[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 02/20 Links Pt2: Those calling for a boycott of Israel are ignoring some painful truths

From Ian:

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Yair Lapid: Those calling for a boycott of Israel are ignoring some painful truths

[Published in the Guardian note the vile comments]
This past weekend, 700 British artists had a letter published in the Guardian in which they called on others to boycott Israel until what they term the “colonial occupation” ends. As an Israeli politician who supports the creation of a Palestinian state, it has been a long time since I saw a letter so shallow and lacking in coherence.
The fact that, as is common with petitions like this, the majority of the signatories are unaware of the reality here in the Middle East, doesn’t reassure me. It only takes one “useful idiot” like Roger Waters (the expression is not an insult but a phrase attributed to Lenin to describe weak liberals used by cynical regimes for their own ends) to call Israel an apartheid state and the liberal choir will immediately stand to attention and sing the chorus with him. Why? Because everyone wants to be like Nelson Mandela but no one has the patience to learn the details.
I wonder if, before they put their names to the letter, anyone told the 700 signatories that twice already – once in 2000 and once in 2008 – Israel offered the Palestinians the chance to build an independent state on over 90% of the territories, and on both occasions the Palestinians refused? (h/t Ha Meshuga)

Channel 4 News: Is walking in Muslim areas of Paris with a kippah a provocation?

Can the simple act of wearing a Jewish kippah be considered a “provocation” to Muslims in Europe?
That’s the question you should ask while contextualizing this interview on Channel 4 News with the Israeli Jewish journalist (Zvika Klein) who recently filmed himself being verbally abused and spat on at as he walked around Paris.
Klein’s response to the Channel 4 News anchor’s question is telling. When asked if filming himself walking around Muslim areas with a kippah was a “provocation”, Klein noted that he’s a religious Jew and that’s how he normally dresses – except when in areas of Europe where doing so is not safe.

Where Does Liberal Icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren Stand on Israel?

Two recent moves by Warren may shed light on her outlook regarding issues prioritized by the Jewish state. She was one of four Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee to vote against the bipartisan Iran sanctions bill co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), legislation that is strongly supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The bill—which would impose sanctions on Iran if it fails to reach an agreement with world powers by the June 30 deadline—passed the committee 18-4, with six Democrats supporting it.
Warren was also not among the 75 senators to sign a Jan. 29 bipartisan letter to Secretary of State John Kerry stating that the senators would not support foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) until the Obama administration completes a review of the Palestinians’ decision to unilaterally join the International Criminal Court.
“Both of these actions are worrisome signs,” Tevi Troy, who served as White House liaison to the Jewish community under President George W. Bush, told JNS.org regarding Warren’s recent decisions on Iran sanctions and PA funding. “The best place for the pro-Israel community to be is in a place where they have bipartisan support. … I would hope that Senator Warren would return to the bipartisan consensus position in the future.”
Additionally, last September, Warren was not one of the 88 senators to sign a letter calling for the prevention of both the re-arming of Hamas following the Gaza war and unilateral PA actions at the United Nations. By comparison, the other Democratic US senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey, signed both that letter and the January letter to Kerry on PA funding. (Markey is not on the Senate Banking Committee and as such, could not vote on the Iran sanctions.)

Channel 4: “Would you accept that (walking in Muslim areas of Paris in a kippah) was an act of provocation?”




Using Netanyahu to distract from anti-semitism, the new tactic

There is a lot of fury at Netanyahu. Newspapers across Europe are enraged at the Israeli leader. Opeds are pouring in throughout the world. The Metro, a British tabloid encapsulated the anger on February 16 with the headline on its front page, “Fury as Israeli PM tell Jews to flee Europe.” European leaders were enraged, “European leaders have reacted with anger at Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extraordinary plea for Jews to leave Europe to escape the rising tide of antisemitic terror attacks.”
What’s this thing about terror attacks?
It seems there have been two similar terror attacks in recent months. But the fury was directed at Netanyahu. NGO websites proudly pasted about the fury. Rebecca Perring at The Express also wrote about the fury. “Benjamin Netanyahu made his plea for Europe’s Jewish population to emigrate to Israel just hours after fatal shootings in Danish capital Copenhagen, where a freedom of speech event and a synagogue were both targeted.” Denmark’s Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior was “disappointed” in the Israeli leader. France’s Prime Minister, who has been impassioned in his defense of Jews in his country after the January murder of four at a kosher market, was also unhappy, “I regret Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks. Being in the middle of an election campaign doesn’t mean you authorise yourself to make just any type of statement.” The Daily Mail, which owns Metro, pasted the article as did other sites. +972 wrote about it, as did Haaretz.

