that they think of Israel as a safe country when directly asked.
The poll also found that 83 percent of Poles think that Israel is a religious or very religious country. Israel's ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, said, "According to this figure, the Poles imagine Israel as a kind of an expanded religious shtetl.”

German soccer team apologizes over 'Auschwitz' tweet

The controversy erupted after the Bavarian giants' official Twitter feed posted an image of goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, their Allianz Arena stadium and the end of a train track under the text "Here is the end" written in Italian.
The graphic was intended to jokingly suggest the Italian team's exit after the last 16, second leg clash in Munich. The sides drew 2-2 in the first leg in Turin three weeks ago.
But some users pointed out that the train track image was reminiscent of the infamous picture of the railway lines leading to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during the Holocaust.
The Bundesliga leaders quickly posted an apology, noted AFP.
"Unfortunately, our matchday graphic has been misunderstood to represent historic events, something which was never intended," read the statement.

Integration Courses For Middle Eastern Migrants In Germany To Target Growing Anti-Semitism

Integration courses intended for migrants in Germany will include a special programme to combat ever growing anti-Semitic attitudes which migrants bring with them from the Middle East.
A Jewish network lobbied the German government to include a 10-point plan aimed at combating anti-Semitism among Middle Eastern migrants. In the programme migrants are encouraged to deal directly with the issues they may have with Jews and the Jewish religion so they better understand that anti-Semitic attitudes are not welcome in Germany or Europe.
The network says issues discussed in the programme will include the special relationship of Germany and Israel, as well as the Holocaust, reports Die Zeit.

Israeli start-up takes on ‘grand challenge’ of beating Zika

An Israeli start-up called Biofeed has been awarded half a million shekels to advance its solution in the fight against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, carrier of the Zika virus.
Biofeed, along with nine other start-ups, was awarded the prize last week as part of the Grand Challenges Israel contest. Modeled on government-sponsored programs in the US, Canada, India, Brazil, China and others, the program invites entrepreneurs with innovative technology that could help solve problems in Africa, Asia, South America, and even poverty-stricken areas in the West to submit their ideas and projects. Last week, the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Economy Ministry, along with the Mashav international development division of the Foreign Ministry, chose the winners.
“Much of the world’s population is suffering from lack of food and access to clean water and exposure to diseases. Israeli entrepreneurs have developed technologies that will improve the quality of life for billions around the world.” said Mashav director Gil Haskel.

European Space Mission Will Use Israeli Device to Study Jupiter’s Atmosphere

An atomic clock designed and constructed in Israel will be carried to Jupiter as part of a mission planned by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The ESA mission, known as JUICE – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer — will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the solar system’s largest planet and three of its largest moons. Jupiter is known to have 67 moons.
The atomic clock was developed by the Israeli firm AccuBeat with Yohai Kaspi of the Weizmann Institute of Science and collaborators at the University of Rome.
The joint project — known as 3GM (Gravity & Geophysics of Jupiter and Galilean Moons) – will study the planet’s atmosphere by intercepting radio waves traveling through the gas, timing them, and measuring the angle at which the waves are deflected. This will enable them to decipher the atmosphere’s makeup.
The Israeli atomic clock-based device, recently approved for flight by the ESA, will measure tiny vacillations in a radio beam provided by the Italian team. Israel’s Ministry of Science and Technology will fund the research, building, and assembly of the device.

Israel Launches World's First Distress Service To Accept Video Chats And Texts

A new phone app allows Israelis to make video distress calls to emergency responders on their mobile phones.
The country launched a nationwide platform in which emergency services can see live video of the victim, chat via text and determine the exact location of the incident.
The app was developed by start up company, Reporty, headed up by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.
If successful, it could attract police, fire and ambulance services from around the world.
Eli Bean, director of Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service, admitted the app provides a ‘solution’ that ‘did not exist beforehand’.
He added: ‘It will allow us to get the information we need real time, and certainly reduce response time and improve the care we provide.’

From friends and enemies, posthumous praise for Meir Dagan

Former and current security personnel and politicians rushed to eulogize and pay a final tribute to Dagan, who died on Thursday at the age of 71 after a battle with cancer. Even those he famously and publicly disagreed with lauded the former Mossad chief and IDF general as a courageous defender of the Jewish state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had a notoriously noxious relationship with Dagan, called him a “daring commander who contributed much to the country’s security during Israel’s wars, as counter-terrorism adviser and as head of the Mossad.”
To IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, Dagan was a national figure and commander “whose life was interwoven with the chronicles of [Israel].”
Dagan, who served as the head of IDF Operations, was “a friend and brother-in-arms whose presence will be dearly missed by us,” Eisenkot said in a statement.

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