04/07 Links Pt2: Abbas Calls for Peace Talks Yet Denies Israel’s Right to Exist; The ‘Palestinian’ invasion of the university

From Ian:

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JPost Editorial: UNwelcome

A so-called “miscommunication” led the United Nations to ban a display about Zionism from an Israeli exhibition at its New York headquarters this week, a UN spokesman said. That it was ultimately approved by a UN body of Zionism experts fails to explain why two other panels were rejected.
The Zionism panel was one of three that were originally censored by the world body and the only one to be eventually approved. But not the one on Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people for some 3,000 years, and on Israeli Arabs, Israel’s largest minority.
It is somehow not surprising that the UN should still be in some kind of doubt (denial?) regarding the nature of Zionism. One would think that the body that passed a resolution in 1975 claiming that Zionism is racism and reluctantly revoked it in 1991 would be more familiar with the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.
The Jerusalem panel depicts the Jewish people as “indigenous to Israel” since biblical times. It notes that “Jerusalem has been the center and focus of Jewish life and religion for more than three millennia and is holy to Christians and Muslims as well.”
The panel on Israeli Arabs refers to the group as “the largest minority in Israel, making up 20 percent of Israel’s population.” It stresses that, despite the turmoil in countries surrounding Israel, its Arab citizens have equal rights under the law.
Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon called on Secretary- General Ban Ki-Moon on Sunday to reverse the decision and to “apologize to the Jewish people.”

Former Palestinian finance chief: Global Judaism is a virus, a plague

A former top Palestinian official cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forged text produced in Russia at the turn of the last century that purports to outline Jewish plans to take over the world, as proof that the world economy is controlled by Jews.
“Global Judaism, which controls the world’s financial markets, constitutes a virus and a plague which strikes at the entire world,” said Dr. Fouad Bseiso, the former governor of the Palestinian Monetary Authority, according to a translation of his comments in a TV interview provided Thursday by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
“What was written in the 4th protocol of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion [titled ‘The destruction of religion by materialism’] is now being implemented on the world’s economy through the global Jewish hegemony over the world’s financial markets, he said.

Fmr. PMA Governor Bseiso: Global Judaism Is a Virus, Follows the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Senior Palestinian economist Dr. Fouad Bseiso, who served as the first governor of the Palestinian Monetary Authority in 1994-2001 said in an interview with Al-Quds TV that global Judaism is responsible for the global financial crisis of 2008. Dr. Bseiso added that "what was written in the 4th protocol of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is now being implemented." He said that the Jews control the prices of commodities like oil, silver, and gold and that over 30% of Israel’s income comes from its plundering of Arab countries. "Global Judaism," he said, "constitutes a virus and plague which strikes at the entire world." The interview aired on April 5, 2016.

Abbas Calls for Peace Talks Yet Denies Israel’s Right to Exist

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas continues to deny Israel’s right to exist by referring to the entire Jewish State as an “occupation,” reports Palestinian Media Watch.
“We have been under occupation for 67 or 68 years [i.e., since Israel’s establishment in 1948]. Others would have sunk into despair and frustration. However, we are determined to reach our goal because our people stand behind us,” said Abbas on official PA TV on March 11.
Abbas’ latest comments come amid reports that the Palestinian president is willing to resume peace negotiations with Israel.
Abbas is notorious for double speak — saying two completely different messages to different crowds. While he consistently denies Israel’s right to exist to the Palestinian street, Abbas claims to support the two-state solution to international audiences.

Abbas to meet Hollande to discuss French plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet French President Francois Hollande in Paris later this month to discuss France’s recent push to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Abbas will have an “important meeting” with Hollande to talk about “convening an international peace conference in accordance with the French initiative,” Palestinian Authority presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Abu Rudeineh told the French news agency AFP on Wednesday.
Abbas is due to travel to Paris on April 15, followed by a meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Moscow to discuss the “evolution of the political situation in Palestine and the region,” Abu Rudeineh said. Abbas will then meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in Berlin before heading to New York to attend United Nations meetings.
In January, outgoing French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius originally presented the French initiative, threatening that Paris would formally recognize a Palestinian state should its efforts to renew the peace process fail.

