03/23 Links Pt2: Will the Uni of Cal Support anti-Semitic anti-Zionism?; UN nominates anti-Israeli professor ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Mike Lumish: Will the University of California Support anti-Semitic anti-Zionism?

As someone familiar with California university anti-Semitism, I would very much like to see the UC Regents suggest that the movement to rob Jewish people of self-determination and self-defense stands in direct opposition to its own proposed standards of social justice and universal human rights.
Needless to say, anti-Semitic anti-Zionist students and professors claim that their hatred of Jewish people, via their hatred of the Jewish State, is a matter of free speech. They should be allowed to defame Israel, and thereby defame the great majority of Jewish people, as a matter of liberal democracy, despite the fact that such defamation tends to result in violence against the Jewish people and young Jewish students on campus.
They honestly seem to believe that kicking Jewish students in the teeth on a regular basis is a privilege of liberalism and perhaps they are right. If liberalism means anything it means that you have the right to offend anyone. If that defamation results in violence toward the Jewish people, as we are currently seeing with the Children's Intifada in Israel, so be it.
I tend to think, of course, that kicking around Jewish students on California university campuses is not such a good thing and that university officials should look into means of reducing it, if they honestly care... which I also tend to doubt.

UN Watch: UN nominates anti-Israeli professor to 6-year post investigating “Israel’s violations”

Amid intense pressure and a flurry of letters sent from Arab and Islamic states, the South Korean president of the UN Human Rights Council today cancelled his decision to postpone the appointment of a new monitor charged with investigating “Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law.”
Instead, the president today nominated Canadian academic Michael Lynk — despite global objections over Lynk’s leadership role in Palestinian campaign groups and his record of inflammatory statements on Israel — and declared that the labor lawyer from London, Ontario, was both impartial and objective. The 47-nation plenary is slated to vote on the president’s proposal tomorrow. A UN Watch report two weeks ago documented the bias of the Arab states’ favored candidates, prompting outrage from the Palestinian ambassador.
“The UN’s selection of a manifestly partisan candidate — someone who three days after 9/11 blamed the West for provoking the attacks on the World Trade Center — constitutes a travesty of justice and a breach of the world body’s own rules,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a watchdog organization in Geneva whose work has been praised by top UN officials including former Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
“Someone who accuses Israel of ‘Apartheid’ and openly seeks to dismantle the Jewish state is neither impartial nor objective. We call on Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and all other Council members to uphold the Council’s own basic principles and oppose Lynk’s nomination in tomorrow’s vote,” said Neuer.

JPost Editorial: Yemenite story

Sadness was mixed with joy this week as two millennia of uninterrupted Jewish presence in Yemen came one step closer to ending and another group of Diaspora Jews came home.
A covert operation brought 19 members of the dwindling Yemenite Jewish community to Israel, leaving about 50 Jews remaining in war-torn Yemen. But they have expressed no interest in making aliya. Most are concentrated in a close compound adjacent to the US Embassy in Sanaa and enjoy the protection of Yemeni authorities.
The story of Jews in Yemen is reaching an end.
According to one legend, Jews first reached the country when King Solomon sent Jewish merchant marines to Yemen to search for gold and silver to adorn the Temple in Jerusalem. Another legend has it that Yemeni tribes converted to Judaism after the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon. The Jews of Sanaa have a legend that their ancestors settled in Yemen 42 years before the destruction of the First Temple. Archaeological records referring to Judaism in Yemen date back to the Himyarite Kingdom, established in Yemen in 110 BC.
The Yemenite Jewish community is undoubtedly one of the oldest in the Diaspora. Though there were many periods when Yemenite Jews were isolated from other Jewish communities, they continued to remain faithful to Jewish tradition while developing their own unique customs.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Former PA diplomat accuses Abbas of helping with aliya of Yemenite Jews

A former Palestinian diplomat claimed on Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority helped bring Yemenite Jews to Israel.
The claim was made in an open letter to PA President Mahmoud Abbas published by the diplomat, Kheir El-Din Abdel Rahim, who previously served as PLO ambassador to Sudan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Kenya.
Abdel Rahim noted in his letter that he had always opposed Abbas’s contacts with “Zionist figures.”
He claimed that the PA’s General Intelligence Force headed by Majed Faraj had played a role in bringing the Yemeni Jews to Israel on instructions from Abbas.
Earlier this week, some of the last Jews living in Yemen were brought to Israel in a secret mission in recent days, the Jewish Agency announced.

