04/25 Links Pt2: A Muslim Arab turns into a pro-Israel activist; Gal Gadot Pays Tribute to ‘Hero’ Survivor Grandfather ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Jews, too, sometimes prefer to forget. On the left, there is a nefarious tactic of trying to portray the Jewish people as more sinning than sinned against. For those in the anti-Zionist realm, the Holocaust is an ugly snag in the narrative of an Israeli Goliath targeting a Palestinian David. But sometimes there is a desire to forget even within the staunchly pro-Israel camp. It can be tempting, in celebrating Israel’s military might, its flourishing democracy, its miraculous existence, to forget that we were not always so strong. But we cannot let that pride come at the expense of remembering who we are, which necessarily includes remembering what we as a people have endured.
And we won’t. Jewish liturgy and tradition are peppered with the language of memory. We are commanded to remember the Sabbath. We sing about the repercussions of forgetting Jerusalem. Many blessings and prayers conclude with the exhortation that what we are doing is l’zecher yitziat Mitzraim—in memory of our exodus from Egypt. And every year, in commemorating that exodus during Passover, we contemplate our obligation to see ourselves as if we, personally, had been taken out of Egypt; we sing of how in each generation, a new enemy rises up who seeks our destruction; and we commit ourselves to telling the story to our children and our children’s children.
We are a people who understands the immeasurable power of a story told well, so we will not forget. We must ensure that the world does not either.

‘I am a Muslim Arab and an Israeli Zionist, and I love the Jewish people’

One of the most patriotic families in Israel lives just a few kilometers from the Gaza Strip. The father—a former Gazan—wears a medallion with the map of Israel and a Star of David around his neck, two of his sons are IDF soldiers who are willing ‘to die for the State of Israel,’ and they all feel a strong connection to Judaism. Years after being smuggled into Israel following the father’s secret collaboration with the Shin Bet, they declare: ‘We have no other country.’
N., a Muslim Arab resident of Gaza, traveled to Israel last summer to see her three grandchildren, two of whom are IDF soldiers. She hadn’t seen them for six years.
When she arrived in Israel, N. knew that she was ill and that her days were numbered. A female IDF soldier escorted her from the Erez Crossing to the entrance to her son’s home, in one of the Jewish communities near Gaza.
“I opened the door for her and gave her a hug,” her son, D., recalls. “She saw the children. I said to her, ‘Mother, look, my sons are in the army. My sons are soldiers.’ We hadn’t seen each other for years. I looked at her. She was happy. She asked me to take care of them, to make sure that nothing happened to them. Before we parted, she hugged my two soldiers in her arms and said to them: ‘Inshallah, I hope we will soon get to see this uniform in Gaza. When will Israel come back there? We have no life.’”
“Grandmother kissed us incessantly,” says Y., a sergeant in the IDF. “She stroked our hair and kept saying, ‘May God protect you.’”
N. stayed with her family for a month. Shortly after returning to Gaza, she passed away. “I feel so relieved,” says D., “knowing that my mother was pleased with us when she died.”

How did a Muslim Arab turn into a pro-Israel activist

‘Metro’ tells the story of Yahya Mahamed, who said his eyes were opened to the truth about Israel. Now calling himself ‘Zionist Muslim,’ he is working at StandWithUs to help others
Sometimes we are privileged to meet rare and inspiring people, people whose life experiences are so different from our own that hearing about them provides us with a new understanding of the human spirit, a new way to see things, and a new way to think.
Yahya Mahamed is one such person. Tall, dark and slim, the first thing one notices about him is his smile.
It’s sincere and disarming and immediately evokes the feeling that a friend has been found. As his story unfolds, it becomes clear that behind those dimples is a young man of courage, humor, intelligence and a tremendous heart.
Metro sat with Mahamed at the Jerusalem office of StandWithUs, an NGO dedicated to educating people around the world about Israel. This is his story.
“I grew up in Umm el-Fahm, the third-largest Arab city in Israel. It’s a very problematic place. The Islamic Movement runs the municipality. This means they have power over everything: schools, services, who gets hired... and they are very anti-Israel. ISIS logos and swastikas are common,” he says.