Official PLO Twitter Feed Gets Evasive on Netanyahu’s Offer to Talk Peace

Contrary to the assertion in the last tweet, the Palestinian Authority has not, in fact, welcomed negotiations.
Last November, Abbas acknowledged for the first time on Israeli television that he had “rejected out of hand” a peace proposal offered to him in 2008 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The terms of the peace offer were reported by The Tower’s Avi Issacharoff in 2013, when Olmert told Issacharoff that he had presented Abbas with a map illustrating his proposal during talks at the Prime Minister’s Residence.
Similarly, in 2014, it was Abbas who scuttled American sponsored peace talks with Israel. As Tower editor David Hazony wrote, Abbas rejected every single American point of compromise, making it “extremely difficult to avoid the conclusion that Abbas was at no point actually embarking on a process that would include significant compromise or result in a peace agreement with Israel.”

Shmuley Boteach: And hate the sinner too

Evil should evoke only contempt and the determination that it be eradicated. And the foremost modern incarnation of evil is terrorism.
As anti-Semitism grows and spreads through Europe, the Jews of France have been repeatedly targeted by Muslim extremists. After four Jews were murdered in a Paris grocery store in January 2015, the attacks were widely condemned, but none of the world leaders expressed hatred for the cowardly killers. We heard that they will be fought. We heard that they will be targeted. What we did not hear was a statement by French President François Hollande saying, “I despise these terrorists with every fiber of my being. I hate them and everything they stand for. And I will fight them to the last man.”
After the horrible November 2015 attacks in Paris left 129 people dead, Hollande did go further, condemning the attack as an "act of war" and vowing that France "will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State."
But where is the declaration of hatred and abhorrence for the group?
Why do we never hear responsible, credible heads of state declaring their revulsion, their outright loathing, for odious murderers? Where is the visceral detestation for monsters?
It wasn’t always thus.
Leaders such as Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill did not hesitate to speak out against evil, Lincoln in reaction to slavery and Churchill in response to Hitler. It seems, however, that hatred has gone out of style.

Brussels Terrorist Worked in European Parliament

One of the Brussels terrorists worked briefly as a cleaner at the European Union parliament and had full access to every office, it has been revealed.
Authorities at the European Parliament announced on Wednesday that one of the terrorists responsible for the attacks in Brussels that saw 35 killed and over 200 injured worked as a cleaned at the European Parliament building.
A spokesman for the parliament said that the terrorist had been employed by the cleaning company who contracts out to keep the building tidy. The terrorist was identified as Najim Laachraoui and the spokesman said that the cleaning agency had done its due diligence and that Laachraoui, who would later become a terrorist, exhibited a clean criminal record reports Germany’s Bild.
The spokesman added, “As a student, he held a summer holiday job cleaning at the parliament for one month in 2009 and one month in 2010,” and played down the connection saying, “those were the only instances he worked at the parliament.”

UK Muslim Brotherhood Group: ‘We Won’t Kill Them, But Ahmadis Aren’t Muslims’

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has released a statement condemning attacks on Ahmadi Muslims, but also announcing that, in its view, Ahmadis are kuffar (non-believers) who the Quran says are destined for “doom and degradation” after death.
Despite the denunciation of violence, the statement may leave the door open for further persecution of Ahmadiyya in Britain and beyond.
The press release follows the murder of Ahmadi Muslim Asad Shah, a shopkeeper in Glasgow who was brutally stabbed and stamped to death outside his shop just hours after wishing his Christian customers a “Happy Easter”. The Ahmadi motto is “Love for All, Hatred for None,” a message that Mr Shah was well known for spreading via the internet.
His death was celebrated by anti-Ahmadi Muslims on the internet, who believe that the sect is heretical and therefore worthy of persecution.

Daphne Anson: In Australia, Schoolkids Study Palestinian Activist's Play

Two months before their upcoming conference at Sydney University (13-15 May), entitled "Socialism for the 21st century," Aussie far leftists, who include Green Left activists and members of the Socialist Alliance, have just announced the line-up for their inevitable session bashing Israel.
Meanwhile, another Israel-undermining initiative, altogether smarter and more subtle, which has infiltrated the school system in the Aussie state of Victoria, appears to have gone relatively unnoticed.
I refer to the fact that the play City by the Sea, by poet, writer and activist Samah Sabawi, a Gaza-born (1967) Australian/Canadian, is now on the 2016 playlist for school students taking the Victorian Certificate of Education. It means that students in years 11 and 12 will be attending performances of the play at La Mama Theatre in Melbourne in May.
Tailor-made, wouldn't you say, for teachers who may be left-wing anti-Zionists, and indeed any teacher who relies for information about the Middle East on such biased sources as the Fairfax Press (The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald), the ABC and SBS, wittingly or unwittingly to poison young minds?

