04/08 Links Pt2: UN Agency Manipulates Data To Demonize Israel; Sanders again inflates Gaza civilian death toll ~ EoZ

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: UN Agency Regularly Manipulates Data To Make Israel Look Bad

NGO Monitor on Thursday released a report highly critical of a UN agency deemed so biased in Jerusalem that the Foreign Ministry, according to diplomatic sources, stopped cooperating with it in any meaningful way several years ago.
The organization is the Jerusalem-based UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OCHA oPt).
According to the NGO Monitor report, the group “regularly presents data in a manipulative way that erases the context of terrorism and distorts law and morality.”
OCHA fails to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and attackers, thereby amplifying Palestinian casualty claims, and drawing a false symmetry between legal Israeli self-defense and illegal attacks by terrorists, the report stated.
As an example the report highlighted OCHA’s weekly “protection of civilians report” for the period of February 2-8.
“OCHA presents pie charts purporting to show the number of ‘Palestinian fatalities by Israeli forces in the oPt.’ Yet, this data as presented does not provide any information as to how the fatalities took place, including how many of the fatalities occurred while Palestinians were attempting to murder Israeli civilians or engaged in violent confrontations with Israeli law enforcement,” the report said. “As a result, it is impossible to make any meaningful assessments from OCHA’s figures.”

Sanders again inflates Gaza civilian death toll, though he’s getting closer

A day after he acknowledged that he got his numbers wrong when suggesting Israel killed over 10,000 Palestinian civilians during the 2014 war with Hamas, Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders again cited an incorrect and inflated figure for the civilian death toll in a US television interview.
On Thursday, Sanders and his campaign had belatedly acknowledged that the 10,000 figure he twice cited in a New York Daily News interview was wrong — actually some seven times the figure cited by the United Nations and Gaza’s Hamas rulers. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Sanders told its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt that he had accepted a correction provided during the course of that interview, and that he would henceforth “make every effort to set the record straight.”
Speaking on MSNBC on Friday morning, however, Sanders again cited an incorrect figure — though far less inflated this time. Acknowledging that he hadn’t known “the exact number” when he spoke to the New York Daily News, Sanders said that, “according to the United Nations, over 2,000 civilians were killed” in the war, and repeated his allegation that Israel’s military actions were “disproportionate.”
In fact, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) puts the Gaza civilian death toll in the 2014 war at 1,423, while Gaza’s terrorist rulers Hamas cite a similar number of 1,462. Israel has argued that the figure for civilian deaths is likely lower, since Hamas fought out of uniform in some cases and also had an interest in misrepresenting dead gunmen as civilians. Israel has also stressed that Hamas deliberately placed Gaza civilians in harm’s way, by emplacing its rocket launchers and terror tunnel openings in civilian areas.
The overall death toll in Gaza — of combatants and non-combatants — was 2,205, according to the UN. That figure is presumably the source of Sanders’ ongoing confusion.

IsraellyCool: How Did Bernie Get His Gaza Numbers So Wrong?

There are two reasons for this and they are interconnected.
The first is found in Sanders’s own words where he asserts that “the attacks against Gaza were indiscriminate and that a lot of innocent people were killed who should not have been killed” and that “a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed. So yeah, I do believe and I don’t think I’m alone in believing that Israel’s force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.” If the Senator’s beliefs matched reality, it would certainly make sense to assume Israel killed over 10,000 innocent civilians. If Israel attacked Gaza indiscriminately, hitting houses and hospitals left and right, it would be actually be remarkable if the number of dead was as low as 10,000. One would think that when confronted with the fact that his numbers were eight times higher than the actual numbers, he would ask himself “how is that possible? How could so few civilians have been killed if Israel was attacking indiscriminately and hitting apartments and hospitals? That would be impossible. It must not be true after all.” But of course facts have no place in the anti-Israel mindset, so instead of apologizing for slandering Israel and falsely accusing it of war crimes and genocide, his campaign just says he mixed up some numbers.
The second reason it was so easy for Sanders to believe Israel had killed so many innocent civilians is because of the incessant and obsessive anti-Israel coverage of the media. Every movement the IDF made and every sortie conducted by the IAF was endlessly covered and condemned. Massive protests swept through major cities around the world with an anger that could only be justified if Israel were in fact slaughtering thousands of civilians. The only way any of this could be partially forgiven would be if the media covered similar conflicts the same way or if the same angry protestors took to the streets to protest other wars. But of course this does not happen. The savagery of the Islamic State doesn’t get people to take to the streets no matter how many people they butcher in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria. When was the last time you saw a protest about the Saudi occupation of Yemen? Even Russian tanks pouring over the Ukrainian border and into Europe itself don’t get the coverage, let alone the anger, that Israeli defensive actions against a genocidal terrorist group does. The Senator no doubt got his understanding of Operation Protective Edge from the media, which blasted Israel 24/7 for “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate” attacks on Gaza. If he wasn’t a Senator running for the most powerful office in the world, one could almost excuse him for assuming the obsessive coverage and anger correlated to reality.

