11/12 Links: Glick: Israel in the Trump era; 500 Jewish mothers bake challah for IDF soldiers ~ EoZ

From Ian:

As I explained in my book The Israeli Solution – A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, there was a dismaying consistency in US policy toward Israel that ran from Bill Clinton’s administration through the George W. Bush administration and on to the Obama administration. At least since the Clinton years, the received wisdom of the American foreign policy elite has been that the US must seek to swiftly cause Israel to sign a deal with the PLO. The contours of the deal are similarly clear to all concerned. Israel must surrender control over all or most of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and transfer the areas, more or less Jew-free, to the PLO.
This bipartisan view is inherently hostile to Israel. It places all the responsibility for making peace on Israel. And as the sole responsible party, Israel is also the sole party that is guilty for the absence of peace. The flipside is similarly dismal. Palestinians are absolved of responsibility for terrorism, hatred and political warfare against Israel.
The anti-Israel hostility inherent in the two-state paradigm has brought on a situation where even pro-Israel US officials end up joining their anti-Israel colleagues in bearing down on Israel to act in ways that are inimical to both its national security and to the very concept of a US-Israel alliance. The foreign policy ruling class’s commitment to the two-state paradigm has blinded its members to Israel’s strategic importance to the US and caused them to see the US’s only stable ally in the region as a drag on US interests.
Many of Trump’s advisers, including Gingrich, who has been raised as a leading candidate to serve as either Trump’s White House chief of staff or as secretary of state, have rejected this received wisdom. In a Republican presidential debate in 2011, Gingrich referred to the Palestinians as an “invented people,” and noted that they indoctrinate their children to perceive Jews as subhuman and seek their annihilation. For his statement of fact, Gingrich was brutally assaulted by Democratic and Republican elites.
But he never rescinded his statement.
Trump’s election provides Israel with the first opportunity in 50 years to reshape its alliance with the US. This new alliance must be based on a common understanding and respect for what Israel has to offer the US as well as on the limits of what the US can offer Israel. The limits of US assistance are in large part the consequences of the many genies that Obama unleashed during the past eight years. And the opportunities will come more in areas related to Israel’s relations with the Palestinians and the political war being waged against it by the Europeans and the international Left than to the challenges posed by the ascendance of Islamism in the Middle East.
To be sure, Trump is inconsistent. But from what we do know we must recognize that his rise marks a deflection point in US history.
It is a rare moment where things that were unimaginable a month ago are possible. And if we play our cards right, like the American people, Israel stands to gain in ways we never dreamed of.

Trump and Netanyahu — a match made in heaven?

Would Netanyahu have preferred Clinton over Trump? We might never know.
But already, Israeli politicians to Netanyahu’s right, such as Naftali Bennett, are seizing on the Republican platform’s omission of a two-state solution — essentially trying to push Netanyahu into formally abandoning the idea, and preparing to undermine him from the right if he doesn’t. He can expect more pressure from the right, too, to expand settlements — once Trump is in the White House and such building may not be criticized as it routinely was under Obama. Netanyahu is wary about Palestinian statehood, and is a supporter of the settlement enterprise, of course, but he benefited, in the complex dance of domestic politics and regional diplomacy, from being able to find a middle path between the pro-peace-talks, anti-settlement US administration and the opposite stance of the political hawks at home. A president Clinton would have enabled him to chart a similar course, albeit with slightly greater empathy from Washington. A president Trump will likely give Netanyahu a freer hand — which, however paradoxically, might make life more complicated for him.
On Wednesday, the president-elect and the prime minister spoke on the phone for about 15 minutes. They exchanged pleasantries and discussed “regional issues,” according to Netanyahu’s office. Trump also invited Netanyahu to the White House “at the first opportunity.” Netanyahu gladly accepted.
Pretty soon, then, we might find out more of what Trump plans for the Middle East — if anything. We’ll also see how well the two men get along. And Netanyahu will have a better idea of whether president Trump is as “easy to work with” as Hillary Clinton would have been.