David Collier: The planned ‘Palestinian’ invasion of the university

The university campus is becoming ever more increasingly hostile to both Jews and Israel. From what I have witnessed and experienced, I believe it is no side effect, but rather part of a deliberate and well planned strategy. We are witnessing an entryist operation.
In March, in the period around ‘Israeli Apartheid week’, I attended an impressive one-day conference at the London School of Economics. It was jointly organised by ‘Olive’, ‘FOSIS’, and ‘Friends of Al Aqsa’. The event, was titled ‘from Johannesburg to Jerusalem’. One of the speakers at the event was Max Blumenthal, who apparently got on stage to create conspiracy theories, compare Israel to ISIS and to praise Hamas.
The university pull factor
During the day, there were two workshops. One that was of particular interest to me, went about explaining how to create and promote BDS campaigns on campus. The strategy was broken down into 7 parts. The most important was persuading your university to create a scholarship for Palestinians.

Open Letter to the Edinburgh University Students' Association

No one holds meetings to call for reform in Islamic states. Instead, people like yourselves pass resolutions condemning the only country that defends those rights for all its citizens and visitors.
Israel is, in every respect, a free society. When you support the Palestinians exclusively, you offer support to censorship and state control of expression. You need to think about this very carefully, because otherwise you reveal yourselves to be hypocrites of the first order. To attack a country that defends the rights you demand for yourselves and your friends is morally unforgivable.
There are no apartheid laws in Israel. Arabs (both Muslims and Christians) in Israel have the same voting rights as Jews, have political parties of their own, serve as members of parliament, serve on the Supreme Court and other courts, are diplomats, lawyers, military officers, scientists, academics, and anything else they wish.
"Those who know what real apartheid is, as I know, know that there is nothing in Israel that looks like apartheid. ... There is a widespread allegation, really a slander, that Israel is an apartheid state. That notion is simply wrong. It is inaccurate and it is malicious." -- Kenneth Rasalabe Joseph Meshoe, President of the African Christian Democratic Party in South Africa.

Edinburgh students scotch Israel support with BDS resolution

The Edinburgh University Students’ Association has passed a motion backing a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution against Israel.
The nonbinding motion passed last Thursday by a vote of 249 to 153, with 22 abstentions, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported.
It calls on the university “to target products, companies and institutions that profit from or are implicated in, the violation of Palestinian rights, resist any action that gives political or economic support to violations of international law by the State of Israel and complicit companies and mandate sabbatical officers to work with the Black and Minority Ethnic liberation group, as well as Edinburgh University Students for Justice in Palestine to lobby and campaign for the university to also commit to BDS,” the newspaper reported, citing documents provided by the Edinburgh University Students’ Association.
The motion also called for an academic boycott of Israel.
Edinburgh University’s Israel Engagement Society described the motion as “irresponsible” and “intolerant,” according to the newspaper.

 York University’s ‘inclusion’ committee stacked with anti-Israel faculty, Jewish group charges

After York University promised a “committee on inclusion” in the wake of prominent donor Paul Bronfman’s objections to a pro-Palestinian painting on campus, a Jewish group says the university stacked the group with anti-Israel faculty.
A “sizeable proportion of the ‘inclusion’ committee consists of people who have a clear record of anti-Israel activism,” the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a statement.
The committee, announced last week, consists 15 academics from the university’s law, arts, science and education faculties. Of those, analysts with Hillel Ontario say six have engaged in “anti-Israel activism.”
“How can one consider a committee like this to be considered a committee of inclusion?” said Marc Newburgh, the group’s head.
Although Hillel would not indentify the six, the committee includes John Greyson, a filmmaker who pulled one of his movies from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival over the organization’s decision to spotlight films from Tel Aviv.
Roxanne Mykitiuk, an Osgoode Hall Law School associate professor, put her name to an open public letter denouncing Ottawa’s support of Israel during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, while Faisal Bhabha, also a law professor, has supported the boycott of Israeli settlement products as “legally and morally just.” (h/t Zvi)