David Horovitz: Dumbing-down on Israel, with Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders

Op-ed: One candidate contradicts himself within minutes on his ‘number one priority.’ Another betrays profound ignorance of subject matter with which he should be deeply familiar. And these men are presidential contenders?
Imagine if, at a high profile pro-Israel event, before an audience of thousands, a candidate for the presidency of the United States set out a definitive position on a vital issue only to dramatically backtrack immediately afterwards. He would be savaged, you’d think, his credibility shredded.
In fact, however, you have no need to imagine such a scenario. It actually happened.
On Wednesday, June 4, 2008, would-be president Barack Obama told AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that “Jerusalem must remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” This was a hugely significant assertion of support for Israel’s internationally unrecognized establishment of sovereignty throughout the city in the wake of the 1967 war, a radical departure from traditional US policy, and a sensationally time-sensitive declaration from a candidate who had just secured the Democratic nomination.
And then Obama walked it back. Amid an outcry from the Palestinians and many others at his prejudgment of one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, candidate Obama quickly made clear that he had not meant what he said. “As a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute” a division of Jerusalem, he told CNN the next day. But, he elaborated, “obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations.” Put another way: Forget what I told AIPAC. The two sides are going to have to negotiate the fate of Jerusalem. And never mind what I said about it remaining undivided under Israeli rule.
Two presidential terms later, many pro-Israel Obama critics — of whom there is no shortage — have never forgiven him for the shift.

JPost PodCast: Did AIPAC tame the Donald?

Washington Bureau Chief Michael Wilner joins to discuss the controversy around Trump’s appearance on the stage of the largest pro-Israel lobby in the US.
If Donald Trump has proved anything this year, it’s that the usual rules of electoral politics don’t apply to him. His uncanny ability to say outrageous things, only to be rewarded at the Republican primary polls, has embarrassed purveyors of conventional political wisdom.
But this week, something unusual happened. For some reason, Trump felt compelled to play by the rules—for the most part—when he addressed one organization: The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
On today’s episode of the JPost Podcast, Washington Bureau Chief Michael Wilner joins to discuss the controversy around Trump’s appearance on the stage of the largest pro-Israel lobby in the US, and why he decided to start using a teleprompter.

The Mottle Wolfe Show: The Best Speech Evah. Huge. Believe me

Donald Trump may have had the most anticipated speech at AIPAC Policy conference, but it was Ted Cruz that hit it out of the park.

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: Obama’s Belgian Waffle

On our new podcast, Commentary Editor John Podhoretz and his colleagues Noah Rothman and Abe Greenwald express their deep sympathy for poor President Obama—he got his nice trip to Cuba all stepped on by another terrorist attack getting in the way of the “pivoting” he wants to do in foreign policy. The horror in Brussels raises yet again the specter of a non-assimmilating Muslim population in Europe and complicates questions in the American presidential race. Meanwhile, Ted Cruz seems unable to get out of Donald Trump’s shadow no matter how hard he tries, with parlous end results for him and for the Republican Party. This episode does not end with a joke. Next week’s will.

IsraellyCool: Unhinged Israel Haters And Jew Haters Gone Wild

Some disturbing footage has emerged from protests outside AIPAC, showing exactly the kind of people opposing the state of Israel.
In this first video, you see some rather violent haters attacking an AIPAC attendee. The “burn in hell, Zionist scum” and “Zionist piece of shit” are also nice touches from these “peace activists.”
In this video (from 2:52), antisemite Robert Martin (yes it is him) is harassing an Israel supporter. Notice the hateful, antisemitic invective aimed at the pro-Israel people (including a little old lady), including “You will burn!”