Phyllis Chesler: Just Who Has to Adjust in the Name of Tolerance?

Nevertheless, the false concept of Islamophobia – often defensively raised when the discussion focuses on radical Islamic ideology – has become equal to real concepts such as homophobia, sexism, and anti-Semitism. Despite FBI verification that hate crimes against Jews are far greater than those against Muslims, Muslims continue to insist that they are being racially and religiously targeted.
Islamophobia is worse than anti-Semitism, according to Hatem Bazien, the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine and the director of Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender, in a 2011 report co-sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Bazian concluded that, on a scale from 1 (best situation for Muslims) to 10 (worst possible situation for Muslims), “Islamophobia” in America stands at 6.4. One does not know how to greet such brazen foolishness.
Globally, Islamists demand that the West, which has separated religion and state brilliantly, accept and accommodate an aggressive and entitled theocratic state—not only abroad but in its midst.
In Hamid’s view, real “moral courage” in France would consist of a “major political party” calling for “a rethinking of laïcité [secularism], and for the broadening, rather than the narrowing, [of] French national identity.”
Challenging the “tolerant” West to accommodate an intolerant Islam is the tried-and-true Islamist method of hoisting the West by its own petard. Sophisticated Islamists are trying to use post-Enlightenment laws to achieve the right to practice pre-medieval and barbaric customs. Western political leaders and the intelligentsia are flirting with cultural suicide and siding with barbarism over civilization.

Elie Wiesel and the Defense of Jewish Life

Beinart rightly senses that so long as an icon of humanity like Wiesel is willing to stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and to not be forced into unilateral and suicidal concessions, non-Jews will understand that the Jewish state’s rights should be respected. Whatever one may think of the current government of Israel, the notion that its efforts to preserve the existence of the state and the security of its people “defile” Wiesel’s ideals is a monstrous distortion of the truth. For those who have wrongly come to view Israel as the villain in the Middle East conflict and who reflexively deny the Palestinians’ rejection of peace and coexistence, any defense of Israel is too much, even when it comes from someone whose bona fides as an authority on human rights dwarf those of a Peter Beinart.
In the context of the politics of either Israel or the United States, Wiesel is not right-winger or an opponent of compromise, assuming that peace with the Palestinians were ever possible. He is, rather, a centrist who simply sticks to consensus issues like Iran and a united Jerusalem. But to the likes of Beinart, even those positions are anathema.
Beinart’s current niche in the secular media is as a Jewish writer who can be relied upon to denounce Israel’s government so it is little surprise that he would defend appeasement of Iran. But when he matches his puny stature as a critic of the Jewish state against Wiesel’s standing as an advocate of Jewish life, he is out of his depth. By bashing the famous survivor in this manner, he is doing more to damage his own tattered reputation than undermining that of Wiesel.

Peter Beinart Takes on Elie Weisel!

For Peter Beinart, all roads lead to indignant shouting over the brutal occupation. Today, that road is on the back of Elie Wiesel.
One can almost hear Peter sighing in exasperation: Ah, Elie, your love of Jews and Israel is blinding you to their faults. Elie, in your widely published letter you baselessly accuse the Obama administration of agreeing to a terrible deal with Iran. Peter then asks: “What makes the deal, which has not even been struck, ‘terrible?’ Wiesel doesn’t say.”
While we’re asking questions, here’s one for you, Peter: you have repeatedly denounced Netanyahu for his planned speech to Congress. What makes Bibi’s impending speech, which has not even been uttered, terrible? You haven’t said.
And here’s a negotiating tip for ya, Peter. Your initial bargaining position is just that – a bid. You have no hope of ending up with your opening offer after all the papers have been signed. For the longest time Netanyahu has been saying that Obama’s offer to Iran is unacceptable to Israel. You’re a smart guy and you know how to read, so I know you know this. So really, what’s bugging you?

