08/26 Links Pt2: Jew-Hatred at the World Social Forum; Black Lives Matter and Self-Hating Jews ~ EoZ

From Ian:

The 2016 annual meeting of the World Social Forum took place in Montreal this month to strategize and coordinate campaigns in support of anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, and now anti-Semitism.
Viewed as a progressive alternative to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, it began with an anti-Semitic cartoon depicting a stereotypical hook-nosed Orthodox Jew controlling the United States government as well as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by proxy. The cartoon, part of a now-canceled talk by Seyed Ali Mousavi, titled “Terrorizm [sic], Wahhabism [sic], Zionism,” was criticized by two Canadian members of Parliament, leading to removal of the Canadian government logo from the forum’s list of partners.
Although Mousavi’s talk was canceled, the WSF website lists at least a dozen other events intended to promote the wholesale boycott of Israel. They include a workshop comparing the calling-out of anti-Semitism to McCarthyism, headlined by Diane Ralph, a notorious conspiracy theorist who has blamed Israel and the U.S. for staging the September 11 terrorist attacks.
WSF attendees also heard from Sabine Friesinger, a former student union president involved in the violent riot preventing current-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking at Concordia University in 2002. Elderly Holocaust survivor Thomas Hecht was physically assaulted during that riot.
Another speaker at the conference was Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. In a 2014 speech at UCLA, Barghouti denied the existence of the Jewish people, claiming that Jews are not indigenous to Israel and have no right to self-determination or collective rights. Nonetheless, Barghouti rejected the notion that BDS is anti-Semitic.

Black Lives Matter and Self-Hating Jews

Between 1939 and 1945, one-third of the Jewish people in the world were murdered. That was genocide. And since Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 in a war of self-defense, the Arab population in these two areas has gone from just over a million to well over 4 million. That is not genocide. If anything, it’s a population explosion.
Why is it worth mentioning this demographic data? Because the recently released manifesto of the Black Lives Matter movement, a movement set up to address the issue of innocent black men who have been shot by police officers, includes a broadened agenda denouncing Israel, the Jewish homeland, for practicing “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Rachel Gilmer, a woman born to a Jewish mother who has disavowed her Judaism, played a major role in insinuating this hatred for Israel into the Black Lives Matter document. And why am I not shocked? Because historically, Gilmer fits into a well-known description of a “self-hating Jew.”
One of the most famous such figures was the iconic Jewish communist Rosa Luxemburg, who when approached to denounce anti-Jewish pogroms, responded with this heartwarming declaration: “Why do you come to me with your special Jewish sorrows?… I cannot find a special corner in my heart for the ghetto. I feel at home in the entire world wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears.”
Well, not exactly the entire world. Luxemburg’s indifferent response to the death of her mother prompted her anguished father to write: “An eagle soars so high he loses sight of the earth below… I shall not burden you any more with my letters.” Other than her father, the only other person I know who referred to Rosa Luxemburg as an eagle was that “great humanitarian,” Vladimir Lenin. “But in spite of all her mistakes,” Lenin declared after Luxemburg’s murder, “she remains for us an eagle.” As the ever-shrewd Winston Churchill remarked of Lenin: “His birth was Russia’s greatest tragedy. His death [and succession by Stalin] was Russia’s second greatest tragedy.” And among Stalin’s few supporters in the United States—even after he was revealed to be a mass murderer —a large, perhaps the largest, percentage were, who else? Self-hating Jews.