American Studies Association Will Have to Defend Its Anti-Semitism in Open Court

Being an academician generally means never being held accountable. You can use your classroom as a platform for indoctrinating a captive audience of naïve, tuition-exploited young people. You can safely tolerate a difference of opinion to the point of eviscerating a student’s grade. If you need therapy, you can convert your classroom into a support group, at least for all those who share your neuroses.
If you are teaching English and happen to be a social warrior for animal rights, you can compel—as one of my colleagues did—your English literature students to read only books about the inhumane treatment of animals and coerce them to clean out cages at the local humane society.
You can get away with all of this and far worse if your goals are seen as contributing to the dominant leftist view of social justice. It doesn’t matter that what you are supposed to do in class and what you actually do in class are vastly different.
Being a leftist academician in today’s politically correct environment not only absolves you of accountability; it often means you have no professional responsibility to the unbiased conduct of inquiry, at least as long as you advance the leftist agenda.
So, it was not surprising that the American Studies Association, in violation of its organizational rules and in defiance of its avowed scholarly commitments, embarked on an undemocratic procedure to institute a boycott against Israeli academicians.
After all, ASA members are used to never having to account for themselves on campus. Why should they have to account for their behavior as a professional society?

SICK: Leftists March To Immigration Center Dressed As Holocaust Victims

Long Island Action Events, a website dedicated to informing Long Island progressives about events, announced an event today at the Immigration and Customs & Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center intended to slam the Department that is enforcing standing immigration laws. However, the protesters will start at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park; protesters were told to dress up like concentration camp prisoners. Here's the description of the event:
Join a Procession from the Holocaust Museum to the ICE immigration detention center. Dressed in the clothing of the concentration camp prisoners, we will present Homeland Security head John Kelly with the Adolf ICEman Award. (This award is named after Adolf Eichmann, who was in charge of deporting Jews to the Nazi concentration camps.)
Wherever you are, wear the “NO!” – as a sticker, a t-shirt, an arm-band or written onto your clothes.
The protest purposefully coincided with Yom HaShoah, a day where Jews across the world memorialize the six million Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust. It also compared Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly to Final Solution mastermind Adolf Eichmann, who was executed in Israel for crimes against the Jewish people.
Leave it to Leftists to compare members of the Trump administration to Nazis while proactively minimizing the Holocaust and mocking those who were savagely slaughtered and imprisoned for the crime of being Jewish.

Trump said bidding to defeat new anti-Israel UNESCO resolution

The Trump administration has reportedly ordered US ambassadors in UNESCO member states to initiate meetings with their host countries’ foreign ministries in a bid to defeat an anti-Israel resolution that is to be debated at the UN cultural organization next week.
The passage last October by 23 votes to 6 of a UNESCO resolution sponsored by Arab states that ignored Jewish and Christian historical ties to Jerusalem holy sites sparked an outcry in Israel, and was castigated by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Israel and the United States suspended their funding to UNESCO in 2011 after the Palestinians were admitted as members. Both countries lost their voting rights as a result.
Next Monday, UNESCO is set to vote on a resolution that includes clauses denying any Jewish connection to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, and that attacks Israel for the killing of children in Gaza, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported Monday.
The US administration, aware that it will not be able to prevent the introduction of the resolution, is seeking to defeat it. It has issued a démarche to its ambassadors in UNESCO-member countries, telling them to initiate meetings at the host foreign ministries and to convey the US’s hope that those countries will vote against the motion, Channel 10 said.

How Did Itzik Wittenberg, Hero of the Vilna Ghetto, Die?