Ryan Bellerose: The History Lesson

We need to ask: how did we allow the twisting of the quintessential bully story? How did we allow them to turn David into the guy bullying Goliath? Even more troubling, how did we allow the people who claim to be descended from the Philistines to turn Goliath into the underdog? 1.6 billion Muslims and 14 million Jews, yet we allow the narrative that a tiny sliver of land belonging to the Jews oppressing Muslims who control 99% of the landmass in the Middle East?
It’s really simple. Jews trace their presence in JUDEAH back four thousand years, and can demonstrate their cultural genesis there, while Arabs trace theirs to the Hejaz. Yet until recently nobody ever thought to say “Jews are from Judeah, Arabs are from Arabia”? And we wonder why young people are so damn confused?
How can we expect the young people to stand up when it’s so much easier to go along with the flow? I believe by teaching them pride in self, by letting them know its OK to stand up and that you never have to look at the ground. These kids are the next generation, they are the ones who will have to live with the decisions we make. It’s my belief that it’s our duty to empower them, to teach them to stand up, to speak up and to be proud of themselves and their people. I know it’s not going to be easy – nothing worth doing is – but I know I can’t really live with the alternative.
Can you?

The Terror in Our Cities

Israel is the first democracy to have extensive experience with Islamist terrorism. Before recent attacks on our own soil, Europeans loved nothing better than scorning the Jewish state's efforts to address terror. In the future, we may need to turn to the Israelis for advice.
It has always been an open question how European democracies would defend themselves if the kind of Islamist terror Israeli society faces becomes part of everyday life.
In the two years prior to the erection of the controversial border installations, Israeli authorities counted 89 attacks, with 305 deaths and 4,942 injuries -- a significant number for a country with a population of just over 8 million. The number of casualties only began to fall after the construction of the wall. It's a success story that has never been viewed as such outside of the embattled country itself.
In Germany, we won't be able to build walls through our major cities in order to protect ourselves. The enemy we are dealing with doesn't live on the other side of the desert, it lives in our midst. We are left to rely on the acumen of people who have been trained to detect evil before it is too late.
Unfortunately, we are poorly equipped for the task. Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country's domestic intelligence agency, is in an extremely poor state -- as any official there would confirm. It is only with great effort that domestic intelligence agents are able to track jihadists who have returned home from war zones. Cases where they succeed in neutralizing these fighters before they take up arms and engage in holy war in Pforzheim or Dinslaken, tend to be the result of a chain of lucky circumstances rather than of systematic investigation.

Lars Hedegaard: Terror Strikes Copenhagen

The first question the Danish Prime Minister got from one of the journalists, was, "How do you think this is going to affect the Muslims in Denmark? None of the journalists asked, "What are you going to do to protect us from this Islamist savagery?"
Imam Hajj Saeed of the Al-Faruq Mosque in Copenhagen, the day before the terror attack, rejected any thought of interfaith dialogue, and noted that the Prophet Muhammad waged war against his Jewish neighbors rather than engage in dialogue.
The day after the shootings, the political spokesperson of the main liberal opposition party went on television and said, "We are dealing with a small group that is abusing the Koran." In other words, once again we are faced with one or more Muslims who have completely misunderstood their own religion. The implication, of course is that Danes have nothing to fear from the fast growing number of Muslims or the spread of Islam.
It would appear, however, that the killer, Omar el-Hussein, had not "abused" anything but simply followed Allah and his prophet.
"It is vital that we as Muslims do not distance ourselves [from el-Hussein's actions] but put things in their right context. It is the Danish politicians and media that ought to distance themselves from the politics that have created the circumstances that lead to hatred, threats and violent attacks and eventually murder, regardless of who the victims may be. We must under no circumstances bow to the pressure or accept the premise that Islam is in the dock." — From a press release issued by Junes Kock, spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, Scandinavia.
In all likelihood, the politicians and the media will continue telling the Danes that they have nothing to fear from Islam.