Trump's Israeli friend (and donor)

Donald Trump's Jewish connections extend beyond his converted daughter Ivanka. Businessman Yaakov Shaham is one of the few Israelis who can call themselves a friend of the American president-elect.
Shaham and his wife Helena own the Palace Group, a chain of prestigious senior living communities in Miami.
"The Donald Trump that I know is completely different from the Trump that yells at rallies and inflames the crowds," said Shaham. "Privately, Trump is much quieter, much more sensible, and also a very smart man with a great sense of humor. The man's a pal. He pats on the back. He'll take a picture with you, will talk with you eye-to-eye. He's just a completely different man behind closed doors."
He recounted, "I met Trump for the first time four years ago in Palm Beach at the golf course there. We chatted for a bit, had lunch, and that was it. Half a year before he decided to run in the election, when he finished renovated his resort in Doral in the Miami area, he invited me to play golf with him, and we played together for three hours. I was really impressed. He's a very positive man. From then, our relationship began to grow. We kept meeting every fortnight at the resort." (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Diplomacy: The Middle East according to Trump

Flynn has said he is helping Trump utilize “more precision in the use of the language that he uses as the potential leader of the free world.” Yet Flynn himself, in contrast to the Obama administration, has not hesitated to declare the battle against terrorism as a war on “radical Islam,” along with other comments critics say veer close to anti-Islamic sentiments.
Flynn might be considered circumspect compared to two names that have emerged as top contenders for next secretary of state: former GOP House speaker Newt Gingrich, and ex-US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
Bolton in particular, as a leading neo-conservative thinker, has a rich history of engagement with Mideast issues. Last April he penned a piece for The Washington Times titled “Revamping America’s Middle East Policy, post-Obama,” in which he wrote that, “The new president should, therefore, stress to Middle East friend and foe alike that America is not neutral in the region’s major, long-standing conflicts, and that a strong US political, economic and military presence in defense of its interests is a force for peace and stability.”
One way Bolton says this aim can be achieved is a “rear areas” strategy in the war on terrorism to reduce pressures faced by US allies. Bolton offers one particularly interesting example of this approach: “We must also help Egypt (and Israel) reimpose order on the Sinai Peninsula, perhaps readjusting the role of the Multilateral Force and Observers (created by the Camp David accords) to participate in anti-terrorism efforts.”
Its ideas such as that which emphasize the apparent clash between the “big footprint” approach favored by many of the figures now being tipped to play major roles in setting the Mideast policy for a Trump administration, and what appears to be the more cautious instincts of the president-elect himself.
Whichever outlook prevails in the next administration, a region that is already contending with no shortage of wrenching change from within, is also going to have to contend with some dramatic shifts in US policy beginning on January 20.

Politics: With Trump victory, has Netanyahu won the lottery?

Flynn has said he is helping Trump utilize “more precision in the use of the language that he uses as the potential leader of the free world.” Yet Flynn himself, in contrast to the Obama administration, has not hesitated to declare the battle against terrorism as a war on “radical Islam,” along with other comments critics say veer close to anti-Islamic sentiments.
Flynn might be considered circumspect compared to two names that have emerged as top contenders for next secretary of state: former GOP House speaker Newt Gingrich, and ex-US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
Bolton in particular, as a leading neo-conservative thinker, has a rich history of engagement with Mideast issues. Last April he penned a piece for The Washington Times titled “Revamping America’s Middle East Policy, post-Obama,” in which he wrote that, “The new president should, therefore, stress to Middle East friend and foe alike that America is not neutral in the region’s major, long-standing conflicts, and that a strong US political, economic and military presence in defense of its interests is a force for peace and stability.”
One way Bolton says this aim can be achieved is a “rear areas” strategy in the war on terrorism to reduce pressures faced by US allies. Bolton offers one particularly interesting example of this approach: “We must also help Egypt (and Israel) reimpose order on the Sinai Peninsula, perhaps readjusting the role of the Multilateral Force and Observers (created by the Camp David accords) to participate in anti-terrorism efforts.”
Its ideas such as that which emphasize the apparent clash between the “big footprint” approach favored by many of the figures now being tipped to play major roles in setting the Mideast policy for a Trump administration, and what appears to be the more cautious instincts of the president-elect himself.
Whichever outlook prevails in the next administration, a region that is already contending with no shortage of wrenching change from within, is also going to have to contend with some dramatic shifts in US policy beginning on January 20.