Anti-Israel protesters crash Jerusalem mayor Barkat's speech in San Francisco

Amid hostile chants of “Intifada! Intifada! Long live intifada!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” dozens of anti-Israel protesters disrupted a lecture from Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat at San Francisco State University on Wednesday.
Waving a Palestinian flag, the activists denounced Israel as a “terrorist” and “apartheid” state, and demanded an end to the “Israeli occupation,” and that that Barkat leave the campus.
Barkat, who recently joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, and is rumored to be considering a run for the premiership, is on a US campus lecture tour to discuss Jerusalem and Israel’s policies, security, and coexistence with Palestinian citizens.
Undeterred by the hecklers, the mayor attempted to continue his speech and engage his student audience by answering their questions, the Jerusalem Municipality said in a statement on Thursday, which was accompanied by a 22-second video of the disruption.
“Anyone who thinks that calls for violence and incitement will be able to silence us or divert us from our position is mistaken,” Barkat said in response to the incident.
“We will continue to build, develop and strengthen the State of Israel, and within it a united Jerusalem, and we will continue to voice our opinions and our legitimacy when we are invited to do so, even in places where they try to stop us.”
Barkat added that he addressed the protesters “shameful conduct” to both the university’s president, Leslie E. Wong, and mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee.

Stanford student leader: It’s not anti-Semitic to claim Jews control media, economy

A member of Stanford University’s Student Senate argued that it is “not anti-Semitism” to claim Jews control “the media, economy, government and other social institutions.”
Gabriel Knight, a junior, made the remark at a Student Senate meeting Tuesday addressing a proposed resolution on anti-Semitism, according to the Stanford Daily, the main campus newspaper. Knight also said, “Questioning these potential power dynamics, I think, is not anti-Semitism. I think it’s a very valid discussion.”
He apologized later in the meeting after Jewish community leaders and a Jewish student accused him of anti-Semitism.
“I will apologize for when I supposed that [the clause] wasn’t anti-Semitic,” said Knight. “It wasn’t right for me to say that Jewish people can’t be offended by that. What I meant to say is that it’s still making a political statement, which is my problem with the clause — it’s an important conversation we should be having.”
Knight’s remarks came during a debate over language in the proposed resolution, which offers guidelines for defining anti-Semitism and calls on the student governmental body to oppose anti-Semitic activities and fund anti-discrimination education. (h/t Zvi)

MK Yair Lapid: ‘Ha’aretz Has Become Tool of BDS’

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid launched a sharp rebuke against Ha’aretz for having “become a tool of the BDS movement.” His comments were made during a speech at the Tel Aviv Chamber of Commerce’s annual gathering Wednesday.
“The ongoing violent and venomous attack by Breaking the Silence and the newspaper Ha’aretz on Zionism and on the combat ethics of the IDF has made them a tool of the BDS movement,” Lapid said.
Breaking the Silence is a controversial left-wing organization that aims “to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories,” the group’s website states.

Why I Am a Proud, Queer, Jewish ‘Pinkwasher’

In 2008, I emerged from the largest and scariest closet I have ever lived inside: I came out as a proud, queer, Jewish “pinkwasher.”
I am now the pro-Zionist Jewish lesbian who cheers loudly for the Israeli LGBT delegation at Gay Pride parades. Meanwhile, other queer parade-goers, showing their reflexive antisemitic and anti-Israel animus, boo and heckle while moving away from me, my wife and my friends, treating us like ignorant pariahs within our supposedly collectively oppressed community.
I am now the lesbian who, as a professor, regularly shows Israeli LGBT films in my class in queer literature and film, including Keep Not Silent (2004, dir. Llil Alexander), about Orthodox lesbians, and The Bubble (2006, dir. Eylan Fox), about a love affair between an Israeli and Palestinian gay man.
I am the lesbian professor who, when teaching sexuality and ethics, discusses the legal landscape for LGBTQ persons in the Middle East. In Egypt, same-sex sexual relations are punishable by 17 years in prison with hard labor; in Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and the UAE by flogging, the death penalty by hanging or decapitation, or both; in Iraq and Jordan, while such relations have been decriminalized, honor killings, abuse and silencing remain common.

IsraellyCool: George Galloway Humiliated On Twitter Yet Again

Over a year ago, the anti-Zionist-not-antisemitic George Galloway held a Q&A on Twitter with the hashtag #AskGalloway. You might recall hilarity ensued.
Apparently, a year is long enough time to forget what happened, because Galloway decided to do it all again, albeit with a brand new hashtag #AskGeorge.
You won’t believe what happens next (naa, you will).

Major Jewish Organization Condemns New York Times Smear of the Orthodox

After an Algemeiner article on Wednesday highlighted a New York Times dispatch that gratuitously mentioned the religion of two businessmen related to an FBI corruption investigation of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is weighing in, describing the reference as “disturbing” and “irresponsible.”
In a statement, the New York regional director of the ADL, Evan Bernstein, said:
It is disturbing that the reporters and editors at the New York Times thought it relevant to identify the religious affiliation of two businessmen, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, whose gifts to NYPD are allegedly being investigated by the F.B.I.
Why was it necessary to refer to them as ‘Orthodox?’ The controversy surrounding the investigation has nothing to do with religion, and we believe that listing Rechnitz’s and Reichberg’s religion as part of the story was irresponsible.

