03/21 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism Always Comes Down to Hating Freedom and Democracy; A UN Council for Terrorist Rights

From Ian:

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Nick Cohen: Anti-Semitism Always Comes Down to Hating Freedom and Democracy

Despite his name and ancestry, the British journalist Nick Cohen never considered himself a Jew; he was raised without religion, his mother was not Jewish, and he grew up without any sort of Jewish affinity. But after confronting the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the Labor party, he realized that his approach was wrong:
[U]nless I wanted to shame myself, I had to become a Jew. A rather odd Jew, no doubt: a militant atheist who had to phone a friend to ask what on earth mazel tov meant. But a Jew nonetheless.
As one of the finest liberal ambitions is to find the sympathy to imagine the lives of others, you should become a Jew, too. Declare that you have converted to Judaism or rediscovered your Jewish “heritage” and see the reaction. It’s not just that, if you are middle-class and fortunate, you might experience racism for the first time, which in itself would be a “learning experience” worth having. You might also learn the essential lesson that anti-Semitism is not about Jews. Like rape, it’s about power.
Whether the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory is deployed by German Nazis or Arab dictators, French anti-Dreyfusards or Saudi clerics, the argument is always the same. Democracy, an independent judiciary, equal human rights, freedom of speech and publication—all these “supposed” freedoms—are nothing but swindles that hide the machinations of the secret Jewish rulers of the world. . . .
Consider how many leftwing activists, institutions, or academics would agree with a politer version: Western governments are the main source of the ills of the world. The “Israel lobby” controls Western foreign policy. Israel itself is the “root cause” of all the terrors of the Middle East, from the Iraq war to Islamic State.
Polite racism turns the Jews, once again, into demons with the supernatural power to manipulate and destroy nations.

WaPo Validates Anti-Israel Groups?

On Friday, Carol Morello, diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Post, covered a conference lambasting Israel’s supposed influence over America. The conference was sponsored by the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs (WRMEA), which Morello described as “a D.C.-based magazine featuring articles questioning Israeli government policies and U.S. aid to the country.” That’s a curiously mild description given WRMEA’s history, legacy, and outlook.
WRMEA is famous for an obsession with Israel that goes beyond simple criticism and instead centers itself in conspiracy. Consider, for example, its suggestions that the Mossad killed John F. Kennedy, its belief that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks, its embrace of the most noxious USS Liberty conspiracies, and its description of American supporters of Israel as a “cancer.” In its May/June 1998 issue (no longer online), it suggested that Nazi Germany did not kill six million Jews. “New evidence, if true, would cut in half the Zionists’ original claim that six million died under the Nazi regime,” it argued, adding, “It would also raise the questions (sic) of, “Why did the Zionists grossly exaggerate the original numbers of Jewish victims?”
The conference organizers also advertised a book by Roger Garaudy, a Holocaust denier convicted in France for racial libel, which purported to examine “the Holocaust myth of Jewish extermination.” Anti-Semitic obsessions go deep. In June/July 1997, its publisher’s page declared, “Israel controls Congress, the media, the White House, and the State Department.” And, as for the media, Morello and her editors at the Washington Post might consider exactly what the conference sponsors say about her publication and other mainstream newspapers in December 1997: “[E]very New York daily newspaper… is Jewish owned …Technically speaking, the Washington Post… is not Jewish-owned. But it is owned by the descendants of the late Eugene Meyer, who was Jewish…”
Let’s give the Washington Post benefit of the doubt: It is doubtful Morello understood the background of the conference sponsor, although that itself is deeply problematic. She also apparently didn’t know much about the speakers either. She describes Larry Wilkerson as “chief of staff to former secretary of state Colin L. Powell,” but didn’t see fit to mention that he’s spent much of the period since his retirement arguing that Syria’s chemical weapons use was actually a Zionist false flag.