Report: Copenhagen Synagogue Guard Dan Uzan’s Murder Caught on Surveillance Camera

The killing of volunteer Copenhagen synagogue security guard Dan Uzan has been captured on surveillance footage, Denmark’s Ekstra Bladet reported earlier this week.
Jeppe Juhl, a spokesman for the Jewish community in Denmark, described the footage as showing Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein, Uzan’s killer, faking illness in order to approach Uzan without raising suspicion. Juhl also called the footage “completely horrible” and said that it would never be released publicly. Juhl cited the fact that the video is currently in the hands of the police as preventing him from divulging greater detail about it.
Uzan’s murder by el-Hussein — who was tagged as a potential security risk by Danish intelligence in the summer of 2014 — sparked a public outpouring of grief and expressions of solidarity with Denmark’s 8,000-strong Jewish community, including a massive funeral (the crowd estimated to be some three and a half times larger than the entirety of Denmark’s Jewish population) attended by the nation’s Prime Minister.

UK Jewish Schools and Synagogues Warned to Tighten Security

Jewish schools and synagogues in Britain were warned to tighten security this week following last weekend’s terror attacks in Copenhagen.
National Policing Lead for Counter Terrorism Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said in a statement this week the government has become more concerned “about the risk to the Jewish community in the UK.”
Security personnel “are in dialogue with Jewish community leaders about further actions that we will be taking, including more patrols in key areas,” Rowley added. Reports of anti-Semitic incidents in Britain more than doubled over the past year, according to the Community Security Trust (CST), which has reported security-related events in the British Jewish world since 1989.
Current funding for security around schools stands at $3.5 million, according to ABC News.

Sen. Chuck Schumer: European Leaders Should ‘Go to Extra Lengths’ to Protect Jews

In the wake of recent attacks on Jewish sites in Denmark and France, US Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday urged European leaders “to go to extra lengths” to protect their countries’ Jewish communities.
“European leaders should tell those who would try to perpetrate antisemitic acts that they will be fully prosecuted,” Schumer said in a statement. “The bottom line is that, like all ethnic groups and religious minorities, Jewish people, no matter where they call home, should not have to live in fear.”
Last Sunday, 22-year-old Omar El-Hussein—a terrorist of Palestinian origin—fatally shot 37-year-old Jewish volunteer security guard Dan Uzan outside of a synagogue in Copenhagen. In January, an Islamist terrorist attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris killed four Jewish shoppers. More recently in France, hundreds of gravestones were vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Sarre-Union, near the German border.
“There is an evil stew right now in Europe,” Schumer said Thursday. “It is a combination of Islamic fundamentalist, the far Left, and the far Right—and they are not just being anti-Israel, they are being outright antisemitic. Just as racism has been the poison of America for centuries, antisemitism has been, just as strongly and just as equally, the poison of Europe for a millennium. For centuries, Jewish people have been perniciously targeted because of their faith, and in recent years it seems that this primitive, hateful feeling towards Jews has tragically regenerated and grown.”

French Chief Rabbi talks about acknowledgement of anti-Semitism post Paris attacks

His speech addressed the January terrorist attack against France's Jewish community and the growing incidents of anti-Semitism spreading across Europe. He outlined the climate that French Jews are living in in the aftermath of the January attacks, emphasizing how the threat had impacted the normal day-to-day life of the French Jewish community.
"For too long I witnessed a sense of indifference in French civil society to anti-Semitic and racist crimes. In wake of terrorist assault on Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher supermarket, the entire society finally rose to say -- "No" to the terrorist, "No" to muzzling freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I am of the view that if Charlie Hebdo as such had not happened, I'm not sure that so many people would march in the street," Rabbi Korsia said.
De Blasio echoed Rabbi Korsia's viewpoint, emphasizing the "dangerous" anti-Semitism trend in Europe and calling for European nations to demonstrate a willingness to defend their Jewish communities.
"It's our moment to say -- we don't like this trend we see. We don't find it acceptable," said de Blasio.
"Our allied nations in Europe bear responsibility for taking the kinds of steps that leave no doubt of their absolute commitment to defending their Jewish communities, that send no subconscious signal to those who would do harm to the Jewish community that somehow it might not be as much an offense as some others. As Rabbi Korsia said powerfully -- there are no small crimes, no small affront to the Jewish community is acceptable because it will only lead to larger affronts and more dangerous ones," he added.