On July 8, 1943, Bruno Kittel, an Oberscharfuhrer in the German Security Police, drove into the Vilna ghetto and summoned Jacob Gens, the chief of the Jewish Police and the de facto head of the ghetto. Kittel—who two months hence would supervise the liquidation of the ghetto—demanded the immediate surrender of Itzik Wittenberg, the Communist commander of the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (FPO), the United Partisans Organization, the ghetto’s underground resistance movement. What exactly Kittel knew about Wittenberg was not made clear: Either affiliation, Communist or FPO, was a capital crime; either affiliation would, of course, mark Wittenberg as someone the Gestapo would be very interested in questioning.
But Wittenberg had been warned, likely via underground Communist channels, and had gone into hiding. Zenia Berkon, a member of the FPO, has said that Wittenberg hid in her small apartment, with her and her mother, and that he disguised himself with a mustache, dark glasses, and a rubber coat. Some accounts claim that Kittel was told that Wittenberg was dead.
Kittel, frustrated, arrested a ghetto policeman named Aurbach. Aurbach was also a member of the FPO—a fact Kittel was almost certainly not aware of—but was returned to the ghetto the next day, showing no signs of being tortured, and claiming he had not given up any incriminating information. Why Kittel arrested and subsequently released Aurbach has never been wholly explained: It may have been a ruse to lure Wittenberg, to demonstrate to him as well as the ghetto brass that Wittenberg was wanted only for questioning, and would be released unharmed.
In the wake of Kittel’s visit, the FPO leadership went on high alert. The Nazis’ reaction to real or even suspected underground movements—especially since the Warsaw ghetto uprising earlier that year—was scorched earth: They would raze villages, murder entire populations. The FPO had thus far successfully maintained a low profile; they had eschewed open and armed resistance for covert operations of sabotage, smuggling, and communication; even inside the ghetto, relatively few Jews were aware of its existence. But if the Germans had somehow learned of the FPO and its activities, the destruction of the ghetto could very well be at hand; and if that was, in fact, the case, the FPO—which from its inception in January 1942 had committed to revolt when, and only when, the liquidation of the ghetto was imminent—would launch the uprising. They would not, in the language of their manifesto, be led “like sheep to the slaughter.”

The Rabbis March on Washington, 1943

After a thousand petitions failed to move FDR, Orthodox rabbis here in America attempted a dramatic show of force to persuade the President to do something – anything. More than 400 from the United States and Canada took to the road to persuade FDR to use whatever means to save what was left.
They planned to meet the President at the White House. The least he could do was open America’s doors. The silent quota permitted no flow, only a trickle.
This was 1943. Millions of European Jews had already been put to death for being Jewish. More were being murdered by the hour.
The rabbis approached the White House on October 6. The President could not be bothered. He left for vacation and there was no meeting.
“The President went golfing,” according to Judy Silver, granddaughter of Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the great Rav who was among the leaders of the delegation.
Succeed or fail, they tried, and they never stopped trying – and if 400 sounds impressive, yes, these leaders deserve history’s everlasting gratitude…among them Cincinnati’s Rabbi Silver, Hillel Kook from the famed rabbinical dynasty, and the writer Ben Hecht.
But that number is nothing compared to the American Jews who remained silent throughout the Holocaust.

Desmond Tutu, Roger Waters urge Radiohead to cancel Israel show

A number or artists and activists, including Desmond Tutu, Roger Waters and Thurston Moore, founder of Sonic Youth, have signed an open letter asking British rock superstar band Radiohead “to think again” about performing in Israel, the Pitchfork website reported Monday.
“By playing in Israel you’ll be playing in a state where, UN rapporteurs say, ‘a system of apartheid has been imposed on the Palestinian people,’” the letter on the website Artists’ Pledge for Palestine states.
“Please do what artists did in South Africa’s era of oppression: stay away, until apartheid is over,” the letter concludes.
The appearance of Radiohead on July 19 at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv is one of the expected highlights of a packed summer of shows, including Britney Spears, Aerosmith and Rod Stewart.
According to Hillel Wachs, a promoter with 2B Vibes, the company bringing the Pixies, Paul Young and Macklemore to Israel this summer, when a politically aware and influential act like Radiohead agrees to perform here, it creates a ripple effect.
“It sends a message that BDS is not really a factor, and that it’s acceptable to come to Israel even if you don’t agree with every government policy,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “There’s a general understanding that it’s a complex issue and that music is supposed to supersede political conflict and bridge gaps to bring people together.”
Radiohead’s connection to Israel has been tight since the beginning of their career. They played three shows in Tel Aviv after their debut album was released in 1993, before they had gained wide notoriety. They have gone on to become one of the most popular and critically acclaimed rock groups of the past two decades.