The AIPAC Conference in Washington Isn’t Over

The 2016 AIPAC Policy Conference officially concluded on March 22, but its impact will carry far beyond the 18,000 delegates from 50 states who gathered to hear the leading U.S. presidential candidates. The messages from “America’s pro-Israel lobby” meeting will have national and even international ramifications.
Recall that in the summer of 2015 AIPAC strongly opposed President Obama’s campaign for the Iran nuclear deal. Taking on the president in a foreign policy debate is always a nearly impossible task; AIPAC learned that in the legendary AWACS to Saudi Arabia battle in 1981. Some pundits in 2015 even predicted AIPAC’s demise after the “train wreck.” AIPAC’s tour de force this week, with its unprecedented attendance and media coverage, proved that AIPAC emerged from the Iran debate strong and confident. Bellicose Iran’s misbehavior since the deal has certainly vindicated AIPAC’s opposition.
Today, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are considering new sanctions against the Iranian regime. Despite the White House’s success in pitting Democrats against Republicans in July 2015, the current legislation will be bipartisan. The 18,000 pro-Israel lobbyists are meeting with their senators and representatives today on Capitol Hill and will carry back the message to their communities.

Bernie Sanders Delivers a Pro-Hamas Speech

Bernie adds that the PLO shouldn't disavow Oslo. But this is his typical pattern in the speech. First he punches Israel. Then offers a muted criticism of the PLO terrorists.
Sanders thrown in a false rant accusing Israel of stealing water. Then he demands that Israel stop "disproportionately" defending itself.
"Peace will require strict adherence by both sides to the tenets of international humanitarian law. This includes Israeli ending disproportionate responses to being attacked – even though any attack on Israel is unacceptable."
What exactly is a "proportionate" response when fighting terrorists? Was our response to 9/11 proportionate? Was our response to Pearl Harbor?
An attack on Israel is "unacceptable", but so is Israel fighting back.
But here the speech tiptoes into pro-Hamas territory.
"Of course, I strongly object to Hamas’ long held position that Israel does not have the right to exist – that is unacceptable. Of course, I strongly condemn indiscriminate rocket fire by Hamas into Israeli territory, and Hamas’ use of civilian neighborhoods to launch those attacks. I condemn the fact that Hamas diverted funds and materials for much-needed construction projects designed to improve the quality of life of the Palestinian people, and instead used those funds to construct a network of tunnels for military purposes.
However, let me also be very clear: I – along with many supporters of Israel – spoke out strongly against the Israeli counter attacks that killed nearly 1,500 civilians and wounded thousands more. I condemned the bombing of hospitals, schools and refugee camps."
When you have to keep saying "of course", you're being cursory. You're getting the unimportant "Sure it's bad that Hamas are naughty terrorists" out of the way before you get down to your Israel bashing.
Bernie neglects to mention that Hamas based its attacks out of hospitals and schools. Or that many of those 1,500 "civilians" were actually career terrorists. But he doesn't care.

Absent from AIPAC, Sanders slams Israeli occupation, ‘disproportionate’ use of force

Peace, he said, “will require that organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah renounce their efforts to undermine the security of Israel” – an unlikely precondition for Hamas, which has steadfastedly refused to remove calls for Israel’s destruction from its official charter.
Sanders said that in order to achieve peace, Israel would have to “end what amounts to the occupation of Palestinian territory, establishing mutually agreed upon borders and pulling back settlements in the West Bank, just as Israel did in Gaza.”
“Peace also means security for every Palestinian. It means achieving self-determination, civil rights, and economic wellbeing for the Palestinian people,” Sanders said.
He spoke out against what he described as “Israel’s recent expropriation of an additional 579 acres of land in the West Bank,” which he said “undermines the peace process and, ultimately, Israeli security as well.”
The senator accused Israel of “disproportionate responses to being attacked,” while adding that “any attack on Israel is unacceptable.”
“Peace will also mean ending the economic blockade of Gaza. It will mean a sustainable and equitable distribution of precious water resources so that Israel and Palestine can both thrive as neighbors,” he added.