Melania Trump promises Sara Netanyahu ‘wonderful relations between our countries, families’

Melania Trump told Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel’s prime minister, on Saturday that relations between the US and Israel, and between their two families, “will be wonderful,” and that she and President-elect Donald Trump will visit Israel “at the first opportunity.”
Detailing the conversation in a Facebook post on Saturday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the evening’s phone conversation between the two wives as “heartfelt and warm.”
“Mrs. Trump said that she expects to visit us at the first opportunity and that there will be wonderful relations between our countries and our families,” Netanyahu said.
He wrote that Melania and Sara also “discussed the great challenge of raising children under the spotlight that accompanies their fathers who were elected as world leaders. Additionally, they discussed the great importance of emphasizing family time as part of their role as mothers in order to enable their children to grow up in a normal way like all their friends.”

Israeli Border Wall Company That Built Wall Around Gaza Saw Shares Soar After Trump Victory

The Israeli company that built a border wall around Gaza saw its shares soar when President-Elect Donald Trump won the presidency.
Magal Security Systems Ltd. had been hoping for a Trump win because of his plan to finish the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the Independent reported.
Trump made it a point throughout his campaign that he would build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants, although it is unclear whether his plan is to replace the 1,900-mile border wall that exists in urban areas or add on to it.
The company has experienced some gains over the years after it expanded from the Gaza strip to Egypt, Somalia, and other countries in Africa.
Thomas Penny of Bloomberg News reported that Magal saw a 6 percent increase in shares Wednesday.
“We would join forces with a major US defense company that has experience with such projects worldwide,” Magal CEO Saar Koursh told Bloomberg in August. “We’ve done it in the past and we would definitely want to do it.”

Schumer, Sanders back Muslim lawmaker for top Democratic Party post

Two top Jewish figures associated with the Democratic Party, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, are backing the candidacy of a Muslim, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, for the party chair.
Schumer, of New York, in line to be the next party leader in the Senate, is backing Ellison’s candidacy, according to anonymously sourced reports Friday in Politico and by NBC.
Sanders, an Independent from Vermont who this year became the first Jewish candidate to win major party nominating contests in his unsuccessful bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination, is also supporting Ellison, according to The Hill, which quoted Minnesota Public Radio.
On board for Ellison as well is Ilya Sheyman, the executive director of the liberal activist group MoveOn and a Jewish immigrant from the former Soviet Union, who emailed a statement of support to reporters.

Top Dems rally around radical Keith Ellison for DNC Chair

Ellison was one of Bernie Sanders’ representatives on the Democratic Platform committee, where he joined with Israel-haters Cornel West and John Zogby in trying to move the party against Israel. That effort was blocked by Clinton supporters. While Ellison is not as crazy anti-Israel as West and Zogby, his elevation to DNC Chair would distance the party even further from the overwhelming support of the American people for Israel.
Power Line, based in Minnesota, has an extensive article archive on Ellison.
Ellison embarrassingly thought Trump was ‘Worst Republican Nominee Since George Wallace’ (Wallace, of course, was a Democrat and never was the nominee):
If Ellison is elected DNC, it would shift the party even further from the mainstream, Could The Left Stage a DNC Coup?:
In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss this week, progressives are moving quickly to fill the power vacuum left in the Democratic Party and eyeing a takeover of the Democratic National Committee, with Rep. Keith Ellison gaining momentum as the left’s apparent candidate of choice to lead it.
The next chair of the DNC will play a key leadership role as the party builds itself back from defeat, and their election early next year will be a key test in the struggle for control of the party between the so-called establishment and a more populist wing that largely backed Bernie Sanders in the primary.

Muslims to Refrain from Voting in USA Elections: "Islam Is Here to Dominate"

The address was posted on YouTube by Hizb Ut-Tahrir on May 20.
Haitham Ibn Thbait, of the American chapter of Hizb Ut-Tahrir, recently exhorted American Muslims to avoid falling into the "electoral trap" and called upon them not to vote in the U.S. elections, saying that getting Muslims to vote was part of an effort to assimilate them and that they had been "tricked" into voting for Clinton, Bush, and Obama in the past.
Speaking at the Khilafah 2016 conference, held in Chicago on May 15, Ibn Thbait further called Obama a "terrorist" and said that "Islam is here to dominate."