BBC’s Kesby questions whether Copenhagen attacks were in fact terrorism

From 32:36 presenter Rebecca Kesby interviewed Thomas Hegghammer – director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment – and after Hegghammer had noted (from 35:57) that “it’s too early to say whether this was a solo terrorist attack or a conspiracy” in light of the fact that two additional suspects had been arrested in Denmark, Kesby said:
“I mean this is something that you look at closely and what motivates people to carry this kind of thing out. I mean, people are referring to this as a terrorist attack or that…you know…that…including people from the…ehm….Danish government. Ehm…but from what you’ve seen – I mean – is that…would you say that was an accurate description of what’s happened? It could…is there any chance that this could be a lone wolf-style attack: just one person with a grievance?”
Fortunately, Mr Hegghammer clarified to Kesby that “a solo attacker can still perpetrate a terrorist act” but nevertheless, the fact that Kesby even raised the possibility of redefining two politically motivated murders at locations obviously selected in advance is revealing.

BBC ‘analysis’ of Copenhagen terror promotes faux linkage to Israel but erases attacks on Jews

Readers are informed that:
“The two attacks [in Copenhagen] replicated the terror directed at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.”
Of course the terror attacks in Paris were not only “directed at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo”, but also at shoppers and staff in a kosher supermarket. That missing information is crucial in light of the reference to “symbolic targets” which appears in the next paragraph.
“The Danish copycat gunman, named locally as Omar El-Hussein, followed the same modus operandi and aimed his desire for revenge against the exact same symbolic targets as the French gunmen.”
The writer then goes on to claim:
“The attackers all sought revenge for the insulting depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the actions of police, who represent what they see as the state oppression of Islam.”
Let’s break that sentence down in order to appreciate what BBC audiences are actually being told.

Delegitimizing Israel at Southampton University

In an article on “Europe’s New Anti-Semitism,” Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks argued a few years ago that it was important to realize that throughout history, assaults on Jewish life always needed “justification by the highest source of authority in the culture at any given age.” For our own time, this means according to Sacks that “any assault on Jewish life – on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state – must be cast in the language of human rights,” which is reflected in “the by-now routine accusation that Israel has committed the five cardinal sins against human rights: racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide and crimes against humanity.”
Against the backdrop of deadly terrorist attacks on Jews in several European capitals in recent months, some of Europe’s political leaders – most notably French Prime Minister Manuel Valls – have passionately denounced antisemitism and pledged to fight it. Yet, the problem identified by Rabbi Sacks remains, and in the wake of the most recent attacks in Copenhagen, a Wall Street Journal editorial rightly noted that “[e]lite hostility to Israel amplifies street-level anti-Semitism.”
Unfortunately it seems that such elite hostility to Israel will be showcased at a conference scheduled for April at the University of Southampton. The official announcement describes the conference as “a ground-breaking historical event on the road towards justice and enduring peace in historic Palestine.” The conference is supposedly “unique because it concerns the legitimacy in International Law of the Jewish state of Israel;” however, as students of antisemitism will know, there is nothing “unique” about singling out the world’s only Jewish state for delegitimization.
The conference has been initiated and organized by University of Southampton professor Oren Ben Dor, and his views on the conference’s subject are no secret: the intensity of his animus against Israel is nicely illustrated in a fundraising letter for the conference, where theNahariya-born (former) Israeli claims to have grown up “in Palestine.”

Reserve IDF officers tell Americans their experiences

Currently touring the United States are two young reserve officers of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) who can refute the propaganda often spouted by Israel’s enemies with first-hand facts.
Using their first names only, for security reasons, Ashager, who grew up in Yavne, Israel, and Eyal, who represents the 8th generation of his family to be raised in Mevasseret Zion, are taken by StandWithUs volunteers to churches, campuses, clubs, synagogues, and other venues to tell their stories and to answer questions about their experiences in Israel.
Is Israel an apartheid state? Ashager whose parents immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia, says the charge not only is a calumny against free and democratic Israel, it is also a terrible insult to the people of South Africa who had to live under that country’s former system of strict segregation. It minimizes “the suffering that people who actually lived under an apartheid regime had,” she said. “People under apartheid didn’t have civil rights, they couldn’t vote, they couldn’t eat in the same restaurants, they couldn’t get the same kind of jobs,” whereas in Israel, she said, there is complete integration.
“Israel is a democracy,” she said. “In fact, it is the only democracy in the Middle East, and it extends rights to all citizens – Jewish, not Jewish, black or white, women or men – we are all equal under the law.”