IsraellyCool: Guest Post: Open Letter To Pitchfork Music Magazine Regarding Radiohead

Dear Pitchfork Music Magazine Editor,
Your report on an open letter from artists Roger Waters, Thurston Moore and others urging Radiohead to cancel their July performance in Tel Aviv is not so much sharing a news story as it is helping to spread misinformation and propaganda.
The article repeats slanderous accusations against Israel and creates the false illusion of a wave of support for a cultural boycott by artists. Subtitled, “Please do what artists did in South Africa’s era of oppression: stay away, until apartheid is over,” the article quotes extensively from the open letter but fails to provide balance or any semblance of a counter argument to its charges.
In fact, Israel is an open, liberal democracy that guarantees equal rights to all its citizens. Hundreds of artists who visit or perform there every year speak glowingly about the Jewish state, despite the harassment they receive by the likes of Roger Waters and, mostly ill-intended, grassroots groups.
Pitchfork conveniently neglects to mention even a handful of the high-profile artists who have rejected the call to boycott including Madonna, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Bon Jovi, Claire Danes, Helen Mirren, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Pitbull, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Ricky Martin, Joss Stone, Carlos Santana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Quentin Tarantino, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Seal, Kevin Costner, Cyndi Lauper, Yanni, DJ Tiesto, Moby, Elton John and Bob Dylan to name a few.

Anti-Semitic Democratic NYC candidate slams 'Jewish landlords'

A Democratic candidate for the New York City Council has drawn criticism for his inflammatory rhetoric and attempts to stir up anti-Semitism in a race against a Jewish incumbent.
Thomas Lopez-Pierre, 48, is vying for the New York City Council’s 7th District, which spans much of north Manhattan and is currently represented by Mark Levine.
All three candidates running for the seat are Democrats, and the race will effectively be decided by the Democratic primary vote in September.
The election garnered national attention in recent days following a series of provocative statements by Lopez-Pierre targeting the New York Jewish community.
Lopez-Pierre kicked off his 2017 campaign with a video advertisement, spread on social media, decrying what he described the “ethnic cleansing” of upper Manhattan by “greedy Jewish landlords”. Lopez-Pierre also accused local Jewish landlords of exerting political control over the incumbent, Mark Levine.
“Mark Levine is controlled by Jewish landlords,” Lopez-Pierre claimed in the video. “Jewish landlords own more than 80% of the real estate in upper Manhattan, and they are at the forefront of pushing black and Latino people out of upper Manhattan. Together, if we organize, we can defeat Mark Levine, we can defeat Donald Trump, and we can defeat the Jewish landlords that are pushing black and Latino people out of Washington Heights and the Upper West Side.”

NY assemblyman slams 'radical' Sarsour speaking at CUNY

The City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health has stirred up controversy with their booking pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour as their commencement speaker.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) has spoken out against this appointment, claiming that Sarsour's support of Sharia Law makes her unsuitable to speak at a school funded by taxpayers, CBS New York reported on Friday.
"She is someone who associates with radical Islamists; supports them; shows support for them. She is someone who has said, clearly, she thinks throwing rocks at cars in Israel is a good thing," Hikind said. "I mean, it's just nuts. It makes no sense. It's crazy to have this woman be the person who's going to speak to the students."
In 2015, Sarsour tweeted an image of a Palestinian boy approaching Israeli security forces with stones gripped in his hands with the caption "the definition of courage."