As one Jewish group praises Sanders’ Gaza backtrack, second says he has more to clarify

The Anti-Defamation League on Thursday afternoon said it “welcomed” the senator’s admission that his charge that Israel killed 10,000 innocents in Gaza was incorrect. (That number, cited twice by Sanders in a New York Daily News interview before he accepted a correction, is about seven times higher than the Hamas tally. His campaign later said he had conflated the number of dead with the number of total victims.)
But soon afterwards, the American Jewish Committee urged the senator to also “clarify his charge that Israel’s self-defensive response to deadly Hamas rocket fire and tunnel attacks that summer was ‘indiscriminate.'”
“Senator Sanders, in repeatedly calling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘indiscriminate,’ has leveled a serious charge against Israel,” said AJC CEO David Harris. “This accusation flies in the face of everything we know — and military leaders around the world have testified — about Israel’s extraordinary care in fighting terrorists embedded in civilian populations.”

LISTEN - Breitbart’s Aaron Klein: Sanders Anti-Israel Views Go ‘Even Beyond Hamas Terrorist Propaganda’

Klein retorted, “Even Hamas, in their most exaggerated claims of Palestinian casualties, are putting it at 2,500.”
“I remind everybody that Hamas used civilians as human shields, used mosques to store rockets. Even fired rockets, by the way, from the main Gaza hotel where the journalists were staying. So they put reporters in danger… Bernie Sanders, I don’t know where you get your information from, but apparently its even beyond Hamas terrorist propaganda.”
Klein was speaking during his weekly segment on John Batchelor’s popular national radio show.
Klein noted that Sanders referenced Israel’s bombing of a hospital but he left out that the IDF bombed an Gaza’s empty Al-Wafa Hospital, saying it was being used as a Hamas terrorist command center. No casualties were reported in the bombing, and Israel first fired numerous warning shots and ensured that the building was evacuated.

Elders of Zion Admit, “This Year’s US Presidential Candidates Were Not Our Best Choices” (satire)

At their regular gathering inside a secret club at Mount Megiddo in northern Israel, the group of elderly male Jews who secretly control everything in the world mumbled to each other that, maybe, just maybe, they should have vetted a little better before anointing the next leader of the free world.
“Hey, don’t blame me, I voted for the Jay-z/Beyonce option,” muttered Rabbi Goldberg, Head of World Religion Manipulation.
Both the Leader of World Corporate Affairs and the owner of Hollywood nodded in assent. “We should have let Clinton win in 2008. Why did we think Obama was a good idea?” asked Controller of Global Markets, as they heard one of their drones buzz overhead on its way to Pakistan.
“Whose idea was this whole Trump fiasco anyway?” Director of World Leaders and Tzar of Global Media demanded.