CAIR Leader: Overthrow the U.S. Government

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) successfully presents itself to the media as a benign civil rights organization, comparable to the NAACP or the ADL, a description that conservatives ineffectively rail against. In this light, perhaps a tweet sent out just after midnight EST on Nov. 9 by Hussam Ayloush, long-time head of CAIR's Los Angeles office, will help awaken the press to CAIR's true Islamist identity. Ayloush wrote:
Ok, repeat after me:
Al-Shaab yureed isqat al-nizaam.
(Arab Spring chant)
Tweet by CAIR's Hussam Ayloush just as Donald Trump's victory became apparent.
That second line is Arabic ("الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام‎‎") for "The people wants to bring down the regime."
In other words, Ayloush unambiguously and directly called for the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Comments: (1) Ayloush may be the most vicious of the CAIR leaders. So far as I know, for example, he's the only one of them to bandy about the term "Zionazi," as evidenced in his e-mail below, dated March 18, 2002.

Obama Vows to Make One Last Crappy Deal With Iran Before Leaving Office (satire)

With just over two months left in power, the Obama administration is looking for the final chapter to cement its legacy. After brokering a nuclear agreement with Iran which could be summarized as, “Please don’t enrich uranium or we will be sad” and then proceeding to circumvent their own agreement by paying Iran 1.3 billion dollars in cash, it seemed logical that a third shity arrangement would be the fitting end.
“Let me be clear, we want to leave office knowing we have handled the situation with Iran well,” said Obama. “That is why we have signed an agreement promising that we will remove all stipulations of our nuclear deal if Iran promises to only use nuclear weapons for good, stop funding terror and halt threats to destroy Israel. Rouhani pinkie promised and even said ‘he swearsies’. Make no mistake, when a man says ‘he swearsies’ you know he means it.”
Despite the optimism expressed by Obama, a translated Iranian interview with Rouhani suggested he may have been duped.
“He thought I pinkie promised, but I cleverly crossed my fingers on my other hand. What a fool! I wish he would stay in power for another four years so I could negotiate another ‘compromise’ with the US.”

PreOccupiedTerritory: Mossad Pronounces New Election-Fixing Technology A Success (satire)

Developers and project leaders at Israel’s secret intelligence service gathered today to celebrate the first successful field test of the outfit’s latest device for manipulating and controlling the results of elections.
The team of programmers, black operations experts, and planners held an informal ceremony at Mossad headquarters this morning following the announcement of the presidential race in the US to congratulate one another on a job so well done that the instruments they had used produced the precise voting percentages in every state that they were programmed to produce.
Mossad officials gave special citations to the developers of the technology, who labored for six years to produce an automated alternative to the teams of agents scattered across the globe, tasked with altering poll data to suit Israeli interests. The section chief praised her staff for completing the project ahead of schedule and under budget.
“Not only did you free up precious funding for other important projects,” she noted, “your work will enable our colleagues in the Operations Department to expend less energy, money, and effort on direct manipulations of elections worldwide, and instead use the personnel for the equally vital missions of training wildlife to conduct espionage and kidnapping Palestinian children for organ harvesting and the use of their powdered remains to melt snow.” The latter project is especially urgent, she explained, given the new capabilities of the weather-control and natural-disaster devices that have come on line in the last year.

Qatar's Shopping Spree to Buy and Displace the West?

Qatar sits on the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN agency that has just erased 3000 years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, and has set its sights on the main chair at UNESCO: as the successor of UNESCO's secretary general, Irina Bokova.
Human rights organizations have already promoted a campaign to prevent Qatar's Kawari from taking the UNESCO seat. Citing a vast amount of anti-Semitic material present at the Doha Book Fair, Kawari's flagship, the Simon Wiesenthal Center launched a campaign against his candidacy.
Qatar is the puppeteer behind UNESCO's anti-Semitic resolution on Jerusalem, and a world center of Islamic extremism. Qatar does not make a secret of trying to submit Western culture to the Muslim crescent.