Global Teacher Prize Winner's Husband Massacred Jews Celebrating Sabbath

The actual story is that her husband took part in the brutal terrorist attack on Jews walking home from synagogue. This was the Beit Hadassah attack. (Dabboya is the name used by Muslim settlers in '67 Israel to refer to the Jewish area.)
Six, not thirteen, Jews were murdered. Twenty others were wounded. There was no pursuit. This was a cold-blooded ambush. The terrorists set up their position on a rooftop and opened fire on Jews celebrating the Sabbath.
Every Friday night, following Shabbat worship at Ma'arat HaMachpela, a group of men would sing and dance their way down the street to Beit Hadassah, where they continued the festivity, joined by the women and children living in the building, adding to their Shabbat spirit.
Friday night, May 12, the 17th of Iyar, only one day before the Lag B'Omer celebrations. The men arrived as usual and began forming a dance circle…and then it happened. Shots rang out, blasts enveloped the pure Shabbat air.
Six were killed and about 20 injured. Among the killed was a young Torah scholar from the United States studying at Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in Jerusalem, Tzvi Glatt. Another victim was also a former America, who had fought in Vietnam and converted to Judaism, Eli HaZe'ev.

Vic Rosenthal: The Israeli Left is a Potemkin Village

Recent charges that the NGO Breaking the Silence has engaged in espionage in addition to its ‘normal’ activity of collecting and disseminating unverifiable information to embarrass the IDF have stirred a hornet’s nest on the Left.
Someone hearing about the affair from outside of Israel probably gets the impression that the nation is bitterly divided. It is not. Israelis overwhelmingly oppose the activities of BTS and other left-wing organizations.
The NY Times columnist Thomas Freidman likes to talk to taxi drivers to hear the views of the man in the street (or behind the wheel). My guess is that 99 out of 100 Jewish Israeli taxi drivers will tell you that hanging is too good for BTS, B’Tselem, etc. Even some of the Arab ones would agree.
The recent Pew survey of political and religious attitudes in Israel found that only 8% of Israeli Jews self-identify as part of the Left; the rest place themselves in the center (55%) or on the right (37%).

+972: Because Haaretz is Just Too Darn Right-Wing! (satire)

For those of you who don’t know the word on the street, there is a hip source of news for those times when Haaretz is acting just a bit too (!!Trigger Warning!!) Likud/Neocon/Naftali. And that news source has a name: +972. The Daily Freier checked out the scene by peeking into some select coffee shops along Sheinkin and Florentin to find out just what the hoopla is all about!
“I was just so tired of Haaretz’ failure to describe Hezbollah as a self-defense organization.” explained Bikram Yoga instructor Dalia C. “Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Haaretz’s Arts and Culture beat. I mean, the guy running around the stage with the flag in his ass was A-MA-ZING, butt however, their politics were just a bit too Bibi for me.”
Local artisan bike repairman Avi M. had similar gripes. “As much as I enjoy reading Amira Hass explain that throwing rocks at Jews is a form of self-expression, she can’t carry the paper by herself. I just really want to read a blog that’s so nuts it could be my Poli-Sci Professor. Plus, there’s just something special about a collective who make their money hustling European Left Wing NGO’s for donations. I mean, basically it’s a financial quid pro quo involving doing jobs your fellow countrymen won’t touch in order to get money from rich American donors….I guess that makes them the Donald Trump’s wives of Israeli commentary.”
“When I’m looking for something to read in the afternoon, what I’m really looking for is somebody defending ‘Breaking the Silence’ when they move from whistleblowing to compromising national security.” explained food co-op manager Adi P. “And frankly, Haaretz is just coming up a bit short.”

Sweden's Palestinian Lobbyists

The Swedish municipality of Malmö, with only 318,000 inhabitants, is providing tens of thousands of dollars in tax revenues each year to organizations that spread extreme anti-Israeli messages.
Apelgårdsskolan elementary school in Malmö lends its premises on Sundays to an association called Framtidsföreningen ["The Future Society"]. The organization holds a Sunday school, where, among other things, maps are handed out to children where Israel has been removed, and schoolbooks are distributed in which "resistance" against Israel is celebrated. Framtidsföreningen has also received $4500 from Malmö's recreational board since 2014.
That pro-Palestinian organizations will use tax-funded operations as a tool to spread hatred against Israel is a given. This means that organizations that spread hatred against Israel in Sweden in many cases have tax revenues at their disposal at several levels.
There are no effective lobbying organizations in Sweden that fight for the cause of Israel.

