[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 03/01 Links: Lumish: Give 'Em Hell, Bibi!; The propaganda agents for Hamas; LATMA Ep4 ! ~ EoZ

From Ian:

The reason that Obama is going to allow Iranian nuclear break-out capacity is because the US administration is endeavoring to turn the Islamist state into a regional strategic partner. It is also for this reason that the Obama administration is comfortable with Iranian expansion into Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, if not Iraq.
This is entirely unacceptable to the people of Israel – left, right, and center – and the Sunnis throughout the region are, for the most part, no happier about any of this than are the Jews. The only people who seem comfortable with Iranian nukes are Barack Obama and the Iranians, themselves.
If Obama gets his way, we will see an arms race throughout the Middle East with virtually every significant player scrambling to kick-start their own nuclear programs. There is certainly no possible way that Egypt will allow a nuclear armed Shia Iran without Cairo gaining that capacity, as well.
What is necessary is for the American people to make it clear to the Obama administration that we stand not only with the people of Israel, but with people the world over – most particularly in the Middle East – who understand that a nuclear-weaponized Iran is potentially disastrous enough that as a basic matter of common sense it must be prevented.
Obama is not up to this job, because his heart is clearly not in it. Obama the community organizer is comfortable with Iranian nukes.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the commando, clearly is not.
I say, give ‘em hell, Bibi.
Just tell ‘em the truth and they’ll think it’s hell.

Ben-Dror Yemini: The propaganda agents for Hamas

Norway will host a conference during the week ahead on Jews under Islamic rule. A read through the lecture program reveals that the central line of the conference will be that the Jews lived wonderful lives under Muslim rule, until the Zionists came along, snatched them from their Muslim health resort, and enslaved them in Israel. I may be selling some of the participants short; perhaps someone there will have something of value to say. It's been known to happen on occasion – even in the academe.
The thing is, the main guest from Israel, the great expert on the history of the Jews under Muslim rule, who is also a great expert on the situation of the Arab Jews under the rule of the Zionists, who is also the great expert on the situation of the Muslims under Jewish rule, is – hold on to your hats – Gideon Levy.
For the most part, Jews lived under Muslim rule as subjects of inferior status. Now and then there were periods, during a part of the Golden Age for example, in which Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished.
When the Christians expelled the Jews from Spain, the Ottoman sultan was the one who invited them to settle in his empire. The colonial era saw another period of flourishing Jewish life under Muslim rule. These periods, however, were the exception.
Some academics have managed to turn the tables. They glorify the periods of coexistence. They hide the pogroms, the decrees, the abuse and the oppression. And they certainly hide the Jewish Nakba. The Jews didn't suffer from abuse and oppression because of Zionism. To the contrary. They became Zionists because of the abuse and oppression. But manipulating the facts will triumph once again – under the patronage of Gideon Levy and so-called academic freedom.

LATMA: We'll be the Judge, episode 4

Douglas Murray - Antisemitism and Islamism

Douglas Murray - Antisemitism and Islamism [Q and A]

Boris Nemtsov and Alberto Nisman: a Homage to the Victims

Though his mother is Jewish, the late Boris Nemtsov had been baptized by his Russian Orthodox grandfather. As a practicing Christian respectful of his Jewish heritage, he was a friend of Israel.
I recall when, in 1993, our Israel Forum delegation was warmly welcomed by him as Governor, in Nizhny-Novgorod ( formerly Gorky).
In 1998 he joined us, when the Wiesenthal Centre co-organized a
conference on antisemitism at the Moscow City Hall. We met again in 2002, when he was negotiating with Chechen terrorists in the Moscow theatre hostage crisis, and, thereafter, at the World Economic Forum in Davos as more recently at a human rights rally in Moscow.
Nemtsov had become an indefatigable leader, forming the “Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption Party”.At that time, he was alleging corruption in the tenders for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, the town of his birth. This,reportedly, resulted in an attempt to murder him with ammonium chloride.
His party was refused registration and he was continuously arrested but persisted in his peace and pro-democracy campaigns – most recently criticizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and events in Ukraine.
He was murdered two days before due to leading an anti-war march and to releasing a report claiming to prove the presence of Russian army forces in eastern Ukraine.
Immediately after the assassination, his papers and computer were confiscated from his apartment. The march was cancelled, allowing in its place a silent procession of mourning.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Says Nuclear Iran Threatens ‘Stability of the Entire World’