The Holocaust, the Left, and the Return of Hate

Over the past few years, a palpable sense of alarm has been quietly growing amongst Jews on the European Left. At the heart of an often-fraught relationship lies the following dilemma: The vast majority of Jews are Zionist, and the vast majority of Left-wing opinion is not.
But the problem goes beyond the question of Israel itself. It also involves a general sense that the Left is unconcerned with Jewish interests and unwilling to take the matter of rising anti-Semitism seriously, preferring instead to dismiss it as a consequence of Israeli policies or a censorious attempt to close down discussion of the same. The horror with which many Jews greeted the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party was outstripped only by the realization that his supporters felt that his fondness for the company of anti-Semites was unworthy of their concern.
This is a complex subject, with roots that stretch back to the beginning of the last century. I have attempted to outline in necessarily broad fashion some of the trends of thought that have informed the relationship between Jews and the Left, as well as the shifting attitudes towards Israel in particular. In doing so, I hope to shed some light on their implications.
The key question facing the European Left is whether or not it can change in such a way that Jews can once again feel part of the Left’s political family. Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future the answer to that question appears to be no.

The UN, Morocco, and the One-Sided Preoccupation with Occupation

Last month, while visiting refugee camps in southern Algeria, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described Morocco’s 1975 annexation of Western Sahara as “occupation.” In doing so, he broke an unspoken UN rule.
Allegations of occupation are not used when describing China’s relationship with Tibet, nor Russia’s relationship with Ukraine, nor Turkey’s relationship with Cyprus—and as the Secretary-General learned, nor Morocco’s relationship with Western Sahara.
At the UN, allegations of occupation are solely reserved for Israel. This helps explain Morocco’s furious response. The government ordered the UN to withdraw dozens of staffers from its peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara and threatened to pull its soldiers and police from international peacekeeping missions.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric couldn’t backpedal fast enough. He told reporters that Ban’s “use of the word was not planned, nor was it deliberate. It was a spontaneous, personal reaction. We regret the misunderstandings and consequences that this personal expression of solicitude provoked.”
Refusing to be mollified, Morocco’s foreign ministry accused the Secretary-General of impartiality and released a statement saying, “At this level of responsibility, words have meaning, political and legal consequences, and personal opinions have no place.”

‘Anonymous’ hackers attacks on Israel more hype than harm

The cyber attacks launched by the anti-Israel hacker-group ‘Anonymous’ are more hype than harm, according to Israeli cyber security experts, who claim that media coverage is fomenting unnecessary fear out of sync with the reality of the threat.
Anonymous, a loosely-organized hacking collective that has gone after targets ranging from PayPal to ISIS, has tried to breach Israeli websites annually on April 7, beginning in 2013 when it launched its campaign against Israel on the country’s Holocaust Memorial Day. This year it has threatened to carry out cyber attacks on government offices and to leak personal details of Israeli citizens in an operation dubbed “Operation Israel.”
While so far there have been minor leaks of Israelis’ credit card details taken from poorly secured websites, experts claim that Anonymous has proven to be a relatively amateur organization incapable of breaching Israel’s highly secured internet systems.
Jonathan Glinger, a cyber law attorney, dismisses the threat as unwarranted hysteria. “Each year we see the same thing,” Glinger said. “Anonymous has a list of websites it says it has defaced or is attacking and when you go through all of them you see that some may have been temporarily disrupted but they are up and running again very quickly," he said.

Cyber-Security Expert: More Damage Done to Israeli Economy by Daily Hacking Than Annual #OpIsrael Attack

Over a 24-hour period, a mass cyberattack against Israeli government and private business websites was launched by the hacker group “Anonymous,” the Hebrew news site nrg reported on Thursday.
Threats about the annual attack – dubbed #OpIsrael — which has taken place on April 7 every year since 2013 — were widely circulated on social media during the past few weeks, as The Algemeiner reported on Sunday.
These involved claiming that the purpose of the attack is “to punish the Zionist entity for continuing its murderous assaults and crimes against humanity that it commits against the Palestinian people.”
But Gai Monorov, deputy chairman of the Israeli branch of the global non-profit organization ISAC (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) told nrg that far “more significant damage is caused to the Israeli economy from ongoing daily attacks on tens of thousands of computers in [the country].”