UC Davis student court overturns divestment resolution

An Israel divestment resolution passed at the University of California Davis last month by the student senate was overturned on February 19 by the university’s Court of Associated Students.
The court ruled 5-0, with one abstention, in favor of Jonathan Mitchell, who had filed a case with the court contending that the Associated Students UC Davis had failed to adhere to its own constitution in passing the Israel divestment resolution 8-2, with two abstentions, on January 29.
The court ruling found that any legislation passed by the senate, even those on politically related issues, “can and must be primarily concerning student welfare.”
The court found the divestment resolution “to be primarily a political document and did not deal with student welfare to the extent that allowed the ASUCD Senate jurisdiction to pass.”

Jewish Studies to Bring Antisemitic Opera to UC Davis

In the wake of a week where the student senate voted to support boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, where Jewish students were greeted by the Jihadist war cry, Allahu Akbar, and where swastikas appeared on a Jewish fraternity house, it was unimaginable that the situation at the University of California, Davis could get worse for activist Jewish students. It did.
The Jewish Studies Department announced that it is sponsoring the antisemitic screed posing as opera, The Death of Klinghoffer. Leon Klinghoffer was an elderly, wheelchair-bound, Jewish-American whom Palestinian terrorists threw into the sea from a hijacked cruise ship.
Klinghoffer was murdered because he was a Jew.
The controversial opera drew thousands of protesters when it opened at the New York Metropolitan in 2014. As a concession to outrage from the Jewish community generally and the Klinghoffer family specifically, Met General Manager Peter Gelb permitted a statement from Klinghoffer’s daughters to be included with the program. It stated that the opera “rationalizes, romanticizes, and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father.”

Revealed: UJA President A Donor to Radical Left-Wing Anti-Israel Organization

At the annual “Celebrate Israel Parade,” New York’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the UJA have decided to shamefully allow the extremist, radical anti-Israel New Israel Fund to march.
New Israel Fund recently funded an organization which petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court on behalf of the terrorists who murdered five Israelis in a brutal massacre during morning prayers in Jerusalem. The same organization petitioned on behalf of the terrorists’ families. NIF also funds numerous groups hostile to Israel.
This group is the “partner” of the JCRC and UJA.
One wonders how many JCRC or UJA donors support the viewpoints of Alma Biblash, the Executive Director of the Human Rights Defenders Fund (HRDF), an organization to which the NIF authorized grants worth $332,625 from 2011-2013. HRDF has called Israel “racist,” and “murderous,” and described the country as a “temporary Jewish apartheid state.” Biblash supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns and promotes the Palestinian ‘right of return.’ While there are Knesset members who have accused NIF of “lobbying and funding activities that are all part of a campaign to destabilize the IDF,” one wonders during times like these how many of their donors are actually aware of their partner organizations calling Israel a “temporary Jewish apartheid state.”

Rasmea Odeh fundraiser features film proving her guilt

Again, the major focus of all this sentencing activism is the narrative of an unjust Israeli conviction based on a confession obtained after weeks of sexual torture.
In fact, as I demonstrated, the evidence against Rasmea on the Israeli conviction was overwhelming. The fact is that that Rasmea confessed just one day after arrest, which is inconsistent with the claim that the confession was extracted only after weeks of sexual torture. There also was substantial corroborating evidence, all as discussed and shown in Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud.
One important piece of the corroborating evidence was the interview of Ayisha Admad Odeh (no relation to Rasmea) in the 2004 film Women in Struggle, celebrating Palestinian women who served time in Israeli prison. In the film Ayisha, who also was convicted of involvement, describes how Rasmea was the key planner of the Super Sol bombing.
If someone were protesting Rasmea’s alleged wrongful conviction in Israel, and using that alleged injustice to call for lenient sentencing in the Detroit immigration fraud case, the last thing they logically should want to do is play Women in Struggle.