In an address before the United Nations General Assembly, Israel’s Ambassador Ron Prosor on Thursday said that the entire world’s security is threatened by Iran’s nuclear program, not just Israel’s.
“The radical theocracy is working tirelessly to advance its nuclear capabilities, while explicitly threatening to ‘eradicate Israel from the face of the earth.’ But, let me be perfectly clear – what is at stake is not just the security of Israel; it is the security and stability of the entire world,” he said. “Make no mistake – freedom is under attack throughout the world.”
“A war is being waged against human dignity and human rights, and we must fight back,” he added. “Standing united with courage and conviction we can turn back the tide of violent extremism and safeguard the values we cherish.”
Prosor’s comments were made at an event marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. He asked the GA to consider what the world will be like if Iran is allowed to proceed with its nuclear ambitions. He predicted that a nuclear-armed Iran would ignite an arms race in the Middle East and provide a “nuclear umbrella” protecting terrorist groups and allowing them to act with “increasing impunity.”

William Kristol: Netanyahu’s Moment

Churchill enjoyed the great advantage in December 1941 of having an American president who, after Pearl Harbor, was a clear and unambiguous ally in the war for the West. Netanyahu has no such advantage. So it might be hard for him to say, as Churchill did, that here in Washington he had “found an Olympian fortitude which, far from being based upon complacency, is only the mask of an inflexible purpose and the proof of a sure, well-grounded confidence in the final outcome.”
But Netanyahu won’t be speaking only to the Obama administration, which has, after all, made clear its lack of interest in listening to Netanyahu and whose allies won’t be there to listen. He’ll be speaking to the American people.
So he can echo Churchill in appealing to them and warning that, in the struggle in which we’re engaged, “many disappointments and unpleasant surprises await us.” He can echo Churchill in expressing confidence that the West, led by the United States, will prevail. And he can look forward to a time when an Israeli prime minister will be able to say what Churchill could say in December 1941: “Lastly, if you will forgive me for saying it, to me the best tidings of all—the United States, united as never before, has drawn the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard.”
President Obama has not, and will not, cast away the scabbard. Though Netanyahu will of course focus, as he should, on the details of a possible Iran agreement—the speech will be a moment that points beyond the particulars of an Iran deal. It will be a moment that could cause us to reflect on what kind of people we are, and, with new leadership, what kind of deeds we might once again be capable of.
As it will be a moment of vindication for Zionism, the cause to which he and his family have dedicated their lives. In past episodes of Jews’ being consigned by the world to their fate, they were powerless to fight. And so the world (and not a few Jews) became accustomed to Jews’ playing the role of victim. On March 3, something remarkable and historic will happen. The prime minister of Israel, speaking on behalf of not only his country and millions of Jews, but on behalf of the West itself, will command the world’s attention as he declares his refusal to appease the enemies of Israel and the West. Both Jabotinsky and Churchill, both Ben-Gurion and Truman, would appreciate the moment.

Netanyahu Returns
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will be addressing Congress on Tuesday, March 3rd about the dangers of a nuclear Iran.

Joel Pollak: Netanyahu Critics: Ukraine Is a Warning

There is a simple question that every critic of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Tuesday must answer: should he rather wait, as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko did, and address Congress after suffering a crushing defeat? Or should Netanyahu hasten to warn America before disaster strikes, before a deal is done with Iran that cannot be undone?
The answer is simple. Poroshenko was warmly received by both parties–after the Crimea was lost, after Russian-backed rebels had begun waging war in the eastern Ukraine, after President Barack Obama had turned down requests for arms. He spoke movingly–but politely, challenging America to do more to help, hoping Congress and Obama would get the message.
And what happened? Nothing. The Ukraine has suffered crushing military defeats, and the future of NATO is in danger.
Can Netanyahu afford the same risk? Of course not. The deal under consideration by the Obama administration reportedly allows Iran to keep most of its uranium enrichment infrastructure, and would allow Iran to go nuclear within a decade. It is unclear how the international community would monitor compliance–meaning Iran could “break out” even earlier.