San Francisco State: Yet another shout down of Israeli speaker (Update)

UPDATE: The President of SFSU issued a strong statement after the disruption:
April 7, 2016
Dear SF State Community,
I am concerned for the state of civil discourse on our campus. There have been a number of events this academic year which have caused me to think extensively about our values and our mission.
Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem was invited to speak yesterday on campus by SF Hillel, a student organization. The Mayor’s talk, held at Seven Hills, was disrupted by a small but loud group of protesters.
Members of our community who attended the event were deprived of an opportunity to hear from the Mayor.
As an inclusive academic institution, we strive to make San Francisco State University a welcoming environment for all. Students are encouraged to engage in thoughtful and respectful dialogue about difficult or controversial issues and, at the same time, to respect the rights of others to do the same. While there is a right to dissent, we must also uphold the right to speak and to learn.

IsraellyCool: J Street Columbia Falsely Accuses Mayor Nir Barkat of Incitement

In his talk, Barkat spoke of building bridges, promoting business, equality between Jews and Arabs, and strengthening Jerusalem’s tech, culture, and tourism sectors.
Thats why I was shocked and appalled to see J Street Columbia’s post in response to Barkat’s talk, which was so far from the truth, I felt like they were listening to a completely different guy. If anyone here ever had any lingering suspicion that J Street was pro-Israel as they say they are, it will be erased by this post, which struck me as highly reminiscent of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Jewish pro-BDS collective.

Brandeis Study Evaluates Jewish College Students' Knowledge on Israel

A study published in October 2015 by researchers at Brandeis University sought to evaluate knowledge of Israel among Jewish college students. The study, titled the Israel Literacy Measurement Project: 2015, reveals the students' limited knowledge. The survey contained 92 questions including the Middle East Conflict, Geography, History, Government, Religion and Society, Economy and Culture.
642 students were tested in April-June 2014. Most of the survey respondents were first or second year students at 20 selected universities. The average score on the test was 46% correct. Only 8% got more than 3/4 correct.
Student scores from the different schools showed a wide range, from 27% to 59% correct. However, the students from schools considered more selective only did a little better than students from schools considered less selective (49% versus 43%).
Surprisingly, those students who previously had some form of Jewish education only did slightly better (47% versus 42%) than students who stated that they had no prior Jewish education. This result reinforces concern that the Jewish education many children receive is lacking in substance.

How Pro-Israel Students at UCLA Are Taking Back Their Campus

Over the past few years, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been making headlines — but not only for academic or athletic achievement. Acts of antisemitism and anti-Zionism have been rampant among the school’s press clippings, adding UCLA to the long list of American colleges that have made many Jewish students feel unwelcome and, at times, fearful to be on campus.
For the past few weeks, anti-Israel forces have staged Israeli Apartheid Week, an annual global event on 150 campuses that vilifies the Jewish state in an attempt to paint Israel as an “oppressive” entity that engages in South African-style “apartheid policies.” A recent study by the anti-Semitism watchdog group AMCHA Initiative reveals that 99 percent of campuses that host anti-Israel groups and/or events have experienced anti-Semitic activity.
But Jewish and pro-Israel students at UCLA are taking back their campus. Bruins for Israel (BFI) and Students Supporting Israel (SSI) organized “Israel Unity Week” in an effort to “bring different people together.”

Pass the Popcorn: Stanford SJP cancels Nakba tour because of Alison Weir's participation

Paul Larudee has friends in all the wrong places. He's hobnobbed with Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. He sat cheering in the audience while fellow flotidiot Ken O'Keefe regaled the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists with fake Talmud quotes and blood libel. And he is a vocal supporter and promoter of white supremacist Alison Weir.
According to Paul, Stanford Students for Just Us in Palestine cancelled a presentation on the so-called Nakba at the eleventh hour because of Alison Weir's participation. The talk was arranged by the Free Palestine Movement, the ISM – Northern California and the al-Awda Palestine right to Return Coalition.
Yep. Alison Weir is so caustic, so toxic, she's been rejected by SJP. Ponder that, and pass the popcorn.