Palestinian Terrorists Vent to Breitbart Jerusalem Over Trump’s AIPAC Speech

Donald Trump’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Monday was followed closely by the main Palestinian jihadist factions here. Those factions were eager to comment to Breitbart Jerusalem on the GOP frontrunner’s statements about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas official Ismail Radwan told Breitbart Jerusalem that Trump revealed himself as a complete and utter supporter of the so-called Israeli occupation. Hamas considers all of Israel to be “occupied” territory.
“We are hardly taken aback by what Trump, a controversial personality, says,” stated Radwan. “He has no consistent ideology, so in effect, what he said was pretty predictable.”
“Hamas never had hope for the American administrations, and we don’t expect this year’s election to change anything,” he added. “Trump and the American people are entirely biased in favor of the Israeli occupation.”
Speaking to Breitbart Jerusalem, Abu Ayaa Al-Ansari, a senior Salafi leader in Gaza allied with the Islamic State, responded to Trump’s statement that, if elected president, he will move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “We’re working on getting rid of Israel, so the whereabouts of the American embassy doesn’t really matter,” stated Ansari.

Mob mentality at Vassar BDS vote typical of school’s Israel climate

At many colleges and universities today, Jewish students are often pitted against students of color when it comes to Israel.
In my three years at Vassar College, I have been told – by a Jewish student leader, no less – that supporting Israel is tantamount to supporting oppression. I have watched Jewish friends bullied into silence by aggressive anti-Israel activists who call the Jews racists. I have seen many anti-Semitic comments from fellow students on social media. Although I have had many good experiences at Vassar and have made many friends, it can be uncomfortable to be Jewish here, especially if one supports Israel.
But nothing prepared me for the mob mentality that prevailed here on March 6, when Vassar’s student government, the Vassar Student Association, voted 15-7 to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, against Israel.
Other than members of Vassar’s J Street U chapter, which offered an alternative resolution endorsing a two-state solution and calling for the creation of a student committee to educate the campus about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a resolution overwhelmingly rejected by the student association — few showed up to oppose BDS.
They did not stay away because they were busy or because Vassar lacks anti-BDS students. They stayed away because they were afraid of pro-BDS students who have, over the past two years, pursued an aggressive campaign of intimidation at Vassar.

UK Labour Party reinstates another anti-Semitic member

Beinazir Lasharie was suspended in October, after blaming Israel for 9/11 and ISIS. Party now admits to welcoming her back two months later.
The UK Labour Party welcomed its anti-Semitic former member Beinazir Lasharie back into the fold, the political blog Guido Fawkes has revealed.
Lasharie rose to fame by competing on the TV show Big Brother in 2009, though she was kicked out within the first few days. She later turned her hand to politics and won a seat on the Kensington and Chelsea Council in May 2014.
The party suspended her last October, after her numerous anti-Semitic tweets came to light. On one occasion, she shared a video entitled "ISIS: Israeli Secret Intelligence Service" and added the comment comment: "Many people know about who was behind 9/11 and also who is behind ISIS. I've nothing against Jews… just sharing it!"

Hillel – and American Jewish donors – must reject Breaking The Silence

Hillel is meant to be a safe place for Jewish students, and just as a black church would not host the KKK, a Jewish organization designed to protect Jewish students should not host groups that are hostile to Israel.
Brian Cohen, executive director of the Columbia-Barnard Hillel, wrongly claims “[W]e must give our students the opportunity to listen and, if they desire, challenge the speakers’ ideas.” He is wrong - Hillel must not allow that which Israel’s own defense minister, Moshe Ya'alon, deems unacceptable, to influence the minds of students, or to pose as an affront to students who support Israel.
The activities of Breaking the Silence harms Israel – and leads to danger.
Breaking the Silence is funded by the New Israel Fund and its donors, including Alisa Doctoroff of the UJA-Federation, The Jewish Communal Fund, The Jim Joseph Foundation & Rabbi Gordon Tucker of Temple Israel of White Plains. These donors – as well as Hillel – must - stand with the Israel Defense Forces, and the State of Israel – and not those committing treason against the Jewish State.