Taking the Long View

On June 7, 1981, on the eve of the June 30 Israeli election, Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the demolition of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, shortly before it was to become operational. In the short run, Begin was condemned and punished globally, accused of politicking and undermining US-Israel relations. However, in the long run Begin’s defiance dramatically enhanced Israel’s power projection, upgraded US-Israel strategic cooperation, and spared the US a nuclear confrontation in 1991.
Today, in 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being urged to cancel his planned address at the joint session of Congress next week — on the eve of the March 17 Israeli elections and the March 31 deadline for an agreement with Iran — lest it undermine US-Israel relations and fuel the rift between him and US President Barack Obama. Netanyahu is told that the president, and not Congress, possesses the authority to conclude or reject an agreement with Iran.
However, a Feb. 16 CNN poll documents a rift between Obama and the American people over foreign policy in general and the attitude toward Netanyahu in particular: 51:41 percent disapprove of Obama’s foreign policy; 43:25 percent think that it is appropriate for Netanyahu to address the joint session before the agreement deadline; and 47:32 percent oppose Obama’s handling of Netanyahu’s address. Meanwhile, the February Gallup poll reaffirms vast public support for Israel (70 percent), in sharp contrast to the lack of support for the Palestinian Authority (17 percent — similar to support for Iran, Syria and North Korea).

Obama - More concerned about silencing Israel than protecting it

Barack Obama is running scared.
In advance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress next week about the growing threat of a nuclear Iran, the normally placid president of the United States is suddenly breaking out into a political sweat.
One by one, Obama has been dispatching his minions to deride, denounce and disparage a speech that hasn’t even been given yet. Indeed, President Obama is doing everything in his power to attack the message and the messenger in an attempt to salvage a possible deal with the Iranian ayatollahs.
But in doing so, he runs the risk of stirring up a menace no less frightful: the demon of anti-Semitism. After all, the harshness of Obama’s response could very well lead some Americans down the well-trod path of anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred.

Fox News Co-Host Says It’s Time to Ask: ‘Is This White House Antisemitic’ (VIDEO)

Andreana Tantaros, conservative commentator and a co-host on Fox News’ The Five and Outnumbered on Thursday asserted that the time has come to ask if the Obama White House is antisemitic.
Citing the administration’s consistent attacks against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over his stance on the Iranian nuclear threat Tantaros said, “I think that it is time that we ask the question, and I’m dead serious about this, is this White House antisemitic?”
After being challenged on the assertion by her co-host, Tantaros explained: ”I am asking the question. Because look at the hostility towards Israel, we have never seen an administration so coordinated in their attacks, from Susan Rice to John Kerry to the president, repeatedly at Netanyahu, calling him quote ‘destructive’, it’s just a question.”

Obama vows veto of new Senate legislation ensuring vote on Iran deal

Four senators have introduced a bill that would grant Congress the opportunity to approve, or disapprove, of a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by the Obama administration.
Under the pen for several months, the bill was published with a total of 12 cosponsors just five days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the legislature. He is expected to express support for Congress' role in the diplomatic process.
Given the timing of its publication, the bill represents a nexus of tension among policymakers at the White House, the Israeli premier and US lawmakers over the role of Congress on Iran policy, the foreign policy powers of the president and the quality of a proposed nuclear agreement.
The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 was introduced on Friday by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) and ranking member Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), as well as Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Tim Kaine (D-Virginia).

Kuwait Paper: Obama Threatened to Fire on Israeli Planes Attacking Iran

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida reported Saturday that President Barack Obama stopped Israel from attacking Iran last year by threatening to down the Israeli attack plan.
The report has no confirmation from any other source and appears at first glance to be an invention of an imaginative editor. No other news site has carried the Kuwaiti newspaper report except for the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency.
However, Al-Jarida is considered to be a relatively liberal publication whose editor Mohammed al-Sager previously won the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists “for courageous reporting on political and human rights issues in the face of government threats of censorship and prosecution,”
He also is a former Kuwaiti parliament member and chairman of the legislature.
Al-Sager also was sentenced to six months in jail in 1998 for “insulting the essence of the Divine Being” following the publication of a joke. The sentence was overturned by a higher court.
The idea that President Barack Obama would order the U.S. Air Force to down an Israeli seems like a Grade-B horror movie plot.