Pakistani Youth Visiting China Sees Jewish Conspiracy Everywhere, Writes In Urdu Daily: 'On The Advice Of The Jews, China Was Opened For The World'

Below are excerpts from an article written by a Pakistani youth in China. The article, titled "China's Changing Intellectual And Cultural Tenets," was written by Zafar Iqbal, who was shocked by the Westernization of Chinese culture.
In the article published by Roznama Islam, an Urdu-language Pakistani daily, Iqbal blames the Jews for the transformation of Chinese culture and advances an antisemitic conspiracy theory that the Jews are pushing China to fight against the Islamic world.
"During the 1980s, the government opened China for the external world. The construction of infrastructure and arrival of foreigners began; then China left its own culture and not only adopted the Western culture and civilization, but took it as its Qibla [sense of direction] in everything."
"Here, there is a point worth considering - that the Jews are the enemy of Islam from the beginning and less in number, and from the appearance of Prophet Muhammad 'til now [they] have never been in existence as a big power on their own. However, their conspiracies from the beginning 'til now are dangerous, successful, and continuing. In the recent past, when Britain was the superpower, the Jews used Britain against Islam. After its destruction [in the Second World War] Russia became the great power; then this nation [of Jews] rode on its shoulders and Russia became an attacker on Muslims. After the destruction of Russia, America became the sole big power of the world; at that time there was no fight between America and Muslims, but the Jews entered the American mind and imposed an unending series of wars on Muslims. America's decline is now a story; the Jews are in the race/machinations to take the next emerging super power, China, on the same lines.

God Officially Forsakes Bad Tippers (satire)

A spokesangel for the Lord elaborated on the timing and rationale of the new policy. “Humans have been oppressing and mistreating one another forever, but there’s usually some sort of redeeming aspect to the behavior,” explained Gabriel. “There is legitimate consideration for preservation of identity, for one’s own pressing financial needs, and a host of other factors. But there has been a plague in recent years of douchebags – yes, that’s the actual term He used – who manifest their douchebaggery by sticking it monetarily to people who work on their feet for hours at a time and suffer all sorts of unwarranted abuse, getting paid less than a living wage for their efforts.”
Gabriel acknowledged that predatory behavior that exploits the disadvantaged is hardly a new phenomenon. However, the scourge of bad tipping has become so widespread that every encounter for a waiter or waitress produces acute anxiety and further damages their already-fragile self-esteem. “When most waitstaff were struggling show business people the behavior could be justified, or at least reasonably rationalized – these people chose to go into showbiz, which demonstrates questionable values and priorities, so maybe you could say they brought it on themselves,” he explained. “But that’s simply not the case anymore even in the popular perception, so there’s no excuse for bad tipping.”
Once forsaken, bad tippers will find themselves completely subject to the laws of chance and no opportunity to override their situation via prayerful petition or resolutions. Whether they attribute such a change to their douchebaggery remains up to them, but Gabriel noted it was unlikely in the short term that such people will demonstrate a capacity for the self-reflection necessary to improve themselves. However, the increased misfortune to bad tippers will most likely remove them from the tipping pool, relieving the problem in some measure, at least temporarily.
If the rollout proves successful, a similar policy will be applied to airline passengers who treat flight attendants and fellow travelers with disrespect. The Lord acknowledged that once the bad tippers are removed from society, traveling douchebags might automatically disappear as well.

Triguboff to invest ‘millions’ to help former USSR Jews get recognition

Harry Triguboff, Australia’s richest man, will invest millions of dollars to expand efforts to help Jews from former Soviet states gain legal recognition as Jews in Israel, whether through historical documentation or simplified conversion.
“I think that rabbis have to facilitate the recognition of various people provided there is some connection with Judaism,” he told The Jerusalem Post in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
Many Jews who immigrate to Israel from former Soviet countries have difficulty proving that they are Jewish according to Halacha.
Though they get full benefits and citizenship under the Law of Return, the Chief Rabbinate and Interior Ministry do not consider them Jewish, which can become problematic when dealing with life events under religious control, such as weddings.
“The way that it works is that they are trying to find something that is lacking in the person’s Judaism. So that’s very bad. Because eventually, the young people will marry each other and some of them will not be recognized by the rabbinate,” Triguboff explains. “Eventually, so many of us will be ‘unacceptable’ that we’ll have to decide if they want to remain Jewish or just forget about it. Nobody wants to be second class.”