NY’s City University loses funds over anti-Semitism claims

The New York State Senate has approved a resolution to cut $485 million in funds for the City University of New York (CUNY) system, saying it was to “send a message” that the colleges were not taking enough action in response to campus anti-Semitism.
Last week’s vote, following a two-hour debate, came despite objections from numerous state senators who questioned whether the allegations of anti-Semitism are accurate and whether cutting funds was an appropriate response.
The alleged anti-Semitism came to the Senate’s attention in late February, when the Zionist Organization of America sent CUNY Chancellor James Milliken a lengthy letter detailing Jewish students’ complaints of anti-Semitism and warning that they violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which requires that federally funded universities ensure that Jewish students and others suffer no discrimination on campus.
CUNY launched an investigation into the allegations and the university says it is assembling a task force to promote a more respectful environment on campus.

NY State Senate Decision to Slash Funding to CUNY Over Antisemitism Will Send Message to Other Universities, Says Jewish Leader (INTERVIEW)

The head of a major Jewish organization praised the New York State Senate’s decision last week to slash funding to the City University of New York (CUNY), telling The Algemeiner that the move was necessary to motivate CUNY to properly address the antisemitism across its campuses, and ought to serve as a precedent for other states and universities.
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), told The Algemeiner, “This case will send a message to legislators around the country, to force public universities that are ignoring the real fears of Jewish students and staff to finally take appropriate and serious actions.”
Klein criticized CUNY’s announcement late last month — as reported by The Algemeiner — that it had ordered an independent probe into allegations of widespread campus antisemitism, and would assemble a task force to make recommendations for improving the university’s policies and practices.
“Universities always want to ‘study’ the problem of antisemitism instead of acting immediately against it,” Klein said.

Muslim Supremacist to Speak at Elmhurst College

Mustafa Abu Sway is a Muslim supremacist. He believes that Muslims should wield political power over Jews and Christians in the Holy Land and in the rest of the Middle East. He also thinks Israel should disappear because the existence of a Jewish state is a theological impossibility under Islam. Abu Sway also asserts that Palestinian leaders have “never” taught children to hate, when in fact, they have and have done it a lot.
Despite his supremacist views and misleading testimony, Abu Sway will be speaking at Elmhurst College, a small liberal arts school affiliated with the United Church of Christ located outside of Chicago. His appearance at the college — scheduled for Friday, April 15 — will give students and faculty an opportunity to show just how committed they are to honest and robust interfaith dialogue.
Abu Sway, a Palestinian Muslim who lives in Jerusalem, has been making the rounds for a long time. In 1990, he spoke at a peace conference organized by the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts. According to James Thrall, who covered the event for the church, Abu Sway called “for a vast Islamic state in the Middle East ruling Muslilm, Jew, and Christian.” According to Thrall, Abu Sway assured his audience that if a Muslim is “truly” following the Koran, “he would have to be just to the Jew, and to the Christian and all people.”

Organisation quoted by BBC hosts terror glorification event

During that same conflict the BBC also amplified claims made by a representative of the Palestinian Red Crescent without providing audiences with any evidence of its having independently confirmed the allegations described in the article as amounting to war crimes.
“”Our ambulances are often targeted although they are clearly marked and display all signs that they are ambulances,” said Dr Bashar Murad, director of Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s (PRCS) emergency and ambulance unit, which lost at least two members of staff.”
Audiences were not however informed of documented cases of the use of PRCS ambulances for the purposes of terrorism.
PMW reports that earlier this month the Palestinian Red Crescent Society headquarters in Ramallah hosted an event organized by Fatah to mark the anniversary of a terror attack in which thirty-seven civilians (including 12 children) were murdered and over seventy wounded.
“Every year the Palestinian Authority and Fatah celebrate the anniversary of the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history by honoring the female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi who led it. This year, one such celebration was hosted by the office of the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is under the International Red Cross.”
The BBC, however, continues to promote information sourced from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society as though it were an impartial source.