BDS Leader Omar Barghouti Given Peace Prize at Yale, University Disavows Award

Two peace activists from different generations and countries Sunday received the Gandhi Peace Award from the Connecticut group Promoting Enduring Peace.
Palestinian human rights advocate Omar Barghouti and consumer rights crusader Ralph Nader each received the award at Yale’s Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall. Several hundred people attended, giving standing ovations to the recipients.
Barghouti is the more controversial of the two. Some Jewish groups oppose his work for BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions), whose prime goal stated in its literature is “ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands.” His Jewish opponents fear this movement is working against the right of Israel to exist as a nation.
Moreover, Yale University officials issued an unusual statement distancing the university from endorsing the Gandhi event despite the fact it took place in a Yale building.
“A student organization reserved space for the awarding of the Gandhi prize, which is given by an organization not affiliated with Yale,” the statement began. “Yale honors requests by our community to invite speakers and groups to campus in accordance with our academic mission of fostering the free exchange of ideas. Views expressed at these events are those of the individuals involved and do not represent the views of the university as a whole.”

Honoring Those Like Barghouti Distances Peace

If Barghouti and “Promoting Enduring Peace” truly cared about the welfare of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they should call for increasing economic investment and development, not for boycotts. They should reject violence and provocation by Palestinian terrorists that undermine the security and welfare of Israelis and Palestinians. There are numerous organizations on the ground in Israel and the West Bank seeking to expand civil society, engage in economic development, and promote mutual well-being between Israelis and Palestinians. Barghouti and his BDS friends view people who do this work as traitors and sell-outs, but supporting these courageous efforts, rather than demonizing Israel, is what will actually improve the lives of Palestinians.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is long and complex. We empathize with the plight of Palestinians who are suffering, just as we empathize with Israeli victims of terrorism and violence. We appreciate that there are multiple narratives and perspectives. We do not always agree with Israel’s policies towards Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel. And we yearn for a just and equitable peace in which Israelis and Palestinians can live side-by-side in two stable, democratic countries.
But the road to peace is clear. The Palestinians need to stop terror against Israeli civilians, reject the terrorist government of Hamas and its militant incursions into Israel, stop the relentless demonization of Israel in schools and in the Palestinian press, and come to the table to negotiate an equitable two-state solution (as the UN has mandated) based on 1967 borders with appropriate land swaps and security arrangements. Organizations such as Promoting Enduring Peace, campaigns such as BDS, and “peace” awards to individuals such as Omar Barghouti will make “enduring peace” much less attainable.

Holy Land Principles. Gateway Drug to Full BDS ?

Yet one more reason you shouldn't ignore the proxy statements that show up in your mail.
Marriott International has more than 6000 properties in over 122 countries and territories around the world. Next month at their annual shareholder meeting, they are slated to vote on a shareholder proposal urging the adoption of the "Holy land Principles". The principles add burdensome layers of restrictions, oversight and bureaucracy to the 2 Marriott properties in Israel. The Marriott Board opposes this proposal and recommends a vote AGAINST it.
What are the Holy land Principles? Their website bills them as a "corporate code of conduct" that are applicable only to businesses within Israel.
The Holy Land Principles call on American companies conducting business in The Holy Land to:
Principle #1
Adhere to equal and fair employment practices in hiring, compensation, training, professional education, advancement and governance without discrimination based on national, racial, ethnic or religious identity.
Principle #2
Identify underrepresented employee groups and initiate active recruitment efforts to increase the number of underrepresented employees.

Washington U Hillel Hailed for Refusing to Fund J Street-Hosted Breaking the Silence Event

A student leader at the Washington University in St. Louis (Wash U) has applauded the school’s Hillel for refusing to fund a J Street U event featuring the far-left Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence (BtS).
Paul Felder — president of Wash U Students for Israel — told The Algemeiner on Monday that the Hillel staff had done right in telling J Street U — a Hillel-affiliated group — it would not back the three-day event this week commemorating the Six-Day War as the start of the “occupation.” The Jewish center had co-sponsored a similar event at the school in 2014.
“Hillel does not provide any funding to groups that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which BtS is firmly behind,” Felder said, referring to Hillel International’s standards of partnership for Israel-related events.
A J Street U member reported Hillel’s refusal to co-sponsor the event in an op-ed published on Monday in the Wash U student newspaper, writing, “[W]e were told that the event would be too radical and divisive…Respectfully, that’s unacceptable.”