Black Lives Matter and the endless war against the Jews

The man who controls the language controls the conversation, as George Orwell rightly observed. The word that the left is trying, with a certain success, to appropriate now is “genocide.” Genocide is what Hitler set out to do, to exterminate Europe’s Jews (and who knows where his evil ambition would have gone from there).
The manifesto of the Black Lives Matter movement, with the connivance of intellectually slovenly academics, applies “genocide” to Israeli self-defense in Gaza. There’s neither logic nor data to prove it.
“Between 1939 and 1945,” writes Joseph Telushkin in the Tablet, an online magazine, “one-third of the Jewish people in the world were murdered. That was genocide. And since Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 [as a result of a] war of self-defense, the Arab population in these two areas has gone from just over a million to 4 million. That is not genocide. It’s a population explosion.”
Facts are stubborn and persistent, but so are those who deny, manipulate and abuse them. Black Lives Matter, in protesting the shooting of young black men by police (and in the case of one or two of the young black men, they were asking for it) was a positive thing, but the movement now is trying to turn the rage against injustice to destructive rage against Israel. It’s an old phenomenon. Blame the Jews: They’re rich (most of them own department stores) and live the life of Riley, so why not?
Until now the Jew-baiters tried to camouflage their game, being careful to say they weren’t talking about the Jews, just the Zionists, the Jews who wanted to build and protect a Jewish homeland. When a black student at Harvard tried this line on Martin Luther King, he was having none of it. “When people criticize Zionists,” he told him, “they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”
This was a time when Jews and blacks marched together against segregation and racial abuse in the South, when racial reunion and solidarity seemed both close and far away. Now, after nearly eight years of the Obama era, it seems only far away, and the Jew-baiters now rarely bother to camouflage Jew-baiting by calling it skepticism of Zionism.

You'll manage without us

Even hard-core and prominent left-wingers are becoming fed up with Haaretz newspaper and with its editorial content that bashes Israel as a "racist" state • Haaretz blusters: Anyone who doesn't read Haaretz isn't worthy of reading Haaretz.
The people at Haaretz don't understand how it happened. They could more or less accept subscribers abandoning them: The paper is the knight of conscience and those who cancel their subscriptions are crazy right-wingers, and shallow, of course. Sometimes the paper's response is more childish than condescending: Anyone who doesn't read Haaretz isn't worthy of reading Haaretz.
But such things are more difficult to say about journalist and author Irit Linur, who was their own flesh and blood, a woman of the Left who wrote a weekly column in the Haaretz weekend supplement.
In a letter to the paper's publisher, Amos Schocken, in which she explained why she had decided to cancel her subscription, Linur wrote: "After reading Haaretz daily for decades, I've reached the conclusion that you and I don't live in the same place. A growing number of the articles in your newspaper reek of foreign journalism that treats Israel like somewhere else, far off and repulsive. I feel that the State of Israel fundamentally revolts you. But that's it -- not me. I don't want to subscribe to a newspaper that tries in every way to make me ashamed of my Zionism, my patriotism and my intelligence, three qualities that are most precious to me."
In response, Schocken played the innocent: "It's odd to me that someone can say that Haaretz is an anti-Zionist newspaper, when in my eyes it is absolutely a Zionist paper and always has been."

The Creation, Not Invention, of Palestine Mandate Citizenship

I do not think citizenship was invented.
It was created, fashioned and conceived, at least on the Jewish side, which over many centuries, viewed themselves as belonging to a very specific country, whose boundaries are delineated in Biblical and Talmudic texts scores of centuries earlier. And these texts were not some ancient dead letter but they were studied, at least weekly, all throughout the Diaspora existence and Jews were very much aware of this element of what we call ‘identity’.
The international legal process — via the Balfour Declaration, the Versailles Peace Conference deliberations, the San Remo Conference decisions and those of the League of Nations between 1917-1922, – all declined, studiously, to mention Arabs in the context of the country called Palestine. They were included in a group called “non-Jews”.
This was very unfortunate for the local Arabs. In one sense, however, the did gain one benefit. The residency requirement for Mandate Palestinian citizenship was two years for most of the time. Perhaps parallel, the residency requirement of UNRWA for refugee status was two years as well. So all those Arabs who came to the Mandate to work and make money, especially during World War II, and then fled, or returned to their lands of origin (I have no real stats at hand although work has been done), gained not only the title of ‘refugee’ but, in the cases they did return to home villages in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq or Jordan, they obtained the right to receive UNRWA handouts. But that is more an economic matter.
I hope to read the book.

Why are there anti-Israel Jews?

