05/16 Links Pt2: Are Zionists Worse than Islamists?; #NakbaDay commemorating a Jihad against the Jews ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Are Zionists worse than Islamists? According to how the mainstream media, the U.N., the E.U., NGOs, universities and academia, U.S. government officials, and Arab and Muslim propaganda tend to whitewash Islamism – including horrific acts of Islamic-inspired terrorism – and denigrate Zionism, the answer is yes. Here's a handy guide.
Islamism: Can there be any serious argument about a religious-political system that seeks to enshrine and enact its laws (sharia) on lands it occupies, and attempts to conquer through jihad (holy war)? Sharia law essentially abuses women, endorses so-called honor killings and female genital mutilation, demands male supremacy, is biased against all "infidels," glorifies those who chop off the heads of Jews and Christians or who otherwise murder infidels, stones adulterers, puts to death apostates, cuts off the hands of thieves, severely punishes those who criticize Mohammed or Islam, treats non-believers as second-class citizens (dhimmis), and is anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-democracy. Its ultimate goal is Islamic supremacy and triumphalism. What positive things have Islamists brought to the world at large?
Zionism: According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the term was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum and generally refers to "the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism has come to include the movement for the development of the State of Israel and the protection of the Jewish nation in Israel through support for the Israel Defense Forces." The Jewish people's basic right to self-determination owing to its long history of being persecuted and living as a diaspora community is potent and self-evident. Israel is an open democracy that respects all civil rights and grants equal rights to women, minorities (25% are Arab and non-Jews), and gays. It has an independent judiciary, a robust free press, and excellent health care and educational systems. It upholds freedom of religion and worship with full and complete access to religious sites – in short, classic Western liberal values. This is all enshrined in its Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.
Moreover, Zionism has unleashed the potential of Israelis to endeavor in tikkun olam – repairing of the world. It is the "Start-Up Nation" and shares with the world amazing life-saving technologies and devices – innovations in computers, biomedicine, water, and agriculture. It is a first responder to humanitarian crises and natural disasters around the world. This is a deep expression of Jewish values. Jews have no interest in conquering land or taking over the land of others – there is no jihad equivalent.

MEMRI: Writer For Official Saudi Daily: The Jews Have An Eternal Plot To Destroy Mankind

In a February 4, 2017 article in the official Saudi daily Al-Watan, Hala Al-Qahtani wrote that the Jews are eternally plotting to bankrupt the world and weaken its societies in order to facilitate their takeover of it and realize, at any cost, their dream of establishing a Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem. As evidence she claimed that three of the world's five richest families are Jewish families that are also members of Free Masons movement and have been pursuing this goal since the 18th century. These families, she said, are willing to do anything to advance their own interests, including starting world wars and toppling countries. It should be mentioned that of the three families she lists, only one, the Rothschild family, is actually Jewish.
The following are excerpts from her article:
"The 'fanatical' Jewish mind has throughout history lived in isolation, disconnected from the surrounding society, busy with the details of the grand eternal plot that aims to destroy the life of the surrounding societies in various ways, weaken them, degrade them and fragment them so as to strengthen [the Jewish mind] and enable it to control the world – and all this in order to realize at any cost its dream of establishing its Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem.
"Whoever follows Jewish history notices that [the Jews] work in close unison with the Zionist leadership that helps them realize the Jewish dream, [which is] first of all to control the money. They believe with all their heart that the only source of power is control over money, and that once the world is bankrupted the task of taking it overt will be easier for them. This control plan, which is as old as history itself, obviously had to begin with the U.S. and the [other] superpowers. Despite being difficult, this task has already been completed, in part of or in full, for today the world's money is in the hands of five families that are considered the richest, thee of which are Jewish and belong to the Free Masons and have been expanding their activity since the 18th century.

Spicer Doesn’t Say Jerusalem Is in Israel

Pressed on the White House's dodging on whether the Western Wall is part of Israel, Press Secretary Sean Spicer did not even say Tuesday that Jerusalem is in Israel.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster declined two times to say whether the Western Wall was a part of Israel when he briefed the press on Tuesday. The questions on the matter stemmed from a U.S. diplomat reportedly telling the Israelis that the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City is part of the West Bank and "not your territory," and thus Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not join Trump on a visit to the site.
A reporter noted McMaster's refusal to clarify the matter was causing a stir and asked Spicer "why you guys can't answer that question."
"The Western Wall is obviously one of the holiest sites in the Jewish faith," Spicer said. "It's clearly in Jerusalem, but there's been—it's an issue that has had serious consideration. It'll be a topic that's going to be discussed during the president's trip between parties that he meets with, but obviously, I think, this stems from a comment that was made yesterday which was not the policy of the United States."