New report links EU donors, Palestinian terror group PFLP

European governments finance civilian Palestinian organizations with clear ties terrorist groups to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a new NGO Monitor report said Monday.
NGO Monitor, is a watchdog group that promoted greater transparency among foreign-funded Israeli nongovernmental organization.
The new report examined 10 organizations affiliated with the PFLP, which received funding from both the European Union and European countries.
The PFLP has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, Canada and Israel.
One of the groups to receive funding is the Union of Health Work Committees, whose founder, Rabah Muhanna, is a member of the PFLP's political bureau and head of the group's branch in the Gaza Strip.

UCU can’t reject anti-Semitism definition and claim to be anti-racist

The British Government’s Prevent counter-terrorism strategy for our schools and universities defines extremism as: “Vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”
Next month the University and College Lecturers Union (UCU) will debate at its annual congress a motion re-affirming ‘the UCU’s condemnation of all forms of racial or religious hatred or discrimination’ as well as congratulating the UCU on its “exemplary anti-racist work”.
It then “resolves that UCU dissociates itself from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism”.
They can’t have their cake and eat it: on the one hand they say they oppose racism and then pat themselves on the back for all their good work and immediately follow it up with “We don’t want to have anything to do with the IHRA definition” which has been adopted by the British government in the fight against anti-Semitism.
This is hypocritical extremist and racist behaviour which shows no respect and tolerance for the views of British Jewry.
The union should be ashamed.

Holocaust denial materials prompt concerns after distribution at Australian universities

Posters questioning the historical accuracy of the Holocaust have sparked concerns among students at the Australian National University (ANU) and at least two other universities where they were distributed.
On Friday students found flyers and posters at the ANU campus that give support to the views of controversial British writer David Irving, who has questioned the overwhelming body of evidence supporting the existence of the Holocaust.
The materials point to a website that includes questions about whether gas chambers existed at concentration camps.
ANU Students Association president James Connolly said the posters made reference to the new movie Denial, which dramatized a court case involving Mr Irving.
"There were a series of flyers and posters that had been found around the gym ... that challenged the historical authenticity of the Holocaust," Mr Connolly said.
"The impetus for the posters had come from a new film called Denial — the subject of the film was about Holocaust denial.
"It was challenging whether that film had resolved the matter of whether the Holocaust had actually happened."

National Union of Students in new anti-Semitism row after series of offensive tweets

The National Union of Students (NUS) is embroiled in a fresh anti-Semitism row after three candidates holding or running for positions on its executive committee were revealed to have made offensive comments.
In online posts seen by The Independent, one current member of the union’s National Executive Council shared a video mocking Jews as having big noses and being tight with money, while another publicly suggested Jewish people are tight-fisted and said he wanted to destroy Israel.
A third, who is seeking a position on the union’s executive in elections being held this week, wrote an offensive Twitter message referring to Jews and using the phrase “Heil Hitler”.
The Independent can also reveal that, during her time as a student at the University of Birmingham, Malia Bouattia, the current NUS president, was involved in hosting a play called “Seven Jewish Children” that has been widely criticised as anti-Semitic.

Teens Honored for Objecting to School Assignment to Defend Hitler’s Genocide Against Jews

On February 15 two 17-year-old central NY high school students—Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff—raised objections to a homework assignment in which they were required to either oppose or defend the extermination of Jews.
Their teacher, Oswego County High School teacher Michael DeNobile, asked them to
write an internal memorandum within the highest ranking offices of the Nazi party in regards to your support or opposition to the Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”
Presumably the goal was to teach the students critical thinking, thereby promoting one of the Common Core’s desired skills.
But asking high schoolers to roleplay Nazi officials at the 1942 Wannsee Conference and “put themselves in the shoes of Hitler’s top aides” supporting a plan to eradicate Jews isn’t a lesson in critical thinking—it’s unethical and dangerous antisemitic crackpottery.
Jordan and Archer aren’t Jewish, and neither of them has had any extensive study about the Holocaust. But they both immediately intuited the problem with the “Wannsee Argumentative Essay”: forcing students to argue in favor of mass killings and genocide.