Misleading headline + obfuscation of BDS activist extremism = Guardian anti-Israel bias

In an article published in the books section of their website, the Guardian did what it always does – amplifying the efforts of marginal, extremist anti-Israel bigots who wish to completely boycott, isolate and ostracize the world’s only Jewish state. In this particular case, some writers associated with PEN American Center signed a letter objecting to Israeli sponsorship of an upcoming PEN literary festival (The World Voice Festival). Among the signatories is Ahmed Qatamesh, who was previously involved with the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Alice Walker.
The effort to remove Israel’s sponsorship of the event was soundly rejected by the organization.
Moreover, if you doubt our characterization of Walker as an extremist, here a few quotes by the celebrated author.
“Jesus, a Palestinian – is still being crucified.” (Alice Walker’s blog, per CAMERA)
“[Israeli] settlers are the [Ku Klux] Klan” (Alice Walker, during interview with Jesse Rosenfeld.)
“I think Israel is the greatest terrorist in that part of the world. And I think in general, the United States and Israel are great terrorist organizations themselves.” (Alice Walker, Foreign Policy, in June, 2011.)

House of Commons event hosted by Labour MP compromised by extremism

At an event in the House of Commons organised by the Palestine Return Centre entitled “Challenging the Narrative: the Obstacles in Advocating for Palestinian Rights”. Kamel Hawwash, British-Palestinian professor & Vice Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign went to great pains to say he was speaking in a purely personal capacity.
He was speaking in a personal capacity while calling a murderer called Mohammad Halabi a martyr. So to be clear the vice chair of the PSC was absolutely not calling the man who murdered Rabbi Nemia Levi and Aharon Benito and wounded Benito’s wife and shot their two-year old daughter in the leg a martyr.
It would be interesting to hear whether the PSC really do think these kinds of comments are beyond the fold or whether they support the words of their Vice Chair. But obviously we already know. What’s tragic is that no one will be surprised or even think these particular comments are surprising. They have become depressingly normal. One might argue that the biggest struggle in the campaign for Palestinian human rights is that the chief campaigners can’t seem to get away from praising murder and campaigning for…well…Palestinian human rights.
Jenny Tonge popped her head around the door of the same meeting to say the following:
“I said that the trouble is with Israel now days is it’s simply not Kosher…it is not behaving like Jewish people…to me it has no relationship at all towards Judaism…”

Austria Sees 80 Percent Rise in Antisemitic Incidents

The number of antisemitic incidents that occurred last year in Austria increased by more than 80 percent from 2014, the Austrian Forum Against Antisemitism said on Wednesday.
The Austrian organization, which has been monitoring antisemitic incidents since 2003, said that 465 such incidents were recorded last year, among them 200 relating to Internet postings. The number of anti-Jewish Internet posts that could potentially be classified as criminal doubled from 2014 to 2015, according to an Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“There is an increasing concern in our community that — if the proportion of Muslims in Austria continues to rise due to immigration, due to the refugees — this could become problematic for us,” Jewish Communities of Austria Secretary General Raimund Fastenbauer said.
There are 15,000 Jews living in Austria.

Beloved crooner Barry Manilow announces Israel gig

Beloved iconic crooner Barry Manilow looks to be heading to Israel this summer for a concert on June 30, according to his official Facebook page.
A black-and-white poster stating “MANILOW ISRAEL JUNE” appeared on the singer’s Facebook page Wednesday.
When fans commented that it was too good to be true, and that tickets hadn’t yet gone on sale for a concert in two months, there was a response from Manilow’s Facebook page stating the date of the concert, June 30.
The Facebook page further stated that the show would be listed on Manilow’s official website and local ticket sites as soon as the tickets go on sale.