The New Christian Zionism Is Pentecostal, Non-Apocalyptic, and Based in the Southern Hemisphere

A generation ago, Christian allies of the state of Israel were generally American Evangelicals influenced by teachings that stressed the importance of the Jews’ return to Zion as a prerequisite for mankind’s final redemption. But now, writes Daniel Hummel, such allies of Israel are being dwarfed numerically by a new kind of Christian Zionist:
Israel has found potential allies [outside Europe and North America] who vastly outnumber American Christian Zionists. They are driven less by apocalypticism and more by a type of nation-based prosperity theology—an outgrowth of their Pentecostalism, which is the fastest-growing segment of Christianity in the world today.
The new Christian Zionism in countries like Brazil, Nigeria, and China is not only remarkable as a religious development. It could have major geopolitical implications. For much of the last seventy years, and especially after the Arab-Israeli war in June 1967, the Third World . . . was generally hostile to Israel in international venues such as the United Nations. Many countries . . . still do not have official diplomatic relations. But given the growth trends of Pentecostal Christianity and the expansion of Christian Zionist lobbying in dozens of countries, historical attitudes toward Israel may be changing.

Michael Lumish: This Week on Nothing Left

This week Michael and Alan speak with radio personality, satirist, documentary maker and author John Safran about his new book, "Depends What You Mean By Extremist", and then catch up with Dr Bernie Power, the moderator from last week's public debate Social Justice: Israel Palestine.
We hear from Anastasia, the author of a new pro-Israel cartoon called Zionist Pugs, and then speak with Omri Ceren from The Israel Project. And Isi Leibler has his say as usual from Jerusalem.
3 min Editorial: Debate on Israel-Palestine
9 min John Safran on his new book
37 min Dr Bernie Power, moderator of the debate
53 min Anastasia, creator of Zionist Pugs cartoon
1 hr 9 Omni Ceren, The Israel Project
1 hr 32 Isi Leibler in Jerusalem speaking about Ronald Lauder

#NakbaDay – commemorating Arab refugees created by failed Jihad against the Jews

Today is “Nakba Day.”
What is Nakba Day? Anti-Israel activist/writer Ben White describes it as the day “marking the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that took place when the State of Israel was established.”

The 🔑 is a symbol of Palestinian exile. So these people made the world’s biggest key. #NakbaDay https://t.co/Jecus8UDKL
— AJ+ (@ajplus) May 15, 2017

Propaganda outlets like AJ+, the viral video wing of Al Jazeera, are promoting Nakba Day with the symbol of a key that Arab refugees from the war will use to return to their homes.
In reality, Nakba Day is a gross misrepresentation of history.
The refugees were created by the Arab Muslim desire to wage Jihad against the Jews, as we explained in a prior post, The Knife Intifada and the Never-Ending Jihad against the Jews:
… it was of great interest for me to read An interview with Benny Morris by Prof. Gabriel Noah Brahm at Fathom Journal. Morris is the “controversial” Israeli historian who first pissed off the “right wing” by questioning some of the foundational beliefs as to how Israel came into being, and then equally pissing off the left by focusing on the role of anti-Jewish hate in the Arab opposition to the creation of Israel.
Morris’ views were explaind in the Middle East Forum in this interview in 2010 Benny Morris: “The 1948 War Was an Islamic Holy War” (emphasis added):
Morris: What I discovered in the documentation relating to the war, at least from the Arab side, was that the war had a religious character, that the central element in the war was an imperative to launch jihad. There were other imperatives of course, political and others—but the most important from the enemy’s perspective was the element of the infidels who had the nerve to take control over sacred Muslim lands and the need to uproot them from there. The decisive majority in the Arab world saw the war first and foremost as a holy war, but until today historians have not examined the documentation that proves this. In my view, they have also ignored Arab rhetoric of the day, which universally included religious hatred against the Jews, because they thought the Arabs adopted this as normal speech that did not emanate from deep mental resources. They thought this was something superficial, that everyone talked like this. But I am positive the Arab spokesmen in 1948 did go beyond this and clearly and explicitly talked about jihad.