What anti-Zionism means on campus

Imagine being a Jewish student in this environment; where your student union neglects its duty of care for all students, in order to wade in on a foreign policy decision that specifically targets your homeland as opposed to the rife abuse that goes on in countries run by despotic regimes and megalomaniacal dictators. It is even more ironic that in an age when micro-aggressions are highlighted and safe-spaces enforced, the concerns of Jewish students are routinely ignored and clumped together with the despised ‘white privilege’ class, despite Jews coming from an array of backgrounds.
The hostile anti-Israel environment dovetails with a penchant, on the part of student unions, to welcome speakers with questionable motives. The UCL student union, in their resistance to the government’s Prevent strategy, invited Moazzam Begg of CAGE, a man who only recently at Exeter University refused to condemn the stoning of women for adultery. Inviting in extremist speakers is part of a two-way street to monopolise the discourse on matters relating to Islamist extremism. Speakers are also being banned. A prominent example this past year was the case of Macer Gifford. Gifford, who fought against ISIL with the Peshmerga, was no-platformed because, according to the Sabbatical Officer at UCL, “there are two sides to every conflict.” A UCL Quilliam society was also blocked from union affiliation, because of the shaky rationale that its principles are somehow already covered in Debating Society- rendered a moot point by the President of Debating Society himself. As Haydar Zaki of Quilliam pointed out, Amnesty International society covers women’s rights so by logical extension, why have a Feminist society?
Amid the spread of antisemitism on campuses across the UK in addition to the increasing curtailment of free speech, there is a growing fightback among students. With the launch of the Right2Debate campaign, students are starting to fight back for the rights of all students to express their views and to stand-up for a level debating field on campus.

High School students play ‘Jews vs Nazis’ beer pong

Parents and students from Princeton, New Jersey, have expressed outrage after a group of students posted photos on social media playing a game of “Jew vs Nazi” beer pong.
The twisted game is similar to the popular drinking game except the cups are arranged in the shape of a swastika and a Star of David. Other rules include the “Anne Frank” move, in which the Jewish team can hide one of their cups, and the “Auschwitz” move in which the Nazi team can make one of their opponents sit out for a period of time.
The photo of the Princeton High students was sent to Planet Princeton by upset parents on Wednesday. Moreover, parents and students at the school have identified students in the photo as athletes and peer leaders.
Fellow classmate Jamaica Ponder expressed shame and disgust for the actions of her classmates. “I’m not even Jewish and I’m still offended.”

British Jewish Leader Attacks Labour Leader’s ‘Deeply Disturbing’ Defense of Brother’s ‘Belittling of Antisemitism Problem’

The head of UK Jewry’s umbrella organization railed against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday for defending derogatory comments his brother made against a politician who called on the party to take more actions against antisemitism in it ranks.
Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews issued a statement in response to what he called Corbyn’s “deeply disturbing” defense of his brother’s “belittling of the problem of antisemitism.”
The controversy in question arose after Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman called on her party to take more action against the growing phenomenon of antisemitism in its ranks, and said that doing so was “not just about words.” Reacting to this, Corbyn’s brother, Piers, called her pleas “absurd” on Twitter on Sunday, and added, “All #Corbyns are committed #AntiNazi. #Zionists cant cope with anyone supporting rights for #Palestine.” The tweet has since been deleted.
In an interview with The Sun, the Labour leader defended these remarks, saying Piers “isn’t wrong” for speaking out against Ellman’s comments. He said, “My brother has his point of view, I have mine and we actually fundamentally agree — we are a family that were brought up fighting racism from the day we were born.”

Muslim London mayoral candidate slams Labour over anti-Semitism

The Labour Party candidate in London’s mayoral race, a Muslim, said he is “embarrassed” and “sorrowful” about his party’s failure to take on anti-Semitism.
Sadiq Khan, who is of Pakistani descent, said Tuesday in a speech at a London Jewish community center that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn needs to be “trained about what anti-Semitism is,” Newsweek reported.
Labour has come under increasing criticism for its perceived tolerance of members who make anti-Semitic remarks. In an Op-Ed in The Telegraph last Friday headlined “Labour has a serious anti-Semitism problem,” Board of Deputies of British Jews President Jonathan Arkush criticized Corbyn for failing to adequately address the issue.
Last week, the same British newspaper reported that an activist who has described his critics as “Zio idiots” and “Zionist scum,” and has claimed that Jews supported Nazi Germany’s Nuremburg Laws, had been allowed into the party after previously being barred.