When the State of Israel was established, shortly after the end of World War II, the overwhelming majority of Jews were overjoyed. They were filled with hope for a safer future after the atrocities of the Holocaust. In the eyes of the world, the Jews were perceived as a tiny, persecuted nation that deserved to live in peace in its own country like any other nation.
Much has changed since then. The world has become increasingly critical of Israel. In recent years this criticism has become outright hostility, to the point that politicians and state officials openly question the judgment that led to the creation of Israel in the first place.
Along with the world, and perhaps even ahead of it, Jews in Israel and around the world became increasingly critical of Israel and its policies. Today, many of them openly question the legitimacy of Israel’s existence.
Meet the Triple D Test
In the current zeitgeist, a great many Jewish people living in the Diaspora are either overtly or covertly anti-Israel. Sidney and Max Blumenthal, Noam Chomsky, and even Bernie Sanders, of whom I wrote in a previous column, are prominent examples of Jews engaged in anti-Israel activities. But perhaps the archetype of Israel-hating is billionaire, George Soros. Mr. Soros spends millions of his own money each year to support anti-Israel organizations and pressures the American government to support the supposed “victims” of Israel.
Natan Sharansky, former chairman of the Jewish Agency, coined what is known as the Triple D Test, to distinguish criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. The three Ds are Delegitimization of Israel, Demonization of Israel, and Double standards toward Israel. Were the actions of the prominent Jews just mentioned tested against the three Ds, they would pass “with flying colors” and would be labeled as bitter anti-Semites. The only reason they are not classified as such is that they are, well, Jews.

From the annals of an Israel hater: Richard Falk speaks

All of us are familiar with Richard Falk, professor of international law and self-styled "public intellectual," as the former UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights and author of a number of malicious reports slandering and defaming the State of Israel.

Richard Falk, August 17, 2016 at 5:00 am #
I have never on this blog made any comparison between Israel and Nazism or Nazi behavior. How dare you pretend that you are dealing with such inflammatory accusations when in reality Israel is being accused of a variety of crimes by reference to international law. To exaggerate the allegation, and then complain about it, is to evade the substance of criticism. And you wonder why allegations of hasbara and troll flow in your direction.
And here are my replies, which Prof. Falk chose not to post:
You have made those inflammatory accusations outside this blog and the creatures whom you are continually praising have made them time and again on this blog and you yourself have thrown around the word genocide a few times too many, even featuring the word in your Categories, where you are constantly pushing Israel up against it. How dare you make such suggestions?
I doubt very much if you will have the courage to print this, that is, show the courage of your "convictions," but once again you are the one who has to live with yourself. Here are your own words:
From a BBC interview (2008):
Falk: “Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy.

How my reporting about an anti-Semitic cartoon changed my views of Belgium — for the worse

I used to think I had a pretty good understanding of what it means to be Jewish in Belgium.
A longtime observer of that polarized binational country, whose dysfunctions and successes often reflect those of the European Union headquartered in its capital, Brussels, I have family ties there and am fluent in the local languages.
But I had to readjust my understanding of Belgian Jewry’s circumstances this month while reporting on a local Catholic school’s stated pride in and support for a teacher who had published anti-Semitic caricatures, and who recently won a cash prize at Iran’s Holocaust mockery cartoon competition.
Shielded by education officials’ wall of silence and celebrated in mainstream Belgian media as a champion of free speech, Luc Descheemaeker was able to pass off anti-Semitic imagery as legitimate criticism of Israel in a way that I had thought impossible in an established Western democracy in the heart of Europe.
As Descheemaeker’s advocates circled the wagons around him — his school praised him as working to preserve, not distort, the memory of the Holocaust — I saw firsthand how anti-Israel vitriol has mainstreamed classic anti-Semitism in a country where Jews are leaving partly because they feel their children can no longer comfortably attend the public schools.
My Belgian eye opener began with a post on The New Antisemite blog, which tracks anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe. It said the vice director of the Sint Jozef Institute highschool near Antwerp had told a Belgian Jewish publication that she was “very proud” of Descheemaeker after he won $1,000 and a special mention at the Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest in Tehran.
The winning entry by Descheemaeker, a plastic arts teacher who retired this year, was a drawing of the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” over Israel’s security barrier along the West Bank. The German sentence, which means “work sets you free,” was featured on a gate of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland.
Previously, I found, Descheemaeker had published at least two cartoons that used classically anti-Semitic imagery. In one, an Orthodox Jew waits to bludgeon a peaceful Arab baby and his mother with a giant Star of David. In another, the Jew is waiting to startle a jihadist who is holding a shopping bag while wearing an explosives vest — presumably so she blows herself up.