New York Times Corrects: Palestinian Territories Not 'Illegally Occupied'

In response to CAMERA's correspondence, editors quickly and responsibly corrected the online article. The updated, corrected article now refers to "settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territories. Most of the world considers those settlements illegal."
In addition, editors commendably appended the following correction to the bottom of the article:

Last October, The Times' Jodi Rudoren likewise referred to the Golan Heights and the West Bank as "illegally occupied." In that earlier case, CAMERA elicited a correction as well. That initial correction read:
Correction: October 14, 2015
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the Golan Heights. While most of the world officially considers it to be occupied, and the settlements there illegal, there is no consensus that the occupation itself is illegal. The same error appeared in an earlier version of a caption with the accompanying slide show.
Hopefully, after two corrections on the topic, Times editors have internalized the fact that "there is no consensus that the occupation itself is illegal."

UN Watch: UN Human Rights Council circulates 5 anti-Israel resolutions before vote next week

SYRIA may be entering its sixth year of a civil war in which hundreds of thousands have died at the hands of the murderous Assad regime, the medieval barbarism of ISIS and the indiscriminate barrel-bombing of Putin’s warplanes, but that has not stopped the United Nations Human Rights Council from circulating a draft resolution on Israel’s “systematic and continuous violation” of the rights of “Syrian citizens in the occupied Golan Heights,” in addition to four other draft resolutions censuring Israel.

Yair Lapid: A UN Council for Terrorist Rights

We stand here, Jews and non-Jews. From Israel and from across Europe, to protest the fact that instead of doing what they’re supposed to do, the United Nations Human Rights Council is encouraging murder, encouraging terror, encouraging injustice.
And we are not willing to remain silent anymore.
That is not a Council for Human Rights. Instead, it has become a Council for Terrorist Rights.
In the past decade the Council has passed 55 resolutions regarding human rights violations throughout the world: the entire globe. With all of its endless conflicts. In the same decade, in the same ten years, the Council has passed sixty two resolutions against Israel. Seven resolutions more about Israel than about the entire rest of the world.
During that decade, Israel was constantly under attack from terrorists who set out to kill civilians: women, children, the elderly.

WATCH: Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid leads protest against UNHRC in Geneva

Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid on Monday called on the United States to stop funding the United Nations unless its Human Rights Council treats Israel fairly and stops its anti-Semitic declarations.
“I am the son of a Holocaust survivor, let me tell you something about anti-Semitism,” Lapid said as he addressed a rally of pro-Israel groups in Geneva.
“Anti-Semites, in this era, never admit that they are anti-Semitic. They always give it a different name. They say it’s something else. So we learnt, in the past two thousand years, that it doesn’t matter what they say. It only matters what they do,” Lapid said.
“What they are doing here today, in the United Nations Human Rights Council is pure, old style, anti-Semitism,” Lapid said.

Terror victim son calls on UNHRC to condemn his father’s murder

“My father, Richard Lakin, was a kind gentle person. An elementary school principal who educated thousands of children. A human rights activist dedicated to promoting coexistence,” he told the council as it met on Monday in Geneva.
“He [Richard Lakin] marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. He founded a school in Israel where Muslim, Christian and Jewish children studied together. He wrote a book called 'Teaching as an Act of Love,'” Avni said to the UN member states in the UNHRC chamber as he described his father who held dual Israeli-American citizenship.
Avni traveled from Israel to address the council spoke during its debate on Israeli violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories during Agenda Item 7. Many of the speakers attacked Israel for killing Palestinians, without mentioning that many of them were shot in while executing attacks against Israelis, in which 34 victims have been slain since mid-September.
His father was one of those victims, Avni said.