IsraellyCool: Israeli Scientific Institution’s Epic Trolling Of BDS

This is glorious: The Weizmann Institute of Science today inaugurated a new website – IsraelBDS.org.
Rather than serve as an endorsement of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which seeks to delegitimize the Jewish state in academia and the business world, IsraelBDS.org is intended to promote Israel’s scientific accomplishments and warn of the dangers to global research posed by the boycott movement.
Named “Building Dialog through Science” or BDS, Weizmann’s new effort showcases joint research projects between Israelis and researchers abroad – the very kind of efforts the boycott movement seeks to terminate.
The projects featured range from the SESAME synchrotron, a Middle-Eastern facility based in Jordan that aids life sciences researchers from Egypt to Iran; to joint efforts with researchers in California to discover the processes that lead up to the fantastic stellar explosions known as supernovae; to brain research, quantum physics studies, and scientific archaeology.
These guys are smart in more ways than one.
Well played, Weizmann smart dudes. Well played.

DHIMMI: New York Times Refuses To Use Term ‘Female Genital Mutilation’ To Avoid Offending Muslims

Cultural relativism is perhaps the most morally perverted concept ever formulated in the academic left’s out-of-touch ivory tower. Under the banner of “tolerance,” the Left is willing to condone cultural and religious practices that would make Satan himself blush. Nowhere is this truer than when the Left obfuscates the truth about female genital mutilation to avoid offending Islam. The vile practice, carried out by certain sects of Islam, is objectively evil. Anyone with a beating heart knows instinctively that FGM, or female genital mutilation, is child abuse. To think otherwise requires an unfathomable amount of leftist indoctrination and “multi-culturalism” brainwashing.
Cue The New York Times.
On Friday, the “newspaper of record” whitewashed the brutality of the misogynistic practice by substituting the term “cutting” for “mutilation,” suggesting that the term FGM was “culturally loaded” when asked by The Daily Caller.
“There’s a gulf between the Western (and some African) advocates who campaign against the practice and the people who follow the rite, and I felt the language used widened that chasm,” wrote Times science and health editor Celia Dugger.

'Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)': ABC presenter and Muslim activist slammed over 'disrespectful' Anzac Day remarks - weeks after she declared Islam 'the most feminist religion'

ABC presenter and Muslim activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied has been slammed for publishing a 'disrespectful' Anzac Day post to Facebook.
'Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine),' she said on Tuesday afternoon, according to The Australian.
Ms Abdel-Magied quickly deleted the post and said: 'It was brought to my attention that my last post was disrespectful, and for that, I apologise unreservedly.'
She replaced the controversial post with, 'Lest we forget', but it failed to deter people's outrage.
'No sh** it was disrespectful… don't try and hide behind your words. You clearly said it with malicious intent,' one person said.

This Idiotic Meme Says A Black Woman Wrote Shakespeare. It Has 20,000 Retweets.

And now, another attempt to claim William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright who ever lived and arguably the greatest poet, was not the author of his own works, with a dollop of 21st century political correctness:
The reason we didn’t learn that fact in school, Ms. Johnson, is because the claim is simply horse manure. As snopes.com wrote in debunking the ridiculous claim, Aemilia Bassano (later Emilia Lanier) was a published author; the Shakespearean Authorship Trust points out that Bassano became the “first woman to publish a book of original poetry” when her work Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum was put into print in 1611, and guess what else?
She was Jewish, from Morocco.

Jewish students protest outside accused Nazi war criminal's Queens home

Student protesters gathered outside of accused Nazi camp guard Jakiw Palij in New York on Monday (April 24) calling on the US government to extradite him for war crimes.
The protest was organized by Rambam Mesivta high school and its dean Zev Friedman. The event was timed to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.
"We're teaching the next generation the importance of remembrance, which is for Holocaust Remembrance Day. It's an obligation on all people to remember the tragedy that took place in the past so history does not repeat itself. We are specifically rallying outside the home of this Nazi murderer who killed 6,000 people during World War II to let him know we did not forget and to send a message to the world that he does not belong in the United States," said Friedman.
In 2004, a US judge ordered Palij deported, finding him guilty of being a guard at an SS forced Labor camp called Trawniki in Poland.
In 1943, 6,000 Jewish inmates were killed at the camp as part of the operation, "Harvest Festival."
According to the organizers of the protest, Palij entered the US in 1949 claiming he was a farmer during the war.