Co-Author of Anti-BDS Bill Passed at German University: ‘First Step’ in War Against Antisemitism’ (INTERVIEW)

The passage of an anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution at Leipzig University in Germany is a “first step” in the war against the global antisemitic campaign, a co-author of the bill told The Algemeiner on Thursday.
“We are optimistic that our student council resolution is representative of the over 29,000 students at our school and we hope to achieve more,” said Christian Kleindienst, spokesman for the Student Representative Council of the Institute for the Study of Culture (FSR KuWi), the body that submitted the bill labeling BDS as antisemitic to Leipzig University’s Student Council (StuRa).
Kleindienst — who also serves as a delegate on StuRa — told The Algemeiner that the resolution was a response to a campus event featuring Lori Allen, a professor from the University of London who supports academic boycotts of Israel and justifies terrorism against the Jewish state.
Though StuRa had already passed a resolution rejecting antisemitism in any form in 2015, Kleindienst said, “It was so general that we decided to concretize it in reference to BDS and other such campaigns.”
Kleindienst said he and fellow FSR KuWi members were responsible for writing up the text of the resolution — borrowing, in certain passages, language of a resolution passed by the university’s Young Socialists, which lent its support to the FSR KuWi bill. The resolution was also supported by the civil society group Alliance Against Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism Leipzig, which initiated the FSR KuWi debate on Allen’s event.

IsraellyCool: Ali Abunimah’s Timeline Of Terror Support

For years, I have been documenting various examples of Ali “Abumination” Abunimah’s support for terrorism, lies and other transgressions.
But my post yesterday ripping the Electronic Intifada piece defending a terrorist inspired me to undertake a small exercise: search his Twitter timeline for defense of terrorism, using the keyword “resistance.”
The results? 100s of tweets going back as far as 2008, in which Abunimah not only refers to terrorism as “resistance,” but glorifies the terrorists, encourages this terrorism, characterizes those who oppose the terrorism as “collaborators,” revels in the death of Israelis, and even expresses a desire to financially contribute to this “resistance.”
Here are some of his “greatest hits”:

Portugal pulls out of policing project led by Israeli university

Portugal’s government denied reports that its pullout from a law enforcement project led by Israel’s Bar-Ilan University owed to pressure by pro-Palestinian activists.
The departure of Portugal, a main entry point of illegal drugs into Europe, from the LAW-TRAIN project was reported earlier this week by the Lisbon-based Diario de Noticias daily.
Founded last year, the project has funding from the European Union and features innovative training techniques, including computer simulations, for security forces performing interrogations in the fight against international crime.
Diario de Noticias reported that the pullout followed lobbying efforts by Portugal’s Communist Party to have Portugal leave the project, which was co-founded by the European Commission and involves eight partner organizations, of which three are from Israel, including the police. Other partners include the University of Leuven in Belgium and that country’s federal prosecution service; the armed forces of Spain, and the Vienna-based USECON consultancy agency.
The decision to have the Justice Ministry of Portugal leave the program – Diario de Noticias reported that it has cost Lisbon $220,000 – owed to an internal re-prioritization and manpower shortages and “was not politically motivated,” a ministry spokesperson said.

Israeli fans in France greeted with Palestinian flags, Israeli flags banned

After much talk over the high security risks at Thursday nights Europa League soccer match between St. Etienne and Beitar Jerusalem in France Beitar supporters arrived to the stadium to find they were not allowed to enter with Israeli flags, Israeli sports news website One reported.
The fans were then greeted with not only French flags but Palestinian flags as well, marking the second time in as many weeks that an Israeli soccer team was greeted abroad with Palestinian flags.
Ahead of the game authorities were preparing for a high risk of violence, according to French media.
There was a ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol within a safety zone around the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium as well as a ban of pyrotechnics around the venue.
Security measures had been stepped up ahead of the Europa League soccer match between St. Etienne and Beitar Jerusalem in France on Thursday.
Pro-Palestinian activists have called for a rally outside of St. Etienne's City Hall, using the Israeli team's presence as an opportunity to protest Israeli policies.
There was a known a possibility that St. Etienne's "Green Angels," the French club's fan group, will make their presence felt with around 200 to 300 people at the rally.