American Veteran Killed by Palestinian Terrorist, Washington Post Drops Print Coverage

Taylor Force was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an Army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was in Israel for a school trip with Vanderbilt University Owen School of Management’s masters in business administration (MBA) program, in which he was a enrolled. Force was visiting Israel to learn about start-up companies and global entrepreneurship.
The Washington Post reported Force’s death and, importantly, the details of his life in an online article about the terror attacks (“A rash of bloody attacks greets Biden in Israel,” March 8). Online, The Post noted that Force was a “combat veteran” who was on an “Owen school trip to Tel Aviv” when he was murdered.
However, in print, The Post omitted this information about Force’s life. The day after The Post article online, the paper’s print edition condensed the U.S. veteran’s life of service into two words at the end of a sentence in a story about Vice President Biden’s trip:

The New York Times’ Obsession With Female Jewish Modesty

Is the New York Times obsessed with tznius — Jewish modesty?
It sure looks like it. How else to explain the paper’s decision to devote column inches to a feature on a clothing store in Borough Park, Brooklyn, catering to Orthodox-Jewish women who dress modestly.
“Junee and other stores like it have seen their sales rise in recent years because of a flood of new products designed to make modesty and fashion compatible,” the Times claims. The newspaper doesn’t provide any actual numbers on revenues to back this up, however. Nor does it explain how it knows that the increased sales are the result of “new products,” rather than, say, a population boom or increased disposable income among religiously observant Jews.
Throughout, the article erroneously assumes that Jewish women who dress this way are “Hasidic,” a term the Times also uses to describe the Borough Park neighborhood overall. The paper doesn’t seem to have considered the possibility that non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews of other sects in the haredi category might dress this way, or shop at any of the three stores mentioned. Nor does it quote the owners of any of them — just a woman it identifies as a “clerk.” Would the Times write about one of its big department store advertisers quoting only a clerk?

BBC Ignores Israeli-Arab Parties' Opposition to Arab States' Designation of Hizbullah as Terrorist Organization

Readers may recall that last month the BBC World Service presented audiences with a very one-sided view of the sanctions placed by the Knesset Ethics Committee on three members of the Balad party after that meeting with the families of terrorists. Despite the fact that the same committee is likely to be called to address the topic of this latest support from Hadash and Balad for a terror organization designated by Israel, the BBC has not seen fit to report the story to date.
And – although it rarely misses an opportunity to amplify a speech by Hassan Nasrallah – BBC News also passed up on last month's story of the Hizballah leader's threat to deliberately fire missiles at ammonia storage tanks in the city of Haifa and thereby cause mass casualties – including of course among the 10% of Israeli Arab residents of that city.

Slovak MPs wear yellow stars to protest 'neo-Nazi' party

Two Slovak MPs on Wednesday donned yellow stars symbolizing the Holocaust in protest at the "dangerous" parliamentary debut of a far-right party they condemn as "fascist."
The opposition MPs wore the stars to an inaugural session of parliament following the country's March 5 election in which the Our Slovakia party won 14 seats. This is slightly under 10 percent of the total 150 seats in the legislature.
Ondrej Dostal, an MP with the liberal SaS, told journalists it was 83 years since the German Reichstag "approved the intention of Hitler's government to pass laws without Parliament" turning Germany into a Nazi dictatorship.
"It's significant that exactly 83 years after this act, Slovak fascists have marched into the Slovak parliament. It's dangerous and we want to highlight this," he said.
Viera Dubacova, from the conservative OLaNO-NOVA, also wore a yellow star.

Athens mayor signs declaration against anti-Semitism

The mayor of Athens signed a declaration against anti-Semitism, joining 60 other European mayors to have inked the American Jewish Committee’s initiative.
“I chose to sign because it is my conviction that the first value in civilized society is human dignity,” said Mayor Giorgos Kaminis at a ceremony with a nine-member visiting AJC delegation in the Greek capital.
Along with the European mayors, the AJC’s Mayors United Against Anti-Semitism campaign has garnered signatures from over 300 US mayors.
Athens has seen several anti-Semitic incidents in the last year, including the vandalism of the city’s Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorials.