Terror victim’s son rails at UN panel for not condemning Palestinians

The son of an Israeli man killed in a Palestinian terror attack in Jerusalem in November railed at the UN Human Rights Council on Monday for its failure to condemn the attack in which his father was murdered.
Richard Lakin, an American-born Israeli, was killed in a shooting and stabbing attack on a public bus in November.
As the council held its annual meeting in Geneva, his son, Micah Avni, spoke during its discussion on the “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”
“Your failure to condemn Palestinian violence and your continued rationalization of Palestinian terror is pushing peace away, making more death inevitable,” Avni said.
“Palestinians are not prepared for peace,” he said. “Instead Palestinian leader [Mahmoud] Abbas praised the murderer of my father, calling him a martyr destined to go to heaven.”

Micah Avni, son of Richard Lakin z"l, speaking at UN Council on Human Rights in Geneva


'UN Human Rights Council is obsessed with Israel'

In December 2010, Kay Wilson was nearly killed by Palestinian terrorists in a stabbing attack in the Jerusalem Forest outside Beit Shemesh. Wilson's friend, Kristine Luken, died in the attack.
On Sunday, Wilson, a resident of Arad, flew to Geneva, Switzerland to protest against the U.N. Human Rights Council, which was set to convene on Monday to debate a series of anti-Israel resolutions.
"The U.N. Human Rights Council convenes only to condemn Israel," Wilson said before her departure. "It doesn't refer to Palestinian terrorism, what is happening in Syria or the Islamic State group. This council has an obsession with Israel."
Wilson continued: "The U.N. Human Rights Council ignores all the crimes committed in many countries in the world. Therefore, I decided to go tell them my story."

At UN "Human Rights" Council, Waging Lawfare Against Israel

The panel also featured a slew of outrageous accusations against Israeli forces defending themselves from Palestinian stabbing, shooting, and car ramming attacks. Here is just some of what the featured panelists alleged:
Mona Sabella: "Israeli state policies ... facilitate and encourage extrajudicial killings... stone throwing does not meet the threshold of posing an imminent threat to life, nor a threat of serious bodily injury. So accordingly, the use of-the large-scale use of deadly force to respond to stone throwing, it's disproportionate, it's unnecessary, and it amounts to an arbitrary deprivation of life."
Nuriya Oswald, program coordinator at the UN-accredited NGO "The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights": "Israeli forces are targeting these individuals with excessive and intentional force without justification. And we consider these cases to be deliberate fatal shootings of individuals, individuals who pose no imminent threat to life and they amount to an appalling pattern of apparent systematic unlawful killings... conditions in the Gaza Strip, which are grown by Israel, should not be taken as an opportunity to implement practices of abuse, practices which in many instances amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and amount to torture. "

At UN "Human Rights" Council, Israel Accused of Plotting to Turn Palestinian Kids Into terrorists

On March 18, the UN-accredited NGO Maarij Foundation for Peace and Development held one of these "informal" meetings entitled "Children in Conflict", in which a featured panelist claimed Israel was responsible for Palestinian terror.
An attendee at the panel asked the following:
"It seems to me that the treatment described of Palestinian children in their arrest and detention being designed to humiliate them could be in fact designed to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Israeli defense force has the view that Palestinian children are terrorists. It seems to me that the treatment is actually designed to try and turn them into terrorists."
A featured panelist of the session, Daniela Donges, President of the NGO called "Scale for Justice:" responded this way: "I totally agree. And in some cases we could also see that it's a deliberate strategy to provoke violence in order to have justification for-to maintain the military control over the Palestinians."