NYTs: Former Obama campaign aide now works to oust Netanyahu

Jeremy Bird, the architect of the grass-roots and online organizing efforts that powered President Obama’s presidential campaigns from Chicago, is advising a similar operation in Tel Aviv. But this time it is focused on ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
His consulting work for the group V15 — an independent Israeli organization that does not support specific candidates but is campaigning to replace Israel’s current government — has added yet another political layer to the diplomatic mess surrounding Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to address a joint meeting of Congress next week on Iran.
The White House has argued that Mr. Netanyahu’s plan to deliver the speech on March 3, two weeks before the Israeli elections, is harming the United States-Israel relationship by injecting partisanship. Republicans contend it is Mr. Obama who is playing politics and cite the work of Mr. Bird as proof that the president is quietly rooting for the defeat of his Israeli counterpart.

IDF drill prepares for large scale unrest in West Bank, collapse of security coordination with PA

Facing daily security incidents and clashes, the Menashe territorial brigade recently completed a large-scale drill to test responses to the most extreme potential terrorist attacks in the West Bank.
Lt.-Col. Kfir Edri, deputy commander of the brigade, which covers the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarm, told The Jerusalem Post that the brigade-wide exercise lasted two full weeks, drilling both conscripts and reserves.
The scenarios that informed the drills included the eruption of large-scale unrest with many injuries, and a collapse of security coordination with the Palestinian Authority. A second scenario centered around a mock terrorist infiltration of a settlement, requiring rapid intervention by a reservist force to take control of the area and isolate the terrorists.
Away from the exercises, Edri said the brigade is engaged in daily and nightly security missions, including intelligence-based arrests made every night of Palestinian security suspects.

Kerry asks Abbas to bar anti-Israel measures in Fatah conference

According to London-based daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat, Fatah’s Central Committee may vote on amending Palestinian relations with Israel in its 27th conference Wednesday, responding to an Israeli decision to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax revenues.
Knowledgeable Palestinian sources told the daily that Kerry implored Abbas in a phone conversation to refrain from annulling previously signed political and economic agreements with Israel ahead of its national elections on March 17, in order to allow for the subsequent resumption of peace talks.
Kerry is set to travel to Switzerland on Monday to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as part of the Obama administration’s effort to cut a deal with Iran on its nuclear program ahead of a June deadline. The Palestinian issue has taken the backseat for the administration since talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed last April.
Fatah official Salim Za’anoun, head of the Palestinian National Council, the PLO’s legislative body, told Palestinian news website Al-Watan Voice last week that the upcoming Fatah conference will “define the nature of relations with Israel given the recent political, security and economic developments.”

Khaled Abu Toameh: Senior Fatah official calls for using 'force' against Israeli 'occupation'

A senior Fatah official on Saturday called for using “force” to end Israeli “occupation.”
Tawfik Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee who previously served as head of the Palestinian Authority General Intelligence Service in the West Bank, said that the use of force was the only way to achieve a solution with Israel.
“There is no solution with Israel without force,” he said. “Force does not necessarily mean shooting, but unity, building, cultivating the land and throwing stones.”
Tirawi said that there was no need to “run after the mirage of negotiations and peace with criminals.”
He added: “There is no Israeli partner who can give the minimum of Palestinian rights. All the concessions that were made came from us and not from the Israeli side, which hasn’t presented anything.”
Tirawi said that the upcoming elections wouldn’t produce a government that wants peace with the Palestinians. He predicted that it would take 20 years to establish a Palestinian state “due to the absence of an Israeli partner.”