Israel and the Kurds: Love by Proxy

The ties between Israel and the Kurds are complex and shrouded in mystery. Relations are always more complex when they are asymmetrical, as in this case, where they are between a state and non-state actors. Note that we must say actors, plural, because Israel has to deal separately with four Kurdish players in four countries that host Kurdish communities and political organizations: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Complicating the picture still further is the fact that each of the four groups has a different political agenda, a different approach toward Israel, and different geostrategic calculations within its respective state (or what’s left of two of them) and in the region as a whole. Moreover, Israel and the Kurds do not have common borders, nor do they always have common enemies that can bring them together. Lastly, while Israeli politicians appear eager to go public with their desire for better relations, Kurdish politicians for the most part seek low-keyed relations in the shadows.
Historically, the Israeli government’s interlocutors have been the Kurds of Iraq, with whom it began secret relations in the mid-1960s that have continued intermittently ever since. For most of the part these ties were kept secret, but much has been leaked and published about the critical period of 1965–75. The relations of that period have left scars on both sides.
Israel was frustrated by the fact that the Kurdish guerrillas did not engage the Iraqi army during the October 1973 (Yom Kippur) war. It was the Kurds’ turn to be annoyed in 1975, when Israel stopped its aid after the Algiers Agreement. The two parties have had their own convincing explanations. The Kurds maintained that they feared being marked as traitors for helping Israel, and the Israelis explained that they could not continue their support due to the objections of the Iranian government of the day and the U.S. government. Despite this mutual disillusionment, secret relations were revived after the 1991 Gulf War and boosted after the 2003 Iraq War, reaching a peak in the past few years when, as a result of the region’s upheavals, both sides acknowledged their growing mutual need.

Former Intel CEO Andy Grove, a Holocaust survivor, dies at 79

Andy Grove, a Holocaust survivor who would revolutionize the personal computer industry as chairman of Intel, has died.
Grove, who survived the Holocaust living under a false name, died Monday at 79, Intel announced the following day. Grove was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2000 and contributed toward research for a cure.
Grove was present at the founding of Intel in 1968, becoming the company’s president in 1979 and CEO in 1987. He played a critical role in the decision to move Intel’s focus from memory chips to microprocessors and led the firm’s transformation into a widely recognized consumer brand.
He was a noted scientist, earning a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He held several patents on semiconductor devices and wrote over 40 technical papers. He also was the author of several books.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s not-so-crazy trip to Israel

Bloom talked to The Jerusalem Post about Jewish identity and other elements of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” on her first-ever trip to Israel last week while noshing on, what else, cream cheese and lox.
“I was raised pretty secular, but to know that I was Jewish. It was very much an identity thing. I didn’t have a Bat Mitzva, but I know everyone in Hollywood who said anything anti-Semitic. My grandfather was an ardent atheist, but in the same breath, he’d say he didn’t like Vanessa Redgrave for being pro-Palestinian,” she recalled.
Bloom said if she hadn’t married her husband, who is Jewish, with an Israeli father and a mother who “runs a Conservative temple in Queens,” she probably would not have thought much about Judaism, but, although she and her husband are both secular, it is very present in her life.
Bloom’s trip to Israel had barely been planned when she announced at the Golden Globes that she would be taking it – she needed a vacation and wanted to visit close friends who had recently made Aliya – but the Tourism Ministry hooked her up with a guide, and she enjoyed it so much she found herself “giving [her] friends a lecture on the Bar Kochba revolt.”

Boy in tzedakah box costume swallows coins, is hospitalized

A 5-year-old boy who dressed up as a tzedakah (charity) box for a Purim party at his Jerusalem kindergarten was rushed to an emergency room Tuesday after he swallowed two coins that were part of his costume.
During the party, the child’s teacher noticed the boy choking and patted him on the back, at which point the kid spat out a coin, the Ynet news site reported.
The child continued to cough, and the teacher immediately rushed him to the Terem outpatient emergency room in the capital.
Doctors at Terem decided to transfer the child to the emergency room at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, where he underwent surgery to remove another coin from his throat.

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