Ukrainian Jews outraged over ‘Holocaust Cabaret’ in Kiev

A theater in Kiev provoked protest Tuesday from the local Jewish community after displaying a sign above its entrance proclaiming the title of an upcoming play, “A Holocaust Cabaret.”
The sign was put up a day earlier, while Israel was marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, and drew criticism from the chief rabbi of Ukraine, Moshe Azman, who posted pictures of the theater on his Facebook page.
“This horror (I cannot find another way to describe it) was hung in the center of Kiev yesterday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the city where Babi Yar is located, opposite the central synagogue!” he wrote, referring to the Nazi execution by firing squads of nearly 34,000 Jews in a Kiev ravine, on September 29-30, 1941.
The play, written by Jewish Canadian playwright Jonathan Garfinkel in 2005 and later updated, is a satirical look at the trials of John Demjanjuk, a former guard at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland during World War II. Demjanjuk, who moved to the US after the war, was tried in both Israel and Germany for his alleged activities.

The unknown story of Moroccan Holocaust survivors

Montreal engineer Sam Edery has a special copper menorah at home, passed down to him from his grandfather, who was the jeweler in the court of King Mohammed V of Morocco during World War II.
Edery says his grandfather made the menorah while the king was meeting with representatives from Vichy France and Nazi Germany to discuss the Jewish question.
“My grandfather knew [about the meeting] because he was a jeweler and he often went to the royal palace. He made the menorah because it represents the miracle of Hanukkah and [the discussions] happened in November or December, around that time,” Edery said.
Not long afterwards, Mohammed V allegedly told the Nazis, “There are no Jewish citizens, there are no Muslims citizens, they are all Moroccans.”
“For my grandfather, it was like a miracle. I think a miracle happened because the king refused to collaborate,” said Edery.
Indeed, the Jews of Morocco were saved. Although Morocco was a French protectorate and France’s Vichy regime was complicit in the murder of French Jews, not a single Jew living in Morocco was sent to a concentration camp.

Israeli and American Researchers Develop New Hi-Tech Water Filtration Solution

A collaborative effort between researchers from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has resulted in the development of a new method for filtering viruses from treated municipal wastewater used for drinking.
“This is an urgent matter of public safety,” the researchers said. “Insufficient removal of human adenovirus in municipal wastewater, for example, has been detected as a contaminant in US drinking water sources, including the Great Lakes and worldwide.”
Current viral pathogen filtration methods require intensive energy consumption in order to properly remove pathogens without resorting to the use of chemicals such as chlorine, which can contaminate drinking water.
A team led by Prof. Moshe Herzberg of BGU’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research created a special hydrogel coating that repels waterborne viruses, such as human norovirus and adenovirus, when grafted to a commercial ultrafiltration membrane.
“Utilizing a simple graft-polymerization of commercialized membranes to make virus removal more comprehensive is a promising development for controlling filtration of pathogens in potable water reuse,” said Prof. Thanh H. Nguyen of UIUC’s Department of Chemical Engineering.

In Holocaust Remembrance Day Post, Israeli Actress Gal Gadot Pays Tribute to ‘Hero’ Survivor Grandfather

In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday, Israeli actress and model Gal Gadot paid public tribute to her late survivor grandfather by sharing life lessons she learned from him.
The 31-year-old “Wonder Woman” star posted a photo on Instagram of her grandfather, who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1928.
“My grandpa taught me there is NO wrong religion. No wrong color. And no wrong race. I was taught to love all people for what their heart is. We’re all spirits and souls in this universe. Light should always beat darkness as love should always beat hatred. Today we remember and never forget,” Gadot wrote.
Gadot noted that her grandfather’s entire family “was brutally vanished” during World War II “[j]ust because someone had decided they were born into the wrong religion and race.”
“I miss you, hero,” she added. “You left us 3 years ago but your legacy is living with us forever.”

69 fabulous reasons we love Israel

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