Palestinian Soccer Diplomacy Isn’t Just a Game

When FIFA—the international governing body for soccer—held its annual congress in Bahrain last week, the Palestinian Authority hoped it would discuss whether six West Bank-based Israeli teams are in violation of the organization’s rules for playing on “Palestinian” territory without permission from the Palestinian Football League (PFA). The item was removed from the congress’s agenda at the last minute, but Simon Smith argues that the issue is bound to resurface, and more than sports is at stake:
The . . . PFA will no doubt push FIFA to make a decision [about the status of the West Bank leagues] in the future. The problem for FIFA is that whatever it decides will have huge ramifications. . . . A ruling in favor of the PFA would represent a significant international body defining the territory of a Palestinian state, which no doubt is the intention of the PFA’s four-year-long campaign to have this item on the agenda. [Yet] a ruling in Israel’s favor would be interpreted by many as an acknowledgment that the six settlements [where these clubs are located] are part of sovereign Israeli territory. FIFA would like to do neither, and yet if the item is ever brought to a vote, [delegates] are caught in a zero-sum game where they have to make a choice.
Should FIFA rule against Israel, the likely reprimand will be a six-month window to remove the clubs from the Israeli league system or face suspension from FIFA and the removal of Israel’s national soccer team from competitive matches such as World Cup Qualifying.
However, compliance would be perhaps more significant still. If the PFA can remove the settlement’s soccer clubs through FIFA, it might give more impetus to the greater Palestinian aspiration of removing the settlements themselves through the UN. We are potentially seeing a microcosm of the Palestinian strategy to internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and once again shirk bilateral negotiations, through the prism of soccer.

Corbyn appoints anti-Israel activist as campaign chief

Jeremy Corbyn has appointed the former chair of Stop the War to head his campaign team in the final few weeks of the election.
Andrew Murray, who was a member of the Communist Party for four decades but quit last year to join Mr Corbyn’s Labour, chaired Stop The War from 2001 to 2011, and then again from 2015-2016.
Stop the War has repeatedly attacked Israel, with numerous speakers at its events over the years denouncing the state. In 2009 one of the group’s founders, John Rees, described Hamas and Hezbollah as “resistance” groups which are “a legitimate part of [our] movement”.
In a 2012 speech Mr Murray expressed “solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people in Gaza”, saying that “Palestine stands today undefeated and unbowed despite the bloody aggression by one of the greatest military powers on earth”, a reference to Israel.
“We have a message for the Israeli embassy, the Israeli government… every time you kill a Palestinian child, you are digging your own graves”. Mr Murray made no reference to the Israeli children killed by Palestinians, or to the genocidal policies of Hamas, or to the thousands of rockets Hamas was firing into Israeli territory at the time.
He also called for “the [UK] trade to drop the illusion that the Histadrut [the Israeli trade union movement] is a proper trade union, and break the links with the Israeli trade union movement”.

NGO Monitor: European Parliamentarians Agree: Governments Should Not Support Organizations that Incite Violence

On April 19, 2017, NGO Monitor distributed a new report documenting the highly disturbing pattern of European government funding to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that legitimize violent attacks against civilians and incite violence. Nearly 3,000 parliamentarians from the European Union, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland were contacted.
As detailed in the report, “Whitewashing “Resistance” – Human Rights Funding to Organizations Blurring the Lines Between Violence and Nonviolence,” significant amounts of European government funding are allocated to European, Palestinian, and Israeli organizations that repeatedly manipulate human rights rhetoric to denigrate security concerns and legitimize violence. Some of these groups also have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – a designated terrorist organization in the EU, US, Canada, and Israel. The messages propagated by these NGOs directly contradict the foreign policy goals of their funders, and resonate in a global context of rising populism that rewards extremism, fear-mongering, and incitement.
NGO Monitor received a number of responses to the report from European parliamentarians:

NGO Monitor: Are NGOs immune to conflicts of interest?