NBC's Engel: Moving U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem May Cause 'an Intifada-Like Situation'

In an appearance on MSNBC on Friday, NBC foreign correspondent argued if the United States were to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as was suggested by President-elect Donald Trump during the campaign, it could spark “an intifada-like situation” in the Arab world.
“For the last several years when there was an uprising with the Arab Spring you noticed that Israel has sort of gone quiet,” Engel said. “The peace process is more or less dead. There is no peace process. And Israel while the Arab world has been in turmoil has effectively been pulling up the gates and trying to focus on domestic politics and not get involved — not get sucked into the Arab quagmire around it. It’s been pleased. Israel has been pleased to see strongmen leaders like [Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi emerge in Egypt. I think that’s a trend that’s coming. I think under President-Elect Trump we’re going to see Israel once again emerging to the forefront.”
“Netanyahu has already reached out. Bibi Netanyahu had a terrible relationship with President Obama,” he continued. “He’s trying to reach out and establish a different relationship with soon-to-be President Trump. And that promise to move the embassy. If the United States changes policy and moves the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv and recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, of the Jewish people, which something Trump did promise in his election campaign, yeah. The Palestinians will not take it lightly. This will be a major international incident. We could see once again an intifada-like situation if that were to happen.”

Kissinger: To Prevent Regional Explosion, US Must Thwart Iranian Expansionism

The biggest challenge facing the Middle East is the “potential domination of the region by an Iran that is both imperial and jihadist,” former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said at a New York City gathering on Thursday.
“[America must] make it clear that we are opposed to a further territorial expansion of Iran and what we are asking of the Iranians is to act like a nation, and not like crusaders,” Kissinger stated in remarks made at the America-Israel Friendship League’s 2016 Partners for Democracy Awards Dinner, where the 93-year-old statesman was the guest of honor. “What we have to see to is that Iran does not achieve such a dominant position that the whole region explodes.”
Referring to the results of Tuesday’s presidential election, Kissinger described Republican Donald Trump’s poll-defying victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton a “revolution against conventional wisdom.”
Looking ahead to the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) after Trump takes office in January, Kissinger said a scrapping of the agreement would benefit Iran more than the US.
“I would not have made [the agreement], but we will not get a great deal out of ending it now,” Kissinger noted.

PM hails ‘responsible economic policy’ as Israel gets A+ credit rating

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday welcomed Israel’s new A+ credit rating from the prestigious Fitch Ratings, attributing it to his government’s “responsible economic policy.”
“More good news for the economy of Israel: the international credit rating company Fitch raised Israel’s credit rating to the level of A+ with a stable outlook. Israel is rated at this high rating in all three international companies S&P, Moody’s and Fitch,” the prime minister wrote in Hebrew on Facebook.
“The rise comes due to the responsible economic policy I led together with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon,” he says. “We will continue strengthening our economy and leading Israel’s economy responsibly.”
Israel has been rated A1 with a stable outlook by Moody’s since mid-April 2008.
Standard & Poor’s rated Israel A+ in September 2009, and has retained this rating to the present.

Kosovo holds Islamist suspects over plot to attack Israel soccer match

A Kosovo court on Friday ordered seven people suspected of plotting Islamist terrorist attacks to be detained for a month, officials said, as media reports said they planned to attack a weekend football match involving Israel.
The order follows a series of arrests in Kosovo and neighboring Albania and Macedonia in which a total of 15 suspected Islamic extremists have been detained.
The seven belonged to one network that notably planned to attack a stadium in the northern Albanian town of Shkodra during the country’s 2018 World Cup qualifier against Israel on Saturday, media reported.
The match will now be held in the central town of Elbasan for “security reasons.”

Riot Police Fill Streets as Egypt Braces for Austerity Protests

Riot police and armored vehicles filled the otherwise empty streets of central Cairo early on Friday as security forces built up a heavy presence in anticipation of popular protests over deteriorating economic conditions.
A little-known group calling itself Movement of the Poor has called for Egyptians to protest on Nov. 11 against deepening austerity.
The calls had been made since August, but gained traction on social media last week after Egypt raised fuel prices and floated its currency – a move welcomed by bankers but bemoaned by ordinary people as the latest blow to their diminishing spending power in a country that relies on imports.
Tahrir Square was empty save for armored vehicles equipped with tear gas canister launchers, dozens of riot policeman and high-ranking officers. Authorities shut down the Sadat metro station to prevent protesters from reaching the square famed for its political protests.
There was a similarly heavy security presence in other areas of Cairo, such as the Shubra district, and other major cities across the country including Alexandria, Suez, and Minya.