At UN "Human Rights" Council, Concern for Human Rights of Palestinian Terrorists - Not Their Victims

On March 17, the UN-accredited NGO The Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Rights held an informal meeting entitled "Israel's forcible transfer of Palestinians inside the occupied Palestinian territory", in which a featured speaker twisted the concept of human rights to support the rights of Palestinians terrorists rather than the Israeli they murdered. In the words of Munir Nuseibah from the Al-Quds Human Rights Clinic:
"So in 2015 we have had the case of four Palestinians,... and there's a criminal procedure against them with the accusation of throwing a stone at a vehicle, which allegedly resulted in death, a case of death of somebody dying out of this throwing stones. In the decision... the Minister of Interior mentioned that it was revoking the residencies of those individuals, because there was a blatant breach of allegiance to the state of Israel. So now Palestinians who threw stones at the vehicle, will lose their residency because of the blatant breach of allegiance. And this is what is scaring us as a human rights organization. And this is why we are here today to speak to you about it."

Second Oxford Labour Club officer quits amid anti-Semitism charges

A second officer of Oxford University’s Labour Club has resigned after leveling discrimination charges.
The club’s disabilities officer, Brahma Mohanty, stepped down after claiming the club forced members to “subscribe to a radical ideology of division and isolation,” the London-based Telegraph newspaper reported Friday.
Last month, Alex Chalmers resigned as co-chair following claims that his colleagues “have some kind of problem with Jews.”
Chalmers, who is not Jewish, said at the time he was leaving the “poisonous” club after it endorsed Israel Apartheid Week — a string of activities against Israel that takes place annually in several dozen cities and especially on campuses.
Mohanty said in his resignation letter, according to the Telegraph: “I have personally experienced in recent weeks and meetings that this does not appear to be an ethos shared amongst the OULC body in light of the passing of the Israeli Apartheid Week motion and the more recent motion which essentially ‘purges’ the OULC membership and forces members to subscribe to a radical ideology of division and isolation.”
He added: “Simply put, I cannot in good faith carry out my duties in promoting access and engagement with a club that I feel is projecting itself in the complete opposite manner.”

UK Jewish Peer Warns Anti-Semitism Rising in Labour Party

Prominent British politician Lord (Michael Abraham, Baron) Levy has sounded the alarm that anti-Semitism is rising in the Labour Party. He is threatening to leave the fold if something is not done to stem the tide.
The Jewish peer has been a chief fund-raiser for the party. He is a longtime friend of former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, and spent nine years as Blair’s special envoy to the Middle East.
A son of observant Jewish parents, Lord Levy warned that current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is presiding over what appears to be a resurgence in the party’s acceptance of anti-Semitism.
The peer warned that Corbyn must speak out against the attacks immediately if he wants to stop the bleed in Jewish Labourites who no longer have faith in the party.
Lord Levy himself has threatened to leave the party unless Corbyn publicly denounces the anti-Semitic comments made by party members.

BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ and ‘alleged’ antisemitic Tweets

Back in September 2014 when a prospective Parliamentary candidate for the British Labour Party was suspended after posting a series of offensive anti-Israel and antisemitic Tweets, the BBC ignored the story.
When the same person – Vicki Kirby – became the focus of further controversy earlier this month after the Guido Fawkes website revealed that she had been elected to the position of vice-chair of the Woking branch of the Labour party, the BBC did cover that story and her subsequent second suspension from the party.
Coming hot on the heels of the Oxford University Labour Club row and the expulsion of another Labour party member, much of the BBC’s coverage of the Vicki Kirby story focused on the reactions of other members of the party to the latest controversy and the issue of antisemitism within the Labour party. It was therefore not surprising that the topic arose during an interview (from 2:39:42 here) with the Shadow Secretary for Education, Lucy Powell, on the March 16th edition of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme.Today 16 3
What was remarkable, however, was presenter Sarah Montague’s introduction to that topic.

Defense Minister Ya'alon: Breaking the Silence are 'traitors'

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud) spoke with high school students in Kfar Blum today, during which time he described Breaking the Silence's actions as "treachery."
Ya'alon was discussing the recent exposé that showed Breaking the Silence gathering classified information from soldiers.
"What was exposed on Channel 2 is that they are asking soldiers questions that aren't even connected to the manner or ethics in their operations, and including all kinds of question on what are, effectively, operational secrets," he said.
"So whether they are putting it to use - which would be very serious - or spreading this information around, it's treachery. If they are only keeping it for themselves, it's still treachery. Who holds on to this information? Why do they need to know what tools we are using - in the air, in the water, on the land?"