While such conflicts are clearly unacceptable for businesses, unions, and other lobbies, they are a matter of course for non-governmental organisations (NGOs). European governments provide hundreds of millions of euros to NGOs, with little oversight. German CDU lawmaker Markus Pieper (EPP) recently took up this issue, commissioning a study on democratic accountability and budgetary control of EU-funded NGOs and subsequently drafting a report calling for stricter funding regulations.
In other words, an EU-funded network lobbies the EU for more money and preferred policies, and its members receive major amounts in a lucrative cycle.
The dissonance, perhaps, is because NGOs are not considered parties that are liable to conflicts of interest, and therefore the EU’s code of conduct does not apply to them. As argued by MEP Staes, 95% of NGOs work for the common good and are not involved in lobbying. According to such logic, NGOs are unequivocally good for everyone, and there is no reason to scrutinise their claims or hold them accountable – even when they are entrusted with taxpayer money. Unfortunately, this is not the case as many NGOs abuse this optimistic misconception and use it for their own self-interested financial and political gain.
In fact, NGOs are currently given astounding leeway in comparison to other interest groups, all while being funded excessively without appropriate accountability. Addressing this anomaly does not single out NGOs. But systematically ignoring it does.

New Lawsuit Targets Hamas-Support Network in US

A US anti-Israel group and several of its activists are “alter egos and/or successors” of a Hamas-support network that was found liable for an American teen’s death in a 1996 Israeli terrorist attack, litigation filed in a Chicago federal court claims.
After Stanley and Joyce Boim won $156 million in damages in a case related to the 1996 bombing, the defendants — including the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and the American Muslim Society (AMS) — shut down and claimed to be unable to pay. It was a ruse, the Boims’ attorneys now claim, as many of the same people set up the group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) at a nearby address.
A subsequent criminal prosecution found that other defendants in the original lawsuit, like the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and the United Association for Studies and Research, were part of a Muslim Brotherhood-created Hamas-support network in the United States called the Palestine Committee.
The IAP used to hold annual conventions. The year after it shut down, AMP held its first national meeting, offering the same “audience, content, management, speakers, and … message” as the IAP gatherings, the Boims’ complaint says.
Today, AMP and its financial arm, Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation, continue the work done by the defunct groups in the original Boim suit, the complaint alleges. AMP donors and officers “are substantially identical to the management and donors of their alter egos and predecessors, HLF, IAP and AMS.”

The Anatomy of a BDS Campus Campaign

Following dramatically different outcomes of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) votes at two California schools on last week, campus antisemitism and Israel advocacy experts spoke with The Algemeiner to break down the anatomy of a BDS campus campaign.
With the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) coming back with zero votes cast in favor of BDS, and California State University-Long Beach seeing 15 student representatives vote yes for the anti-Israel motion, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin — founder of the campus watchdog AMCHA Initiative — said “there is a complicated calculus involved in each BDS push.”
To her, the “unanimous and unequivocal opposition to BDS of all of a campus’s Jewish student organizations” is a crucial factor in heading off the efforts of anti-Zionists.
“We’ve seen a definite increase in the tactic of ‘Jew splitting,’ where BDS activists find organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace to run interference for them when they are accused of antisemitism,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “So I think that when faced with an issue like BDS, we have to have the moral clarity to state that there is a red line and when you cross over it, the Jews will be standing on the other side, united, saying, ‘No.’”
Rossman-Benjamin pointed to the letter of “unified opposition” produced at UCSB and signed by the campus’s eight mainstream Jewish organizations as an element that was missing from the CSULB campaign against divestment.

Vigil for Victims of Rasmea Odeh outside her appearance at Northwestern U

Rasmea Odeh recently pleaded guilty to immigration fraud, for failing to disclose on her immigration applications her 1970 conviction and imprisonment in Israel for a 1969 supermarket bombing that killed two Hebrew University students, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner.
Rasmea concocted a defense that she falsely answered the questions because she was suffering from PTSD, which made her “filter” the plain wording. At multiple levels that defense was as big a lie as her lies on her immigration forms, and in the plea agreement she admitted her false statements were not the result of PTSD or any other mental condition.
But if you need a refresher on the case, and Rasmea’s other nonsense claims, see our coverage of the guilty plea, Rasmea Odeh pleads guilty to immigration fraud, and follow up post, VIDEO: Terror victim’s brother says Rasmea Odeh supporters “have to eat their words”.
Rasmea has been treated as a hero by anti-Israel groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace and various chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
SJP had an event on Monday night, May 15, honoring Rasmea, where she was to appear with anti-Israel pro-BDS professor Nadine Naber:

Jewish Student Leader Demands City College of New York Administration Take Action Against SJP After Disruption of Event With Top Israeli Diplomat