Four Americans killed in US base attack in Afghanistan

Four Americans were killed on Saturday in a suicide bombing inside the largest US military base in Afghanistan, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said, in a major breach of security.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing inside the heavily fortified Bagram Airfield, north of the capital Kabul, which left 16 other US service members and a Polish soldier wounded as the insurgents ramp up attacks on Western targets.
The dead included two American soldiers and two contractors, in an assault which highlights rising insecurity in Afghanistan nearly two years after US-led NATO forces formally ended their combat operations.
“Force protection is always a top priority for us in Afghanistan, and we will investigate this tragedy to determine any steps we can take to improve it,” defense secretary Carter said, adding he was “deeply saddened” by the news.
“We will not be deterred in our mission to protect our homeland and help Afghanistan secure its own future.”

Arab Spring Price Tag Calculated at $614 Billion

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) has concluded that the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings cost the affected countries a total of $614 billion, amounting to 6 percent of their combined Gross Domestic Product.
As Reuters explains, the organization arrived at that figure by totaling the costs of “regime change, continuing conflict, and falling oil prices.” They computed 6 percent GDP loss by comparing the current status of Middle Eastern nations with growth projections made before 2011.
The U.N. agency forthrightly admits that Syria accounts for a large share of the economic damage, having lost at least $259 billion against projections, and also that estimating what oil prices might have been without the Arab Spring unrest is difficult.
On the matter of the oil price crash, ESCWA Economic Development director Mohamed el Moctar Mohamed el Hacene expressed hope that oil nations would “put in place economic reforms leading to real diversification,” having learned their lesson about depending too heavily upon petrodollars. (Saudi Arabia is making a very high-profile effort to do just that.)

France terror threat still high one year after Paris attacks

It's been a year since terrorists in Paris launched a devastating series of coordinated shootings and bomb attacks across the city, killing 130 people and injuring hundreds more. At the Bataclan concert hall, 90 people were shot or blown up by suicide bombers.
The venue will reopen on Saturday on the eve of the anniversary, with a performance by British rock star Sting.
The country is hoping that this is a sign, Paris is moving on. But memories of the attacks are still vivid, and the threat of more attacks remains high.
"There is always a risk with terrorism. The risk, you can fight against the risk, but the risk exists. And I think in France and especially in Paris, and especially in this area, the idea and the trauma of the terrorism is still in the conscious," said Gilles Ferragu, an expert on terrorism.
France has stepped up its military commitment against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria and Iraq. While at home, tens of thousands of armed soldiers patrol streets across the country.

Paris attacks suspect more ‘radicalized’ since arrest

The main Paris attacks suspect, Salah Abdeslam, has become even more radicalized since being imprisoned for his presumed role in the slaughter of 130 people a year ago, his former lawyer has said.
“He’s got a beard, he’s become a true fundamentalist whereas before he was a kid wearing Nike trainers,” Belgian lawyer Sven Mary told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant’s Saturday edition.
Belgian-born French national Abdeslam is believed to be the only jihadist survivor of the November 13 attacks in the French capital that Belgian authorities claim were orchestrated by the Islamic State high command.
After four months on the run, the 27-year-old of Moroccan origin was arrested in Brussels in March and subsequently transferred to France in April.
Lawyer Mary said Abdeslam’s detention conditions at a prison in the Parisian suburb of Fleury-Merogis amounted to “psychological torture” and had contributed to his apparent radicalization.