Vox’s April Fools’ Day ‘Reporting’ on Palestinian Terror Attacks

Facts? Who needs 'em?
These are the facts as presently known. They were not, however, what Vox wrote about. Instead, Fisher attempted to link the March 24, 2016 terrorist attacks in Hebron to an unrelated, nearly two-year-old police shooting in the United States, Ferguson, Mo. In that highly publicized case, police officer Darrell Wilson shot his assailant Michael Brown. A U.S. Department of Justice investigation determined Wilson acted in self-defense. Fisher sought to craft a false Hebron-Ferguson narrative via steady omission of facts, context and rampant mischaracterizations.
Fisher began by misleadingly describing Hebron as a “West Bank city [that] has been divided, since 1997, by an arrangement that grants 20 percent of the land to a handful of Jewish settlers.” It is, the Vox reporter claims, the “Israel-Palestine conflict in its purest and most crushing manifestation.”
The Vox writer omits that the 80 percent of Hebron is ruled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and has been since January 1997, when the IDF withdrew from that much of the Hebron municipal territory in keeping with the September 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo II) between Israel and the PA (“Hebron: History and Overview,” Jewish Virtual Library).

David Singer: Internet Manipulation Fuels Anti-Israel and Anti-Jewish Hatred

Internet manipulation of readers’ comments in response to articles published on overtly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish web sites is allowing those web sites to spew out their venom unchecked and uncontrolled.
Freedom of speech on these web sites is non-existent – and its absence is playing a large part in influencing the opinions of those who visit these sites and see no readers’ comments that act as a counterbalance or rebuttal to the article published or readers’ comments supporting such articles.
Such manipulation has until now taken either of the following forms:
1. Simply not publishing a reader’s comment.
The editor can claim to exercise editorial control of what appears on his web-site – and there is nothing you can really do about it.
I received this treatment when seeking to comment on the decision by McGraw Hill to trash the remaining copies of a text book, Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World – after four maps of “Palestine” in 1946, 1947, 1948-1967 and 2000 were subsequently determined by McGraw Hill to be inaccurate and misleading.
My comment detailing why McGraw Hill’s decision was justified was not published.
This rejection motivated me to write an article “Palestine – Internet Intifada Denies Free Speech” – which was published on many web sites – and subsequently went viral.

Monica Lewinsky tackles cyber hate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky addressed the thorny topic of cyber hate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when she moderated a short panel at the Forbes 30 under 30 Summit, which met Wednesday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Lewinsky is an advocate against bullying, because of the personal attacks against her in the aftermath of her affair with then-US president Bill Clinton in the mid- 1990s.
“I came to be interested in the topic of bullying because of experiences that I had in the late 1990s. And if you do not know what I am talking about, please do not Google it,” she told the audience as she sat on an outdoor stage in the museum’s Billy Rose Art Garden.
Stretched in front of her were dozens of young entrepreneurs sitting on cushions and bean bags, set up under white umbrellas and a straw carpets spread out across the grounds.
The question is, Lewinsky said, “how can good people who have different views engage in civil dialogue.

The BBC Gaza interviewee and the dead terrorist conspiracy theories

The day after Zayad’s death the US-based ‘Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network’ issued an appeal to members of the European Parliament in which it was claimed that Israel had murdered him and the day before that Samidoun’s New York based ‘organiser‘ Joe Catron had put out a statement in which – just hours after the event – he claimed that Zayad had been ‘assassinated’ by Israel.
It was of course not in the least bit surprising to see ISM member and professional anti-Israel activist Joe Catron propelling the bandwagon of unproven defamatory smears against Israel.
It is however worth remembering that on two occasions during the summer of 2014, the BBC promoted content based on claims made by Catron without making any effort to comply with its own editorial guidelines on impartiality which stipulate that the agenda and ‘standpoint’ of interviewees should be made clear to audiences.
On July 31st 2014 the BBC World Service aired an interview with Catron in which he told BBC audiences that Hamas was not using Gaza hospitals for military purposes.
On August 13th 2014 BBC News aired a report by Orla Guerin which showcased an unsubstantiated video produced and promoted by Catron under the heading “Allegations of war crimes”.