UC Regents should seize its Moynihan moment on anti-Zionism

On November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed the infamous “Zionism Is Racism” Resolution 3379:
“Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”
The Resolution came on the heels of the failed 1973 Yom Kippur attempt by Arab armies to destroy Israel with Soviet backing, and the 1973 Arab oil embargo to pressure the West to abandon Israel.
Resolution 3379 was not phrased as anti-Jewish hatred. It was framed in terms of anti-Zionism, a rejection of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in the homeland of the Jewish people.
But the anti-Zionist phraseology did not fool anyone, least of all United States Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In what would become one of his most famous speeches, Moynihan rose to denounce the Resolution as anti-Semitic and to declare it a “great evil… loosed upon the world.”

Illinois becomes first state to list companies banned for business due to BDS

An Illinois state agency named 11 companies barred from doing business with the state for boycotting Israel or its settlements, the first such designation by an official US body.
A number of the entities on the list approved Friday by the Illinois Investment Policy board have pulled money from Israeli businesses that operate in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, but have not boycotted Israel within its 1967 lines. At least two of the entities have said their disinvestment from Israel in recent years was based on commercial, not political, calculations.
The Illinois law passed last year explicitly bars dealing with companies that boycott Israeli operations in territories controlled by Israel.
“Today’s actions were truly historic and will lead the way for the dozens of other states following Illinois’ lead,” a senior official in the administration of Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican who championed the bipartisan legislation, told JTA on Friday.

Anti-Semitic, homophobic graffiti discovered at Brown dorm

Anti-Semitic and homophobic messages were written on the walls of a student dormitory at Brown University.
The vandalism discovered early Friday morning at the Providence, Rhode Island, school came days after the cancellation of an appearance by prominent African-American transgender activist Janet Mock at the Brown University Hillel after facing criticism for allegedly supporting the Jewish group’s “pinkwashing” of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
The graffiti discovered in the Marcy House student housing, written in black marker, read “Gay will die” and “Holocaust 2.0,” the Brown Daily Herald, a campus student newspaper, reported.
A Jewish fraternity, Beta Rho Pi, is housed in the building, and many LGBTQ students also live there, according to the newspaper. Members of the Jewish fraternity and Zeta Delta Xi, a coed fraternity also housed in the building, washed the graffiti off the walls the same night it was discovered.

Rutgers Prof Insists Her Updated Version of the Blood Libel is Not Anti-Semitic

Rutgers University professor Jasbir Puar, who has faced sharp criticism for her conspiracy theory that Israel is secretly harvesting the organs of Palestinian terrorists, has rejected accusations of anti-Semitism in a column entitled “Speaking of Palestine: Solidarity and Its Censors,” which can be found in Jadaliyya, a supposedly “independent ezine” produced by the Arab Studies Institute. As previously reported by The Tower, Puar has threatened to sue anyone who publishes audio recordings of her controversial February 3 lecture at Vassar, in which she made the claim that many have denounced as a modern-day anti-Semitic blood libel.
In her Jadaliyya column, Puar asserted that her talk at Vassar “was taped without my permission or that of the people who had invited me” and therefore ought to be suppressed. At the same time, she apparently believes that the principles of academic freedom and free speech entitle her to uncritically repeat and elaborate on any accusations the Palestinians level against Israel, while also claiming that her critics have no right to exercise their own academic freedom and free speech rights to criticize her. Referencing her almost decade-long “Palestine solidarity work,” Puar denounces criticism of her Vassar lecture as a rightwing “smear campaign” that reflects a “current Zionist strategy” of “silencing and intimidation tactics” intended to constrain the “exercise of free speech and academic freedom.”