A Jewish student leader at the City College of New York (CCNY) has called on school administrators to take disciplinary action against anti-Israel protesters after an event last Thursday featuring a prominent Israeli government official “devolved into shouting and screaming.”
Yossi Hertz — the co-founder of the college’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI), which co-sponsored the program with CCNY’s Chabad, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) on Campus and the Zionist Organization of America — told The Algemeiner on Monday that members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) were responsible for ongoing disruptions during a question-and-answer period with Consul General of Israel in New York Dani Dayan, which followed a lecture by the diplomat on the Jewish state’s international relations.
In footage of the event, Dayan is seen being repeatedly heckled and interrupted while replying to questions from the audience — including responding to charges that Israel has murdered children in Gaza — before dozens of individuals break into chants of “free, free Palestine,” with one holding a Palestinian flag, toward the end of the program. Students from both sides were drawn into heated exchanges, some of which Hertz said threatened to escalate into violence.
Hertz alleged that the school’s student government president, Safat Chowdhury, was personally involved in the disruptions, an act which he said “violates the president’s office.”

Year-Old Columbia University ‘Nabka’ Law Program Is a Platform for BDS Propagation and ‘Radical’ Anti-Israel Rhetoric, Report Finds

The goal of a Columbia University program launched last year is “to promote radical anti-Israel rhetoric and to provide a platform for propagators of the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement to spread their anti-Israel propaganda,” according to an investigative report released by a right-wing Zionist advocacy and education NGO.
Im Tirtzu published its findings earlier this month, stating that of 32 authors involved in “The Nakba and the Law” initiative — a joint effort of Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies and the left-wing Israeli NGO Adalah — 17 “openly support the BDS movement.”
According to its website, the project has received grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research — which falls under the responsibility of the Dutch government’s Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and is housed in The Hague — and Columbia’s Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.
The project’s most recent article — published on the site in March 2017 — was written by John Reynolds, who, according to Im Tirtzu, was formerly a legal researcher for al-Haq, a Palestinian NGO “involved in libel, BDS and ‘lawfare’ campaigns against Israel.” Reynolds wrote that Israel has continuously and routinely committed violence “on Palestinian bodies and killing of Palestinian life” since 1948.
Eytan Meir, director of external relations for Israel-based Im Tirtzu, explained to The Algemeiner that “The Nakba and the Law” was brought to the group’s attention by one of its activists who came across it on social media.

Imam Who Called for Murder of Jews Claims Outrage Is a Conspiracy: ‘Muslims Are the Real Victims’

The imam revealed last week to have called for the murder of Jews at a Copenhagen mosque is claiming to be the victim of an Islamophobic conspiracy.
Footage of the sermon, which emerged last week, caused outrage in Denmark and prompted the Social Democrats and Danish People’s Party to call for sanctions on imam Mundhir Abdallah.
But the controversial imam hit back at critics in an interview with Kristeligt Dagblad on Monday, in which he claimed to have been set up.
“Politicians in the West and the media never stop attacking Islam and Muslims. Their propaganda never stops. Muslims are the real victims, not others. Our women are being attacked, our mosques are being burned,” said Abdallah.
The imam, who lives in Lebanon and has family in Denmark, claimed to have received “warm, wide support from people from everywhere”.
“Even from many in Denmark, where they know that my words have been manipulated, and they know that the motivation for this campaign is to prevent Muslims from criticising Israel and Western governments that support the occupation,” he wrote to Kristeligt Dagblad on Facebook.

Canadian Imam defends Danish Imam who called for “uprooting the Jewish entity”

Mazin AbdulAdhim, a prominent Imam of Iraqi descent in London, Ontario who is affiliated with the global Islamic movement of Hizb ut-Tahrir, came to the defence of the Danish Imam after he faced criticism from the Jewish community and the authorities over his controversial sermon.
On May 14, 2017, Mazin AbdulAdhim posted on Facebook the following:
After a member of Hizb ut Tahrir gave a Friday Khutbah in Denmark and mentioned the fact that the Zionist occupation must be removed, the Danish media went on a wild frenzy attacking the Hizb for antisemitism and attempted to pressure Muslims into apologizing for what was said and to fear the repercussions of their dirty politics.
And Hizb ut Tahrir simply replied with this satisfying and beautiful “Go to Hell” response:
“The illegitimate occupation of the blessed land of Palestine, which they call ‘Israel’, has absolutely no right to exist. The unequivocal opinion of Islam regarding this criminal entity is that it must be removed from the face of the earth with military force. There is no other solution to this cancerous tumor in the heart of the Muslim world. This is the point of view of any sincere Muslim, and thousands of law-bills or threats will not change that.”