Hamas Terrorist Threatens Chabad Emissary in Hevron

According to Chabad's news website, Shturem, Naimark confirms the threat and said that the terrorist, who lives in Hevron, has been bothering him for a week because of Chabad's activities with IDF troops in the area.
"The same terrorist, who identifies with Hamas, has been disturbing me for a week. He lives in Hevron or in area near our work with soldiers, and it really bothers him," Neimark stated.
The emissary believes the terrorist found him through Chabad's Facebook page.
Despite not fearing for his life, Naimark said that he plans to turn to the police for help. "I do not fear for my life, but this is not pleasant. I still haven't gone to the police, but it seems that I should reach out to them."
Two weeks ago Fatah and Hamas issued a heated warning to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, following reports that he intends to visit the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron.

The NYPD Got it Right on Islamic Terrorism

Go back to the release of the New York Police Department’s report, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat in 2007. In it, experts studied eleven cases of America’s “homegrown jihadists,” isolating specific factors that appear to move some people — primarily young men — to radical, violent activity even as most Americans, including American Muslims, remain unmoved by or even repulsed by the idea of violence committed in the name of religion. Among the NYPD findings:
- Salafist ideology combines Islam with a determination to solve problems through violence. Salafist institutions and literature are readily available in the West.
- Al Qaeda provides inspiration, but generally not operational assistance.
- Susceptible people seek an identity or a cause and often self-identify before finding compatriots. Radicalization has proceeded more slowly in the US than in Europe, where even second and third generation immigrants have trouble assimilating into the local culture – but more quickly since 9-11.
- The Internet is an enabler, providing an anonymous virtual meeting place. Sites other than mosques can provide the sense of community otherwise isolated people may be seeking.
- A “spiritual sanctioner” and an “operational leader” are necessary to move people from the ideological phase to an operational terrorist cell.
- Not everyone who begins the process of radicalization becomes a terrorist; there are several points at which people drop out.
It is worth noting that when the report was released, NYPD was called “racist” and worse. But time proves the proposition. There is no inevitable link between Muslim people and radicalism; poverty is not the driver; and lack of good governance is not the issue. Professional jihadists are required to move people from curiosity about, or potential interest in jihadist philosophy to becoming active terrorists, and people drop out of this process all along the way (repulsed, one assumes, at some point by the violence).
Far better than a plea for an understanding of “root causes” and sympathy for people’s inability to find a “legitimate” outlet for their grievances, would be a hard-headed consideration of the fact that professional jihadists who may be anywhere in the world are trolling for susceptible young people – primarily males, but increasingly females – to take up the cause of religious extremism and rush to the current battlefield in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.
The fault lies there, not with the West’s lack of empathy.

Douglas Murray: Jihadi John and his ilk have many friends in Britain

For a year we have known of a British Muslim – dubbed Jihadi John – who is IS’s star executioner. With his British accent to introduce the act, in video after video he has sawed the heads off innocent hostages including British citizens Alan Henning and David Haines.
He tried to disguise his identity but on Thursday it came out. Mohammed Emwazi is a 26-year-old British citizen who came to this country from Kuwait as a child.
Now we know who he is we also know who his circle is and what a disgusting and disgraceful glimpse this gives us of modern Britain.
For years our campuses have been the best places in the country to recruit. Left-wing professors and vice chancellors have turned a blind eye for years as terrorist recruiters use their campuses and student Islamic societies to teach a daily diet of hate.
As chance would have it Thursday provided a perfect example because Emwazi’s old university was doing business as usual – or would have been – until the revelations caused the event to be cancelled.
Westminster University’s Islamic Society was meant to be hosting a speech by radical cleric Haitham al-Haddad.
This is a man who preaches hatred of women, gays, non-Muslims and almost everybody else who does not subscribe to his fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
After the death of Osama Bin Laden, al-Haddad said that the dead terrorist would go to heaven.
That is a pretty normal evening’s entertainment for Westminster University where previous Islamic Society speakers have included the now dead Al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki.

Beheader 'Jihadi John' was 'Nazi sympathizer, hated Jews'

Another former classmate, who reportedly met Emwazi in 1999 at Quintin Kynaston Community Academy in North London, said he found out Emwazi was a Nazi sympathizer in the ninth grade.
"The teacher told us the Nazis drew up plans to get rid of all the Jews," the former classmate told the Daily Mirror. "I heard Mohammed mutter, 'Good, they deserved it.' I thought he was joking but later he told me that he hated all Jews and blamed them for the plight of Muslims."
He said that whenever they walked past a house in Golders Green that Emwazi knew was owned by a Jew, he would shout obscenities such as "f---ing pigs."
One of Emwazi's teachers told BBC's Newsnight that he had received anger therapy to help him control his emotions.