Students for Justice in Palestine Anti-Semitism Costs CUNY $485 Million

Thanks to New York Senate Republicans, CUNY's ongoing tolerance for Students for Justice in Palestine hate against Jews has come with a high price.
At recent CUNY rallies, a group that calls itself “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) condemned “the Zionist administration” at CUNY for hosting Birthright programs and study-abroad programs in “occupied Palestine” [i.e., Israel]. SJP demonstrators screamed insults at Jewish students, calling them “racists,” “white supremacists,” “Nazis,” and “supporters of genocide.” They chanted, “There is only one solution: Intifada revolution!” – calling for murder and violence against Jews. They shouted invectives like “Jews out of CUNY” and “Jews are racist sons of bitches!” One Jewish student was screamed at by SJP members to “get the f – -k out of my country!” Another heard someone yell, “We should drag the Zionists down the street!” “Zionists,” of course, means Jews.
CUNY wouldn't do anything. But New York Senate Republicans did something. $485 million worth of something.
Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, who has been a strong ally for the Jewish community in New York, led the way on this. Republican Senator Kenneth LaValle warned, "These are the things that the Senate Republican conference says are intolerable and must stop.” (h/t Jewess)

Report: Islamic education in US hostile to Israel, distorts conflict

Islamic education curricula in the United States contain a clear “us versus them” paradigm that projects hostility toward Israel and distorts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a study conducted by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.
The report, which surveys five Islamic Studies curricula studied in the US and Canada, also showed that, although the textbooks reflect a generally tolerant tone and even respect for Jews, Israel is often delegitimized.
“When discussed at all, Israel is presented by the curricula as a usurper and referred to on occasion as Palestine. There is no discussion of peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the report states.
In two of the curricula, Israel appears on some maps, while others omit the name entirely. One textbook even states that Israel has no historic claim to the land, while another places anti-Israel activities at the center of its call for political activism.

New York Police Searching for Woman Who Assaulted Jewish Man With Rock, Yelling ‘Hitler Should Have Killed You All!’

New York City police are investigating a violent and verbal, apparently antisemitic, assault that took place in Brooklyn last week, jpupdates reported on Friday.
The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force Unit is reviewing surveillance video from the scene of the attack, in which a 28-year-old Jewish construction manger was hit by a rock thrown at him by an African-American woman yelling, “Hitler should have killed you all!”
The man had been standing at an intersection in Crown Heights on Thursday afternoon, when the woman threw the rock, which — though allegedly aimed at his face — only hit his steel-toed work boots, leaving him uninjured, DNAInfo.com reported.

Columbus, Ohio’s Nazareth Restaurant, site of jihad terror attack in February, is going strong

Back in February there was yet another jihad terror attack on American soil: a Muslim named Mohammad Barry entered the Nazareth Restaurant & Deli in Columbus, Ohio and began slashing patrons with a machete. Later he screamed “Allahu akbar” and charged at police with the machete, and they shot him dead. Barry chose his target because the Nazareth Restaurant is owned by Hany Baransi, a proud Israeli Christian, and displays an Israeli flag. After the attack, Baransi was defiant, saying he was going to get a bigger Israeli flag, but then announced that he had instead decided to close the restaurant and move back to Israel.
I’m happy to report that he has apparently changed his mind. This week I was in Columbus, where I spoke Thursday and Friday, and had an opportunity to go to the Nazareth Restaurant (actually, two opportunities). I didn’t get a chance to say hello to Hany Baransi, but was glad to see that the restaurant was thriving and crowded, and the food was great. Because of the suicidal policies of the current and previous administrations and the Washington establishment, there are certain to be many more jihad terror attacks like the one at the Nazareth Restaurant. Jihadis will continue to try to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60); it is crucial that free people not succumb to that terror, but instead be defiant and unafraid in the face of it. If these murderous bullies want us to be afraid, then that is above all what we must not be. As such, the Nazareth Restaurant defiantly open and packed with people was a magnificent sight to see.
Defiance in the face of evil is a necessity. If you are in Columbus, or anywhere near it, go grab lunch or dinner at the Nazareth. The gyros are out of this world. So is the Greek salad. Go, enjoy, and go again the next day.