Belgian police nab Paris suspect, thought to be Brussels ‘man in the hat’

A fugitive suspect in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks was arrested in Belgium on Friday, French police officials said, after a raid Belgian authorities said was linked to the deadly March 22 Brussels bombings.
The suspect, Mohamed Abrini, is believed to be the mysterious “man in the hat” who escaped the double bombing at the Zaventem airport in Brussels, according to one of the French officials. If true, that would mean Abrini had a key role in both attacks carried out by the Islamic State cell that left a total of 162 people dead — 130 in Paris and 32 in Brussels.
The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity to offer details about the ongoing Belgian investigation, which has also involved French anti-terror police.
Friday’s arrest of at least two people came a day after Belgian authorities released photos and video of the airport suspect.

ISIS cell with weapons cache busted in Copenhagen

Copenhagen police said Thursday they had detained four people on suspicion of joining the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria, and seized weapons and ammunition in a search linked to the arrests.
All four were suspected of breaking Denmark's terrorism law while in Syria, and were arrested in the Copenhagen area, police said in a statement without giving any further information on their identities.
"The suspects have been identified through investigations carried out in close cooperation between the Danish Security and Intelligence Service and Copenhagen police," the statement said.
Under Danish terrorism law, "letting oneself be recruited to commit acts of (terrorism)" is punishable with up to six years in jail.

Saudi TV Host Nadine Al-Budair: The Terrorists Emerged from Our Schools and Universities

The Waltham Forest Islamic Association: Conspiracy Theories, Antisemitism, and Rejection of the West

Antisemitism
In this kind of world the Jews are sure to be prominent. Indeed, here they are in another “Road 2 Reality” talk at the mosque. The “sick” Rothschild family owns 94% of the world’s wealth, controls world leaders as puppets, and “sponsors” wars, including both world wars.
There’s plenty more where this poisonous talk came from. Here Shareef warns his Waltham Forest audience that the End Times danger is very, very near. When it comes, it will be controlled from Israel, of course. He goes on to say Israel was actually created by the devil.
In yet another rant at the mosque, Shareef seethes with disappointment in today’s Muslims, for they are feeble, weak, and deficient. They love the life of this world and fear death. This is deeply shameful, for that is what the Jews (the Yahood) are like.

Auschwitz guard dies a week before trial

A former SS guard died a week before he was scheduled to go on trial for his alleged role in the murder of more than 1,000 people at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Ernest Tremmel’s death was announced Thursday. Tremmel, 93, was scheduled to go on trial in Hanau, Germany, on April 13. He was a member of the Auschwitz SS guard team from November 1942 to June 1943.
According to EFE Agency, Tremmel is believed to have died two days ago of natural causes.
Two other men and one woman in their 90s are accused of being accessories to the murder of hundreds of thousands of people at Auschwitz.
Two others — former paramedic Hubert Zafke, 95, and former guard Reinhold Hanning, 94 — are currently on trial.

Chinese conglomerate buys Ahava shares

China’s Fosun International reported to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Thursday morning that it agreed to buy a 15% stake in the Dead Sea cosmetics manufacturer Ahava from B. Gaon Holdings Ltd.
The 290 million shekel ($76 million) deal is expected to be signed on Sunday. Other major shareholders in Ahava include the US Shamrock Fund, the Livnat family and Kibbutz Mitzpeh Shalem.
Ahava, which manufactures skin care products from Dead Sea minerals and mud in 30 countries around the world, has been the target of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement due to the plant’s location along the Dead Sea at Kibbutz Mitzpeh Shalem, which lies over the 1949 Armistice lines.
While the company denies it is yielding to BDS pressure, it recently announced it may move its factory to an area outside of Kibbutz Ein Gedi.