Denmark convicts jihadist teen over plot to bomb Jewish school

A Danish court on Tuesday convicted a 17-year-old jihadist sympathizer of “attempting a terrorist act” by planning to carry out attacks on two schools with bombs made from over-the-counter products.
The Danish girl, whose name was not revealed, will receive her final sentence on Thursday, but under Danish law, attempting a “terror act” can lead to life imprisonment.
She was arrested last year in her home in a village 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Copenhagen, aged 15 at the time, after her family alerted the police about suspicious chemical experiments in the basement.
The court in the town of Holbaek said in a statement that investigators found “a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a bottle of citric acid, a bottle of acetone and a plastic tray with unknown liquid residues inside a metal bowl.” The chemicals were purchased at a Danish cosmetic chain store.

Intel to pay taxes from Mobileye deal in US dollars

Intel Corp. will be allowed to pay taxes derived from its $15.3 billion acquisition of Mobileye in US dollars if the sale is finalized, the Bank of Israel said on Tuesday, in an effort to prevent an impact on the exchange rate and an “over-appreciation” of the shekel.
The matter was decided jointly by Israel’s Tax Authority, the Department of the Accountant General and the Bank of Israel.
Were the taxes to be paid in shekels, Intel would have to sell dollars to buy shekels, which could even further strengthen the shekel.
According to estimates, Israel is scheduled to get some $1 billion -$1.5 billion in tax revenues from Intel’s acquisition of Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based developer of advanced vision and driver assistance systems.

Lil Wayne to hit the stage in Israel

Wildly successful rapper Lil Wayne will be heading to Israel this August, to perform one show in the Rishon Lezion Live Park.
The multiple Grammy award-winning performer will be taking the stage on August 24 at the park, an outdoor venue which can host tens of thousands of fans.
Lil Wayne is best known for his hit songs “Lollipop,” “Go DJ ,” “A Milli,” “Got Money,” “Drop the World,” “Right Above It,” “She Will, Love Me” and more. He has also collaborated on hit songs with some of the hottest artists in the world, including Drake, Jay-Z, T Pain, Jay Sean, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Destiny’s Child, Eminem and Justin Bieber.
Lil Wayne joins an impressive summer concert line up in Israel, including Britney Spears, Aerosmith, Radiohead, Regina Spektor, Guns N’ Roses, Rod Stewart, Macklemore and Justin Bieber (who already performed).

IIN PICTURES Aerosmith's Steven Tyler visits Western Wall

In the spirit of Aerosmith's hit song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," the iconic band's visiting frontman Steven Tyler was sure to hail to some of Israel's must-see sites.
The "Jaded" vocalist, 68, visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Monday ahead of Aerosmith's summer blowout concert in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
While at the most holy site in the Jewish faith, the rocker met David Friedman, who arrived in Israel on Monday to take up the role of new US ambassador to the country.

Israeli Envoy to Nigeria Cancels Party, Donates Funds to Kids Who Escaped Boko Haram

Israel’s recently installed ambassador to Nigeria cancelled the embassy’s Independence Day celebration and used the money saved to create a soccer league for children who escaped from the terrorist group Boko Haram, Ynet reported Sunday.
Ambassador Guy Feldman used the money initially allocated for the party to buy uniforms for 225 children from three refugee camps in the Nigerian state of Adamawa, which borders Cameroon. The funds were also used to purchase balls and hire coaches and judges. The children, ages eight to 12, were divided into 10 teams that played each other for a week.
In addition to the soccer league, the money saved from canceling the reception will be used to pay tuition for the children’s schooling in the camps for an entire year.
According to a recent United Nations report, Boko Haram has killed more than 3,900 children over the last four years, and injured more than 7,300 and kidnapped more than 4,000 children from northeastern Nigeria.
“Our intention was to bring a message of hope to the children, which is also the Zionist message,” Feldman explained. He named the league, “Israel cares—Kids’ Football League.”