HuffPo: Israel Is the Unsung Hero in Water Management

Israel is opening up about its expertise in water management. As I wrote in 2014, in “Squeezing Water from a Rock“, representatives from many parched countries have visited to study with Israel’s water experts, and departed with vast knowledge that they can take back to their own drought-ridden lands. I think many parts of the world could benefit from Israel’s intellectual capital when it comes to water solutions.
Lord knows we could use their help right here in California. A recent cover story of The New York Times‘ “Science Times” section examined the crisis situation in California, and the war between farmers in the Central Coast and Central Valley, vs. oh, maybe 20 million or so residents of the Los Angeles basin who also need water. Not once is the word desalinization mentioned, despite L.A.’s proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Not sure I get that? Perhaps it is related to the convoluted and oftentimes debilitating process faced in planning, funding and receiving approval to build the largest desalinization plant in the Western Hemisphere, the Claude “Bud” Lewis Desalination Plant based in Carlsbad, CA. Owned and operated by Poseidon, this plant took 15 years, start to finish and is now producing 50 million gallons of water per day. The budget far exceeded even the loftiest expectations, reaching $1 billion when all was said and done. Unlike this example, Israel has been able to develop a national strategy for water management because the state runs the water grid. This is a sharp contrast to our situation at home, where deals must be planned and battled out in the courtroom, county by county, state by state. Meanwhile, waiting 15 years to pursue future desalination plants or other drought management solutions may not be an option.

In first, Israeli drip irrigation to water California’s rice

Ben-Gurion University is joining with drip-irrigation pioneer Netafim to help increase the output of rice in parched California.
In a gala announcement at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington Monday, Kyriakos Tsakopoulos, president, principal and chief executive officer of Conaway Preservation Group, said that the Israeli-developed technology could be a breakthrough in the development of a rice industry in arid areas like California.
“We believe this initiative represents the first use of drip irrigation in the US for a rice crop,” he said. “We couldn’t ask for better partners.”
The Conaway Preservation Group is the group responsible for the Conaway Ranch, located in Yolo County, California, east of Sacramento – normally one of the richest and most productive farming areas in the world. The county, for example, is the biggest yielder of tomatoes for canning in California, a state that is responsible for 90% of the canned and processed tomato production in the United States and 35% worldwide.

Israeli professor whose technology can diagnose cancer by sensing breath earns int'l honors

Prof. Hossam Haick of Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology received the Humboldt Research Award in Germany and was also chosen as one of the 100 influential figures published by California’s Good Magazine over the weekend. He has been prominent, among other things in his development of devices to diagnose and monitor various types of cancers (lung, breast, colon, gastric, head and neck, ovarian, kidney and bladder malignancies) via breath samples.
The Humboldt Award is given to prominent researchers who have significantly influenced their fields of study, provided they maintain some type of cooperation with research institutes in Germany. It is granted in recognition of a researcher’s achievements as a whole – discoveries, theories, and insights.
The 41-year-old Haick, born into an Arab Christian family in Nazareth and a member of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering and a member of the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, received the award for his “tremendous contribution to the diagnosis of diseases through innovative markers that he discovered in his research at Technion.”
These are markers that are present in both the breath and skin.

Batmobile sports badass Israeli tires

An Israeli tire company is the unlikely hero of the production design team for the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice film.
In a behind-the-scenes video, Patrick Tatopoulos, production designer for Batman v Superman, talks about designing the new Batmobile. He says that after failing to find rear tires that were the right size for his design, he was moments away from giving up and going back to the drawing board when the Alliance Tire Company in Hadera, came to the rescue.
Tatopoulos talks about how the farming truck tires were “resculpted and adapted to the car.”
The Alliance Tire Company produces and markets tires for agricultural and industrial clinets in Europe, the US, Japan and Latin America.

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