HRC Secures CBC Radio On-Air Correction Remedying False Statements Attributed to PM Netanyahu

On November 10, HonestReporting Canada liaised with senior editors at our public broadcaster calling on CBC Radio to broadcast an immediate on-air correction to remedy a significant error stated by reporter Nil Köksal in a report broadcast the day prior.
Reporting from Istanbul, Köksal erroneously stated the following: “… and an ominous response from the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying a Trump presidency would effectively end the idea of a Palestinian state, but as they welcomed the political upset, ripples of the Trump reality were felt elsewhere around the world.”
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu did not make this statement that this CBC reporter wrongly attributed to him and he still supports a two state solution in solving the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister, did. Importantly, Bennett’s views do not represent official Israeli government policy.
In light of this information, we asked CBC Radio broadcast an immediate on-air correction to set the record straight.
We are pleased to report that CBC immediately took responsibility for the error their reporter made and broadcast an on-air correction several times on November 10.
The correction stated the following which was orated by the CBC’s anchor: “And a correction to one of our reports on yesterday’s program. We reported Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said a Trump presidency would effectively end the idea of a Palestinian state. In fact, it was Israel’s Education Minister, Naftali Bennett who made the remark. We regret the error.”

French court slaps $15,000 fine on admirer of quasi-Nazi salute

A French court fined and gave a suspended prison sentence to a man who disseminated a picture of a quasi-Nazi salute being performed at a Jewish school.
On Wednesday, the Toulouse Appeals Court hit Noel Gerard with a $15,000 fine and a six-month suspended term for incitement to hatred.
In 2014, he shared a picture on social media of a man performing the salute known as the quenelle in front of the Ohr Hatorah school, where in 2012 a jihadist killed a rabbi and three children, the news site 20minutes reported.
The picture taken outside Ohr Torah is not dated but was taken after the murders. The institution changed its name from Otzar Hatorah after the attack.
The quenelle is promoted by the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, whose critics say it is a variant of the Nazi salute designed to express admiration for the murder of Jews without incurring the punishment reserved in the French penal code for doing so.
French courts rarely hand out prison sentences, even suspended ones, and such heavy fines on actions like the one committed by Gerard.

500 Jewish mothers bake challah for IDF soldiers

Some 500 Jewish mothers from around the world bonded in Jerusalem on Thursday as they baked hundreds of challah — a knotted bread traditionally eaten on Shabbat and Jewish festivals — for Israeli soldiers.
“The Great Big Challah Bake” event was run by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project (JWRP) as part of the global Shabbat Project, a multi-denominational organization celebrating “the transformative power” of the Jewish Sabbath.
The women, 400 of whom are visiting Israel on a 10-day JWRP “Momentum” trip gathered with past participants from Israel, to bake over 1,000 loaves and package them for distribution to the troops.
The visitors, from Canada, the US, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, are also touring Israel as part of the Momentum trip — stopping in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Galilee — on a schedule covering a range of topics from Jewish values to contemporary Israeli society.
Organizers say the Momentum trips are designed to inspire Jewish mothers to connect deeply with their Jewish heritage. More than 10,000 women from dozens of countries have participated in the trips.

Leonard Cohen, my father and me

Using his M-16 assault rifle as a pillow, my father awoke abruptly from a dreamless sleep by the pleading voice of a young woman outside his tent in the Sinai.
The woman, a uniformed volunteer, was urging reservists like him to forego shuteye to hear a musician whose name she did not know, but who had come from far away to perform for Israeli troops on the southern front of Israel’s traumatic 1973 war with Egypt and Syria.
Stumbling out of the khaki tent, my father and 12 other soldiers encountered Leonard Cohen, the eminent Jewish Canadian poet-singer whose death, at age 82, was reported Thursday, prompting passionate eulogies from fans all over the world, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.
Cohen’s visit to the Sinai Desert, during which he wrote his haunting song “Lover Come Back to Me,” was the beginning of my family’s bigenerational love affair with his irreverent yet spiritual writing. Cohen’s benign sobriety has shaped me as very few other writers have.
In the best-known photograph from his tour of the front line, spending at least a week performing at gathering points and bases, a singing Cohen stands next to an attentive Ariel Sharon, the Israeli general and future prime minister who clinched victory from the jaws of defeat during that war. The Israeli virtuoso composer Matti Caspi is accompanying Cohen on guitar as dozens of soldiers huddle all around them — some wearing expressions that suggest deep reflection.
But the concert attended by my father, a noncommissioned communications officer in charge of connecting Sharon to higher-ups whose orders Sharon was notorious for ignoring, was somewhat less photogenic.

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