Spanish court overturns regional Israel boycott

ACOM, an Israel lobby group working to combat BDS in Spain, successfully overturned a boycott decision passed by the city council of Vélez-Málaga in the Costa del Sol region this week.
The Málaga court issued a preliminary restraining order on the boycott decision.
Vélez-Málaga is a city of some 77,800 people in the Málaga province along the southern Mediterranean coast. The province is home to one the largest Jewish communities in Spain, with congregations in Málaga, Marbella and Torremolinos.
Following the court’s decision on the claim submitted by ACOM, the city council announced its intention to annul the boycott against Israel and companies doing business with the country.
ACOM’s president Angel Mas, who has filed court proceedings against the most prominent boycotts in Spain, said that “even as discriminatory motions are halted every month, the aggressive boycott campaign continues, with new anti-Semitic declarations being approved almost every week.”

German mayor fires Palestinian intern for wearing headscarf

Local German newspaper "Märkische Allgemeine" reported on Wednesday that the 48-year-old Palestinian woman was fired from her six-week internship with the "Perspectives for refugees" project after just one day.
Social Democrat (SPD) and mayor of Luckenwalde, Elisabeth Herzog-von der Heide said she was unable to provide the intern with a suitable field of work as she refused to take off her headscarf in the presence of men.
"The Islamic headscarf is a means of expression of religious belief," Herzog-von der Heide said.
Allowing the woman to wear her headscarf would have violated the neutrality in the town hall, she argued, adding that there are no crucifixes on the walls of the building. In future, Herzog-von der Heide said that this would be clarified before the internship.

Israel and Chicago fight BDS together

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon met this week with Mayor Rahm Emanuel during his visit to Chicago.
Following their meeting, Ambassador Danon noted, “Israel and Chicago have a lot in common. We are both leaders in water treatment and conservation, and we are both prioritizing innovation and technology at the top of our agendas.”
Ambassador Danon also discussed with Mayor Emanuel the joint battle against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. “Chicago stands by Israel and Israel stands by Chicago in this important battle,” Danon said.
The State of Illinois was the first American state to implement legislation against the BDS movement. Ambassador Danon thanked Mayor Emanuel for the successful implementation of this law in Chicago and called for continued coordination and cooperation against those who seek to delegitimize Israel.

New York Times: ‘Today, To Our Shame, Anne Frank Is A Syrian Girl’

Kristof notes that after the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom targeting Jews, a poll showed that 94 percent of Americans disapproved of Nazi treatment of Jews, but 72 percent disapproved of admitting large numbers of Jews.
Kristof posits that some people might point out, “But Jews weren’t a threat the way Syrian refugees are!” then writes, “In the 1930s and ’40s, though, a world war was underway and Jews were widely seen as potential Communists or even Nazis. There were widespread fears that Germany would infiltrate the U.S. with spies and saboteurs under the cover that they were Jewish refugees."
He quotes the State Department from 1941: “When the safety of the country is imperiled, it seems fully justifiable to resolve any possible doubts in favor of the country, rather than in favor of the aliens”; The New York Times in 1938 quoting the granddaughter of President Ulysses S. Grant warning about “so-called Jewish refugees” while insinuating they were Communists “coming to this country to join the ranks of those who hate our institutions and want to overthrow them”; and Senator Robert Reynolds, a North Carolina Democrat who fulminated against Jews, arguing, “Let Europe take care of its own.” Breckinridge Long, working at the State Department, harshly tightened rules on Jewish refugees.
Thus Anne Frank was doomed.
Kristof even denounces Obama, saying, “President Obama’s reluctance to do more to try to end the slaughter in Syria casts a shadow on his legacy, and there’s simply no excuse for the world’s collective failure to ensure that Syrian refugee children in neighboring countries at least get schooling. Today, to our shame, Anne Frank is a Syrian girl.”
Although Kristof’s plea on behalf of rescuing the threatened refugees is moving and argues for some strong kind of intervention; what mitigates against Kristof’s analogy of the girl and Anne Frank is this: among Syrian Muslims, how many of them harbor anti-Semitic feelings of their own? How many of them would have saved Anne Frank? And knowing Anne Frank through her writing, is there much doubt that if the situation were reversed, she would hesitate to help children who were threatened?