How to build an emergency field hospital in 12 hours

When disaster strikes, Israel’s government, army and aid agencies are always among the first to send material and expert assistance, whether it’s earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal, tsunamis in Sri Lanka and Japan, typhoon in the Philippines or other mass disasters in Turkey, India, Mexico, El-Salvador, Greece, Rwanda, Armenia, Indonesia and New Guinea.
If local hospitals are out of commission or overwhelmed, the Israel Defense Forces can get a field hospital functioning within 12 hours of arriving at the setup site, an awe-inspiring feat of logistics unmatched by other countries.
How do they do it?
ISRAEL21c asked Prof. Kobi Peleg, a world-renowned expert on disaster management and a veteran of numerous Israeli medical aid missions spanning from the Armenian earthquake in 1988 to the Nepal earthquake in 2015.
The short explanation is the IDF’s combination of experience, systematic precision and extraordinarily motivated and qualified personnel, says Peleg, who directs the Israeli National Center for Trauma and Emergency Medicine Research and chairs Tel Aviv University’s English and Hebrew master’s programs in emergency and disaster management.

Israeli doctors, spies rally to save 5-year-old Syrian girl

Almost from the start of the bloody conflict raging in Syria, Israel has agreed to treat in its hospitals any wounded Syrians who reached its border seeking help.
But one five-year-old girl from the war-torn land has led doctors, as well as Israel’s security services, to take unprecedented steps to try to save her life.
The girl arrived at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa in recent weeks with very serious wounds that she received after finding herself caught in a firefight between rival militias, according to an exclusive report Wednesday night on Channel 10.
Some two weeks after she arrived at the hospital, after her wounds had nearly healed, Rambam doctors discovered the young girl had cancer.
They refused to release her, insisting that they could not let her cancer go untreated. The girl had grown used to the hospital, and had friends among the other children being treated there, they said.
Security officials agreed.

Ilan Ramon’s widow to light Independence Day torch

The torch lighters for 2016:
Rona Ramon is the widow of Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut who was killed upon return from a 16-day journey in space aboard the American space shuttle Columbia in 2003. People around the world watched in horror as the shuttle disintegrated upon re-entering the earth’s atmosphere on a live TV broadcast. Ramon and all six of his crewmates were killed. Six years later, Rona’s oldest son, Asaf, who had followed in his father’s footsteps to become an Israeli air force fighter pilot, was killed in a training accident.
Herzl Biton, a Tel Aviv bus driver, fought off a Palestinian terrorist during a stabbing attack last January. The 62-year-old Biton wrestled with the 23-year-old attacker while managing to get the doors of the bus open, allowing passengers to escape. Biton, who was critically injured in the attack, then got off the bus and chased the terrorist on foot.
Aid worker Gabi Barsheshit, coordinated and led Israeli humanitarian efforts to Nepal after a deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake ravaged the Asian country last year. Barsheshit lead the Joint Israelife Disaster Response team, which included members from Israeli rescue organizations ZAKA, United Hatzolah and F.I.R.S.T in the earthquake-damaged regions west of Kathmandu, and aided in searches for missing Israeli tourists.

Albert Einstein attacked the US for failing to stop Nazi Germany and claimed White House was 'controlled by near fascist financiers', private letter reveals

Albert Einstein privately criticized the US for not doing enough to defeat Nazi Germany in a never-before-seen letter he sent to a colleague.
The German-born, Jewish scientist believed his adopted homeland would have failed to confront Nazi Germany if Hitler were not a lunatic, intent on world domination.
He also suggested that for the first part of Second World War the White House was 'controlled by near fascist financiers' who sided with the Nazi regime, which was why the US did not enter the war until December 1941.
The physicist's opinions have been revealed after the 1942 letter he wrote while at Princeton University emerged at auction for £30,000.
It was sent to the university's president, Dr Frank Kingdon, who shared Einstein's concerns.
It was never meant for public eyes as at the time of writing America had giving Einstein shelter from fascist persecution in Nazi Germany. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Holocaust survivor hosts Reddit forum, describes hell of Nazi camps

A 92-year-old survivor of seven German concentration camps participated in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” question-and-answer session, detailing his harrowing near-death to liberation story.
Henry Flescher of Aventura, Florida, participated in the forum with the help of his grandson, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Wednesday. He had not heard of the social news-sharing site Reddit before the session earlier this week.
“Most people are never happy and complain too much,” Flescher said. “It’s too hot out, it’s too cold out. Life is beautiful, no need to complain so much.”
Flescher, a native of Vienna, escaped to France during World War II but was captured in Lyon. He spent the next three years in the Nazi camps, including Auschwitz.
He described being transported to a camp by a cattle car packed with prisoners and one bucket to use as a toilet.
“The smell was unfathomable,” Flescher said.
After enduring six days in the car, 300 prisoners were taken off the train and the others were shipped off to be killed at Auschwitz. Flescher said he was number 298.

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