Ethiopian aliyah to restart in June

Some 1,300 Ethiopians who claim Jewish descent will begin arriving in Israel in June, with 9,000 to come over the next five years, under a new Israeli government agreement.
The agreement to find money in the budget for the aliyah of the Ethiopians was signed Thursday, avoiding a government crisis.
Two Likud Party lawmakers had boycotted voting in the Knesset for the past two months over the dispute, leading to the failure of a party-sponsored bill. The coalition government has a one-vote majority in the Knesset.
The Knesset unanimously approved a plan in November 2015 to bring the remaining 9,000 Ethiopians who claim Jewish heritage following a public campaign launched by the Ethiopian community in Israel and volunteer organizations. The plan did not deal with the finances.
In February it was announced that the government approval to bring over the 9,000 Ethiopians, known as Falashmura, would be on hold indefinitely until the nearly $1 billion needed to fund the immigration was found in the budget.

German Passport World’s ‘Strongest,’ US Ranked 5th, Israel 17th

Their live global ranking of passports is updated as frequently as new visa waivers and changes are announced. Visitors to the Index website can dive in the fascinating world of passports, explore their designs, sort them by country, region and even by color, and compare passports side by side.
Germany’s passport, in first place, has the enviable visa-free score of 157, as does Sweden’s.
In the second rank are Finland, Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The US is down in 5th rank, with a visa-free score of 154, together with Singapore, Luxembourg, Austria and Portugal.
The Israeli passport does not fare so well, as was to be expected. It is ranked 17th in terms of its usefulness to its holders, with a visa free score of 138, together with Hong Kong, Chile, and San Marino.

Dry Bones Haggadah goes hardcover

Longtime Jerusalem Post illustrator Yaakov “Dry Bones” Kirschen has published his popular Passover Haggadah in a hardcover format ahead of the holiday this month.
The lavish Haggadah, generously annotated with Dry Bones cartoons, provides a complete, traditional text in Hebrew and English.
“I realized that I do cartoons for people based on the news, but the news keeps changing and life goes on, and ‘Dry Bones’ would like to talk not only to people today, but to comment on the Jewish experience of the past and to talk to generations coming after. The only way to do that is to talk to them when they’re sitting down at the Passover Seder because that’s the one time they’re all together,” said Kirschen.
This new hardcover printing of the 104- page book was designed by Jerusalem book designer S. Kim Glassman, with input from Tel Aviv painter and colorist Sali Ariel, Kirschen’s wife, business partner and editor.
For the page layout of the Dry Bones Haggadah the Dry Bones team decided to use a uniquely Jewish approach. It is modeled on the layout used by the pages of the Talmud; The main text appearing in the middle of the page being surrounded by commentary. In this Haggadah, the traditional text and translation appear in the middle of each page being surrounded by Dry Bones cartoon commentary.

Inside the IDF's Super-Secret Brain Trust

The success of Talpiot isn’t a fluke. It’s a proven formula that has worked over and over again for successful graduate after successful graduate. While the program itself and the reason for it – Israel’s security – can’t be emulated, many other aspects of it probably can.
But it requires a new way of thinking – an Israeli way of thinking. A way of thinking that doesn’t put so much pressure on immediate accomplishment and success. It’s a model where a subject is given the room and permission to fail, so long as the student or employee learns from that failure.
David Kutasov was an early graduate of the program who became a physics professor. After spending time at Princeton, he moved to the University of Chicago, where, he says, “I have the same job as Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, the weird skinny guy. My job is to find out how the universe came into being.”
He also has an easy way to explain why Talpiot is so successful compared to the American model of elite education.
Talpiot’s doctrine of high standards, high achievement, originality, and innovation has affected both Israel and the world. It has influenced all aspects of Israel’s military, but also civilian areas like health care, technology, and the sciences. It has produced a new intellectual and technological elite that has risen purely on merit. As such, it is a tribute to the Jewish state’s ability to foster talent and accomplishment that both protects its people and gives something back to the world at large.
There is only one area where Talpiot’s accomplishments have yet to have an impact: Politics. Given everything it has accomplished so far, however, people should keep an eye out. It’s probably coming soon.

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