NY, Shanghai woo Israeli startups

Promising Israeli late-stage startups will strut their stuff before investors and global thought leaders at the seventh annual Israel Dealmakers Summit in New York, March 24-25, 2015 — an invitation-only conference on technology, trends and innovations shaping key sectors including digital media, mobile and wireless, cyber-security, smart cities, enterprise software, health and wellness, Internet of Things (IoT) and big data.
The summit’s Innovation Showcase “speed networking” platform will set the stage for one-on-one relationship-building meetings with investors.
“We launched this summit in direct response to US and global dealmakers’ desire to tap into Israel’s leadership in innovation,” said Zeev Klein, general partner of Landmark Ventures, which organizes the yearly summit in partnership with the Israel Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Investment Promotion Center.
“Over a two day period, we will facilitate more than 2,500 meetings between entrepreneurs and high-level dealmakers.”

Israeli Startup Helps Patients Obtain Accurate Medical Information

Doctors often warn patients and their families against searching the Internet for medical information. But that’s exactly what Israeli inventor Tal Givoly and med-tech serial entrepreneur Dr. Oren Fuerst did when serious illnesses hit their families.
While they knew the consequences of all the junk science and misleading information on the web, Givoly needed to know how to save the life of his teenage daughter who was suffering congestive heart failure, and Fuerst needed decisive information as the caregiver for his cancer-stricken mother.
Together with world-renowned urologist Steven Kaplan, who had too many patients bringing him printouts of disinformation they found online, Givoly and Fuerst created Medivizor – a company that uses patent-pending technology to sift through thousands of content articles and find the most essential information applicable and personalized for each person’s medical situation.

Jerusalem Hosts LGBT Drag Queen Race

The LGBT community in Jerusalem held a first-of-its-kind drag queen race this week, in which all the 40 participants needed to run in high heels without falling. The city’s LGBT student organization organized the race, with partial funding from the Jerusalem municipality.
“This is what’s so exciting about this, that the municipality supports this concept for the first time, it really gives the feeling of a home, and finally we’ve moved centuries and we’re going towards a better future,” said Lady Chocolate, an Israeli soldier by day and drag queen by night.
“[I am] very excited, very happy. I’m a native. I was born in Jerusalem. I still live in Jerusalem and it’s so much fun to see this happening in this city. It’s about time,” drag queen Bella To Die For, who works in the city’s Mahane Yehuda open-air food market during the day, said.

Israel’s fuel saving ‘Taxibot’ deployed in German airport

A semi-robotic, pilot-controlled towing tractor developed by Israel Aerospace Industries known as Taxibot was deployed for use Thursday for the first time at Frankfurt airport, raising hopes that its use may become more widespread as airline companies seek to reduce fuel emissions and costs.
The pushback tractors currently used in all airports worldwide only move aircraft from the terminal itself, but do not eliminate the need for planes to then taxi themselves across airports — a costly and inefficient procedure.
The Taxibot eliminates this drawback by towing loaded planes to the start of the runway with their engines switched off, in what analysts say cuts fuel costs, reduces airport carbon emissions and can eliminate bottlenecks in the gate area.
According to IAI, a standard Boeing 747 expends an average of 1.25 tons of jet fuel in the 17 minutes prior to takeoff. Taxibot, however, cuts this figure to a mere 25-30 liters per plane.

Jane's campaign

For the last three years, Kiel has been on a one-woman crusade for Israel. She runs a pro-Israel Facebook page in English -- Israel, One Nation -- with which she aims to raise international awareness of Israel's point of view. She posts pictures and videos that she takes, demonstrating the complexity of life in this state. One example is the Temple Mount, "so that everyone will see and know and identify with what Israelis have to go through."
"The pro-Palestinian propaganda mechanism is a well-oiled machine. They talk about how oppressed the Palestinians are so often that people abroad begin to take it for granted. They say they are suffering, and I believe they really are suffering, but it is because of their own government. The Palestinian Authority has received so much money over the years, including from my country, that there should not be a single hungry person there or anyone without medical care.
"But the reality is different. They leave thousands of people in refugee camps. They want to show that children are suffering, and it is all for the purpose of public relations. I am here to show the world that not everything they broadcast is true. I am here to show that things are not as simple and racist as the Palestinians claim."
She was born into a devout Christian, Israel-loving family in Denmark. She is the second of five siblings. Her mother leads a local prayer group, which convened once a month at the Kiel family home. The group would talk about Israel and pray for its security.

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 2/20/2015 04:00:00 PM