Charities Under Investigation for Funding Jihadi John Apologist Group

Two charities that have funded the controversial group Cage, which described Jihadi John as a “beautiful young man”, are being investigated by Britain’s Charity Commission.
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Roddick Foundation have both made six-figure donations to the group set up by former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg.
The Rowntree trust, a Quaker charity, is reported to have given a total of £305,000 to the group, while the Roddick Foundation, which hands out charity grants from the estate of Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick, is reported to have given £120,000.
The Charity Commission confirmed to the Times that there were “compliance cases” into the charities. A spokesman said: “Public statements made in the last few days by Cage raise clear questions for a charity considering funding its activities as to how they could comply with their legal duties as charity trustees.”
Regarding the investigation into the Rowntree trust and the Roddick Foundation, the spokesman added: “The commission’s regulatory concerns are about how the trustees have ensured that charitable grants made to non-charitable bodies are only used for exclusively charitable purposes.”
Questions have also been raised over Amnesty International’s support for Cage. Breitbart London reported yesterday that Amnesty played host to a European tour by Begg and organised a joint trip to Downing Street with the group to petition for the release of Guantanamo inmates.
Gita Saghal, head of Amnesty’s Gender Unit, was hounded out for questioning their links with Begg. She later said that the group’s support of Begg was “something that undermines every aspect of the work we have done on discrimination against minorities. I cannot underestimate the level of horror expressed throughout the global women’s movement.”

Isis killer Mohammed Emwazi had link to 2005 London bomb plot

Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State (Isis) extremist behind the beheading of western hostages, was able to flee Britain and the scrutiny of the security services, despite being a member of a terror cell that was known to have links to the failed 21/7 attacks on London in 2005, the Observer can reveal.
One leading member of Emwazi’s network had a telephone conversation on the day of the attacks with Hussein Osman, who was later jailed for life for placing an explosive at Shepherd’s Bush tube station.
The security services were also aware that associates of the 12-strong west London terror group had joined the four 21/7 bombers at a training camp in Cumbria a year before the attempt to bring carnage to London’s streets.
The revelations, contained in court documents seen by this newspaper, raise urgent questions over how Emwazi, who became known as “Jihadi John”, was able to evade surveillance, slip out of the country in 2013 using false papers and re-emerge in Syria a year later to become the world’s most wanted terrorist.

German town bolsters security for Jews after Islamist threats

Police in the northwestern German city of Bremen warned Saturday of a potential danger from Islamic extremists there and stepped up security measures, including increased security for the Jewish community.
Officials received indications of an elevated risk from violent Islamic extremists on Friday evening, city police said in a statement.
"Since yesterday evening the authorities in Bremen have indications, based on knowledge from the police, the domestic intelligence agency and a federal authority, of an increased threat from Islamist extremists," the police statement said.
They gave no further details of the nature of the potential threat.

SPME BDS Monitor: A Busy Spring for Anti-Israel Activities on Campus

Introduction
With the spring semester in full swing BDS activities intensified greatly, with the focus split between student governments and academic associations. And with the Israeli elections quickly approaching, European boycott threats have also increased. But legislation in the US Congress may forestall this by linking free trade between the US and Europe with avoidance of BDS against Israel.
Analysis
BDS resolutions were proposed in several student governments in February. Most notable was a resolution adopted by the University of California Student Association. The association is made up of representatives from student governments at each of the U.C. campuses. Some members of the media were barred from the proceedings.
At the University of California Davis a BDS resolution was adopted by the student government in late January demanding the university divest from companies doing business in Israel. The University chancellor immediately responded that divestment “does not reflect the position of UC Davis or the University of California system” and that “that this type of call to action will not be entertained.”