Serge Klarsfeld recognized with top award by Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial

Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld was recognized with the highest honor bestowed by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial.
Klarsfeld received the Light of Memory award on Sunday in Izieu, France, from Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz Museum, in a ceremony held at a conference marking the 30th anniversary of the trial of Klaus Barbie, the head of the Lyon Gestapo.
Klarsfeld, a child survivor of the Holocaust in France whose father was murdered in Auschwitz, for many years tracked Nazis who hid in Europe, Africa or South America. He found Barbie, which led to the Gestapo leader’s extradition from Bolivia and his trial in France.
In 1944, Barbie and his Gestapo unit found 40 Jewish children from various European countries who were being hidden by a French couple in Izieu. The children were deported to Auschwitz and murdered in its gas chambers.

Cyclists pay tribute to champ who saved Jews during Holocaust

Italian and Israeli cyclists are paying tribute this week to Gino Bartali, an Italian cycling champion who saved hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust and in 2013 was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations.
Bartali, who died in 2000, smuggled Resistance messages and false documents for Jews hidden in his bicycle frame when riding through central Italy, supposedly as part of his training schedule.
On Monday in Florence, members of the Israel Cycling Academy, Israeli’s first professional cycling team, joined the mayor of Florence, city council members, and Jewish representatives at a commemorative ceremony before on Tuesday retracing one of Bartali’s routes – the 190 kilometers, or nearly 120 miles, from Florence to Assisi. It was the second year in a row the Israeli team commemorated Bartali in this way.
Italy’s annual Giro d’Italia cycling race – which marks its 100th edition this year – will start the day’s ride on Wednesday from in front of a cycling museum dedicated to Bartali in his birthplace, Ponte a Ema, just outside Florence.

30 years after his release from Soviet prison, Knesset speaker to address Russian parliament

In May 1987, Yuli Edelstein arrived in Israel after being held as a prisoner of Zion in a Soviet jail for over three years. Exactly 30 years later, he is planning a return trip to Moscow, this time as speaker of the Israeli Knesset and by invitation of the country that once imprisoned him.
The trip, which is set to take place in the last week of July, will be the first by a Knesset speaker to the Russian parliament and will include a rare address by Edelstein to a special session of the Federation Council upper house. The speech will be split between Hebrew and Russian and focus not only on Israel-Russia relations, but on Edelstein’s personal experience and journey from the Soviet Union to Israel, according to his spokesman.
Edelstein will be welcomed as a guest of Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko, who extended the invitation after visiting the Knesset last year and signing a cooperation agreement with the Israeli legislature.

Yisrael Medad: My Six Days War Experience

The war came and we went into emergency procedures which were heightened awareness, extra guard-duty, windows covered with blankets after the panes removed and such. Some of the dried-up grass was purposely set aflame so that a clear view of the approach from the border was afforded as well as removing possible hiding protection for infiltrators.
We spent many hours in or near a fox-hole.
On the second, or perhaps, third day, our soldiers spotted tanks and an air force attack was called in. And, that was it. It really didn’t even last the full six days on our front. The war was over except for one incident a few days later when it was discovered that several score Egyptian commandos, believing that Jordan was still in control of the “West Bank”, had attempted to escape by crossing from Gaza and had been caught in the fields just west of Amatzia.
The day after Shavuot, we drove up to Jerusalem to participate in a ceremony honoring the Betar and Irgun members who, since 1930 and until 1947, had blown the shofar at the Western Wall as Yom Kippur finished. Giving in to the Muslim Waqf demand that the act of the shofar being blown was a violation of the status quo, a British White Paper in November 1928 proscribed it and it was made official in a recommendation of an International Commission in early 1930.
And the mandatory (no pun intended) Kotel picture:

From there, we traveled to Bethlehem and then on to Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs. Later on, there was an additional hike, led by Dr. Eldad, to Battir, site of the fortress Betar.
Another trip was to the Women’s Prison in Bethlehem where Geula Cohen, Rabbi Aryeh Levine and Dr. Eldad, among others, addressed dozens of former ‘residents’ of the Mandate-era jail.
I finished my service at Amatzia and returned to Jerusalem for the summation seminar of the Machon. There we were informed that the Jewish Agency had told our parents during the war that all was well with us as we had been placed “in the center of the country”.
I came back on Aliyah with my wife Batya in 1970, arriving by boat after a 12-day trip, and we moved into the Betar Students Hostel in the renewed Jewish Quarter on Plugat HaKotel Street.

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