You may have missed it, but Palestinian terrorists tried to kill Jews again

We’ve also reached the conclusion that the Independent’s coverage is the worst out of all the major British media outlets we monitor.
Indeed, if you were to base your understanding of the summer 2014 war between Israel and Hamas solely on the Indy’s coverage, you’d almost be forgiven for believing that Israel just bombed Gaza for 51 days out of some sadistic impulse to inflict pain and suffering on the civilian population.
Context regarding rocket fire on Israeli towns and the use of human shields by a genocidal antisemitic movement known as Hamas was almost completely absent.
This brings us to the following tweet by the Independent (to their two million followers) on the latest incident in Gaza:

The Independent @Independent
You might have missed it, but Israel bombed Gaza again http://ind.pn/2bLaGOC
7:47 AM - 24 Aug 2016
Most who saw the tweet wouldn’t have read the article, which actually is pretty clear that Israel was responding to rockets fired by Gaza terrorists, one of which landed between two houses in the southern city of Sderot. (The IDF’s response targeted dozens of military sites in Gaza, causing no fatalities.)

After CAMERA Contacts Reuters About Skewed Headline, Reuters Corrects

CAMERA contacted Reuters editors after seeing a skewed headline that once again reversed the perpetrator and victim to whitewash Palestinian terrorism. The headline was meant to describe a situation where a Palestinian stone-thrower pursued by Israeli soldiers exited his car to stab one of the soldiers in the neck before being shot by his wounded victim. We pointed out that it just this sort of reporting that gives many news agencies a reputation for unprofessional, biased reporting. Editors responded by thanking CAMERA for alerting them, apologizing and correcting the headline.

Independent so biased they claim even dead Israelis shoot Palestinians

Social media failing to filter extremist content, UK lawmakers charge

Facebook, Twitter and Google are not doing enough to prevent their social networks from being used by extremists for a recruitment drive, a panel of British MPs said Thursday.
Failure to act would lead to the sites becoming “the ‘Wild West’ of the internet,” the Home Affairs Committee warned.
The companies defended themselves against claims that they were failing in their duty.
The report was published after the number of counter-terrorism arrests in Britain increased 35 percent between 2010 and 2015, although the country has not seen a mass casualty extremist attack since 2005’s London bombings.
An estimated 800 people with links to Britain have travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq.

BBC’s Fatah profile misleads on reason for failure of 2010 negotiations

Audiences are not informed that the Israeli government announced a ten month-long ‘goodwill gesture’ construction freeze in November 2009 or that for nine of those ten months, the Palestinians refused to come to the negotiating table. Only at the beginning of September 2010 did the Palestinians agree to commence direct negotiations and meetings were held in Washington and Sharm el Sheikh. As the construction freeze’s pre-designated time frame drew to a close on September 26th, the PA president and PLO and Fatah leader Abbas demanded its extension, threatening to end the talks if he did not get his way. The result was that on October 2nd 2010 the negotiations ended.
It is not unusual to find misrepresentation of the reason for the end of the 2010 talks in BBC reports – see examples here and here. However, inaccurate information in a backgrounder obviously has the potential to mislead even more and clearly needs correction.

Lapid to battle Swedish anti-Zionism at upcoming rally

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid is expected to address the pro-Israel community in Sweden, arguably the European country most hostile to Israel, on Sunday.
Lapid will be the first-ever MK to participate in the Swedish Zionist Federation’s fifth annual demonstration in Stockholm. Among the other expected participants are local opposition politicians Ebba Busch Thor, leader of the Christian Democratic Party, and Birgitta Holsson, former minister for the EU and Democracy and foreign policy spokeswoman for the Liberal Party, as well as Israel’s Ambassador to Sweden Isaac Bachman.
The Yesh Atid chairman said the rally “in one of the most difficult arenas in Europe” is part of a “daily struggle against the delegitimization campaign against Israel.”
Members of the Swedish government “don’t hide their hatred and anti-Semitic opinions about Israel,” he lamented.
“We are coming to tell the citizens and government of Sweden: We have a flourishing state, a strong army and economic power, and we know how to stand up to all the challenges,” Lapid added. “You have the moral obligation to stick to the facts, not to give in to lies, and not take part of the obsessive anti-Israel campaign led by terrorist organizations with only one goal: to eliminate the State of Israel.”