SOAS votes for an academic boycott of Israel

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has (or has had) various links with individuals and regimes which might be considered dubious. Here, Student Rights reports on its £755,000 gift from the Saudi royal family and on the inclusion of Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the editorial board of SOAS journal Quranic Studies. The Guardian reported on its links with Libya, in particular with al-Fateh University, here. This report details a whole string of further gifts and associations.
SOAS also has links with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (about 12% of whose students are Palestinians/Arab Israelis).
It’s links such as these which supporters of Friday’s vote for a boycott of Israel presumably want to sever – and 73% were in favour of the BDS resolution, just 27% against. The referendum was open to both academic and support staff as well as students. I understand that it has no binding or legal force, but is obviously a significant symbolic gesture.

George Galloway demands £5,000 from Twitter users over 'anti-Semitism' libel and threatens legal action

George Galloway has ordered lawyers to issue Twitter users who alleged he was an anti-Semite with letters demanding £5,000 and threatening legal action.
The Bradford West MP has reportedly singled out up to a dozen people, including some who had only re-tweeted other posts and a charity worker with just 75 followers.
The letters, seen by The Times, were issued by Bradford-based Chambers Solicitors. They said the recipient was “required” to pay legal costs of £5,000 plus VAT into a HSBC bank account by 10 March.
If Mr Galloway sues them for libel and they lose the case, they may then face being ordered to pay “significant damages”.

Daphne Anson: Pro-BDS Israel-Haters Prance & Scream In London's Covent Garden

This is how some London Israel-haters have spent part of this weekend.
I wonder how many, if any, are from the toxic BDS-voting SOAS.
After such a "knees up" let's hope the oldies among them aren't feeling too stiff in the joints today:

Sephardic Jews urge Spain to adopt law of return

A representative of Spanish-speaking Jews urged Spain to follow Portugal’s lead and adopt a law of return for descendants of Sephardic Jews.
“While Portugal passed its law, in Spain it is stuck and is being watered down as we speak,” Leon Amiras, president of the Israel-based OLEI group representing Israelis from Latin America and Spain, told JTA on Friday.
Portugal and Spain in 2013 and 2014 respectively initiated legislation for naturalizing descendants of Jews who fled during the Inquisition. Both governments describe the initiatives as atonement for the religious persecution and expulsion of countless Jews approximately 500 years ago.
But while Lisbon has followed through and last month adopted a law of return for Jews that its parliament passed in 2013, Spain’s congress has yet to vote on its own legislation. The bill’s scope is being renegotiated amid calls to extend similar policies to Muslims.

Cycling the Desert: New Israel Bike Trail Connects Mitzpe Ramon to Eilat

As the popularity of cycling continues to increase across the world, Israel is working to develop cycling trails that make the country’s spectacular desert accessible to cyclists.
The southern segment of the Israel Bike Trail was inaugurated on Feb. 24 and offers for the first time a unique, uninterrupted 8-day cycling experience after six years of planning and development. The southern section of the Israel Bike Trail stretches over 300 kilometers in length and is divided into eight segments for mountain biking, connecting Mitzpe Ramon to Eilat. The length of the final segment inaugurated this week is 35 kilometers from Khan Be’erot, in the heart of the Ramon Crater, to Moa in the Arava.
Tourism Minister Dr. Uzi Landau described the new bike trail as a leading destination for cyclists.
“The bike trail from Mitzpe Ramon to Eilat offers an experiential attraction to tourists who love sports as well as Israelis who love to tour the country,” he said. “Similar to countries whose tourism industry is based on its geographical characteristics, the unique desert landscape that covers large parts of Israel allow for its positioning as a leading destination for cyclists with a comfortable climate year-round and spectacular desert scenery.”

Judean desert in lush bloom

A breathtaking video of the Judean desert in bloom released last week depicts the greenery of the region following an unusually wet winter season.
The video, produced by Amir Aloni, offers aerial views of the region’s famously rugged topography, with its rolling hills and treacherous cliff faces.
The Judean highlands stretch east of Jerusalem and extend south past the Dead Sea. Admired by Israelis for its natural beauty, the region is often eclipsed by the much larger and drier Negev desert to its south.
The two-minute clip is one of several short films shared by the Israeli videographer on his Vimeo account.