Argentina: High schoolers dress up as Nazis, attack Jewish peers

Jewish high school students at a graduation party at a nightclub in Argentina were verbally and physically attacked by students from another school dressed in Nazi costumes, Israel Hayom learned Thursday.
The incident took place on Tuesday night at a nightclub in the tourist town of Bariloche, in Argentina's Patagonia region. The attackers, from a German high school in the town of Lanus, near the capital Buenos Aires, had drawn Hitler mustaches on their faces and were wearing armbands with swastikas on them. They confronted several Jewish students from an ORT high school, hurling anti-Semitic obscenities at them. A fight broke out between the two sides, and the bouncers at the Cerebro de Bariloche nightclub removed everyone from the club.
Following the incident, the Bariloche Municipality asked that the company that organized the high school graduation trip prohibit the "Nazi" students from participating in any further events.
Silvia Fazio, the principal of the German high school in Lanus, said the students in question had been sent home and that they would be punished harshly.
"In this case a mere apology will not suffice. This is a serious thing. They will be punished and, among other things, we will send them to workshops and activities that deal with education against racism," she said.

Israeli Scientist Part of International Team That Discovered Earth-Like Planet

An international team of scientists and astronomers has announced the discovery of a planet with a mass similar to that of Earth, orbiting Proxima Centauri — the closest star neighbor to our solar system.
The collaboration of scientists from nine countries, known as the “Pale Red Dot” and led by Dr. Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the Queen Mary University of London, includes the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Dr. Aviv Ofir.
The rocky planet is named Proxima b. Researchers say that because it is within the habitable zone of its star, liquid water could potentially exist on its surface and it may be the closest possible home for life outside of our solar system.
Ofir said that Proxima Centauri — a low-mass red dwarf star with a diameter about one seventh that of our Sun and far dimmer — has been studied for the past century, but only now have observations become sensitive enough to decisively detect the presence of this new small planet.
“We discovered the planet with an observatory in Chile. We can’t see Proxima Centauri from our observatories in Israel,” he said. “It is well below the southern horizon, so it is unobservable from Israel all year round.”

Apple boosts iPhone security after Israeli spyware reveals startling weaknesses

An Israeli digital arms company has prompted tech giant Apple to boost security for its mobile operating system after developing a highly sophisticated spyware package that allows complete control of iPhone devices.
The spyware — code-named Pegasus — took advantage of previously undisclosed weaknesses in Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 9.3.5., according to reports published Thursday by the San Francisco-based Lookout smartphone security company and internet watchdog group Citizen Lab.
The software can track calls and contacts, collect passwords, read text messages and emails, record calls and trace the whereabouts of the user.
The culprit, according to the reports by Lookout and Citizen Lab, is the NSO Group, an Israeli company with a reputation for flying under the radar.

Israeli aid group going to Louisiana to assist flood victims

IsraAid, the Israeli international aid organization, will be sending a delegation of aid workers to assist the people affected by the flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The eight person humanitarian delegation is slated to fly out to the areas affected by flooding by the weekend. They will help Louisiana residents return to their homes to collect personal effects, and help to begin the process of rehabilitating flooded out homes so that the Louisianans' lives that have been affected by the flooding can go back to normal.
There have been more than 13 deaths attributed to the flooding so far, and over 60,000 homes have been affected by the flooding in the state.
The delegation will be led by Naama Gorodischer, who currently serves as one of the heads of IsraAid programming.
"We've been following how the storm and flooding have been developing over the last few days." Naama said." With the help of our local partners, we've been able to get a good situation report on the extent of the damage, and the urgent need for assistance and rehabilitation."
"Our team will arrive in the field at the exact time that the water levels are expected to lower, which will enable us to start working immediately," she continued.

Massages for pups as Tel Aviv celebrates Dog Day

Dog owners enjoyed massages alongside their pups on Friday, as Tel Aviv celebrated its first festival for four-legged residents.
Hundreds of dogs and humans joined the festival, which was timed to coincide with Dog Day celebrations worldwide.
In addition to canine massages, children sat with their pets for joint portraits, and there was even a dog sushi stall.
Lectures on “dog emotions” took place, as did a workshop on canine homeopathy.
The city claims to be one of the most dog-friendly in the world, where it is common to take your pup to the restaurant, a party or even the office.
Research conducted by the city vet found that Tel Aviv has among the highest number of dogs per population, with one for every 17 residents, municipality spokeswoman Mira Marcus told AFP.

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