06/23 Links Pt2: Commentary on anti-Semitism film offends German Jews; YouTube

From Ian:

The suppressed Arte antisemitism documentary in historic perspective

The initial suppression by the public and EU-subsidized French-German Arte TV station of a documentary about European antisemitism fits well into a lengthy history of hiding information about Jew-hatred and its perpetrators in Europe. Three extreme such cases since the beginning of this century that are discussed below illustrate a far more general phenomenon.
After the beginning of the Second Intifada in autumn 2000, there was a major outbreak of antisemitism in Western Europe. The first country where this manifested itself was France. Many of the violent antisemitic incidents were caused by Muslims. The then-Socialist government of prime minister Lionel Jospin did not want to admit the facts, let alone identify the community of the main perpetrators.
French sociologist Shmuel Trigano related that antisemitic violence went largely unreported by both the press and public authorities for several months. The police categorized many of the incidents as “hooliganism.” We now understand that in those years the mental infrastructure for the sizable emigration of French Jews in recent years was created.
Another important case which elucidates the same “hiding truth policy’” occurred when the European Monitoring Center for Racism and Xenophobia – an EU agency since replaced by the Fundamental Rights Agency – asked the then 15 EU member states to report on antisemitic violence and viewpoints in 2002. The information the European Monitoring Center obtained was passed on to ZfA, the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University in Berlin, with the request to analyze the data.
An American scholar, Amy Elman, analyzed how this issue developed in her 2015 book, The European Union, Anti-Semitism, and the Politics of Denial. She said in an interview: “The Zfa completed its document in October 2003. It found that violent attacks against Jews often rose from virulent anti-Zionism across the political spectrum. Moreover, it specifically identified young Muslims of Arab descent as the main perpetrators of physical attacks against Jews and the desecration and destruction of synagogues. Many were victims of racism and social exclusion themselves.”
The European Monitoring Center decided not to publish the Zfa report, claiming that it was not meant for publication. Zfa responded that the frequent mention of Muslim perpetrators of antisemitism and anti-Zionist attacks was what had put off the European Monitoring Center. The Zfa also made public that the European Monitoring Center repeatedly asked it to change its findings, which it refused to do.
This shelving of the report and the reaction of the Zfa led to a scandal. The World Jewish Congress then published the Zfa’s unchanged report on the Internet.

Commentary on anti-Semitism film offends German Jews

A documentary on modern-day anti-Semitism in Europe, which public television stations in Germany originally refused to broadcast, continued to generate controversy even after German networks yielded to public pressure and broadcast the film on Wednesday evening.
After the German daily Bild posted the documentary "Chosen and Excluded -- The Hate for Jews in Europe" on its website for 24 hours, the German ARD network decided to broadcast the film, but only after making the filmmaker promise to include "corrections" and appear on air for a discussion after it was screened.
Most of the participants in the post-broadcast panel characterized the documentary as "pro-Israel propaganda" and as a distorted view of reality.
The film was broadcast with a ticker running across the bottom of the screen that directed viewers to the TV station's website, where they could review "comments" about its content.
The Jewish community in Germany was outraged on Thursday at how the documentary had been presented.
"This is a complete scandal," one leading figure in the community told Israel Hayom.
"The message that accompanied the film, and in the discussion that followed, was 'don't believe what you see,'" the community leader said. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Hypocrisy: Amazon Removes ‘Palestinian History’ Book, Keeps Selling ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’

There’s no shortage of hypocrisy coming out of Amazon right now.
The book, “A History of the Palestinian People: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era,” by Assaf A. Voll, that quite accurately described the ancient history of the “Palestinian” people with 132 blank pages, has been removed from Amazon.
It reached a remarkable ranking of 341 in the All Books category, a ranking of 49 in History, and was #1 in Middle East History.
Hundreds of copies were sold over the past few days, and it had hundreds of positive comments. Readers knew exactly what they were buying.
But anti-Zionist readers began posting comments demanding the book be removed, and clearly Amazon listened.
On Amazon’s “CreateSpace” it says “the title has been retired and is no longer for sale.”
In the meantime, Amazon continues to sell T-Shirts that erase the Jewish State and replace it with “Palestine”. Now that’s a call for genocide.
You can also buy the anti-Semitic classic “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” on Amazon. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Google's YouTube - Soap Box for Terrorists

If anyone still doubted at that point the connection between terrorism and Google's video platform, the Daily Telegraph revealed that British counterterrorism police had been monitoring a cell of ISIS "wannabes" since March, and recorded its members discussing how to use YouTube to plot a vehicular ramming and stabbing attack in London. Terrorists have learned that YouTube can be as deadly a weapon as knives and cars.
YouTube and Google, by posting such videos, are effectively being accessories to murder. They are also inviting class-action lawsuits from families and individuals victimized by terrorism. They need to be held criminally liable for aiding and abetting mass murder.
In Arabic with French subtitles, the clip lauds terrorists "martyred for Allah." User comments include: "beautiful... may Allah give us all the knowledge and power to accelerate our imams." In other words, the pictures of smiling terrorists and their dead bodies serve as an inspiration to young Muslims seeking Paradise through martyrdom. This is not theoretical. According to the website Wired UK, as of June 5, there were 535 terrorist attacks around the world -- with 3,635 fatalities -- since the beginning of 2017 alone.

Fred Maroun: The inconvenient truth about the Israel-Palestinian conflict

Palestinian violence towards Jews has always been intertwined with Arab hatred of Jews, and it is today the main tool used to keep it alive.
As long as Palestinians are led by terrorists, reared to hate, and paid to be terrorists, the probability that peace will come from negotiations with the Palestinians is exactly zero. This is the inconvenient truth of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
No US leader has ever said that Osama Bin Laden, the former head of Al Qaeda, the organization that planned the 9/11 attacks, wanted peace with the United States of America. No European leader has ever said that Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, an organization that claimed responsibility for several terrorist attacks in Europe, wants peace with Europe. They do not say these things because they are absurd. Saying that those who maintain Palestinian terror against Israel want peace with Israel is just as absurd, and yet they say it anyway.
Former US President Barack Obama said it for eight years. European leaders say it often. And now Trump says it as well.
The truth is hard for politicians to accept because it means that a solution for the Palestinians must be found in spite of the Palestinians, which is politically incorrect, even for Trump. Yet it should be said.
In finding a peaceful solution, there is no point in involving Fatah, Hamas, or anyone who represents the Palestinians. They have all badly failed their people, and they continue to do so every day. The only hope for peace at this time is a solution imposed by higher powers, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This is where peace efforts should be placed.
Meeting with Abbas is a waste of time and no more than a distraction. Western politicians should find the courage to say this and then move on to real solutions.

Richard Falk's figurative apartheid - he just can't let it go

In the same way, the apartheid fiction was shifted from the 'West Bank' to Israel itself, even though the haters must have known that none of the features of apartheid exist in Israel. Facing this dilemma, some of them then went back to the 'West Bank' version, some stuck to their guns with the Israel version, and others even argued now that apartheid existed in both places.
Recently Richard Falk went them one, or two, better, telling us that Israeli apartheid exists in no fewer than four places: in the 'West Bank', in Jerusalem, in Israel, and among the Palestinian Arab 'refugees' – all this in a recent report called “Israel’s Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid," commissioned by the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), which consists entirely of 18 Arab member-states. In the end the UN itself repudiated the report.
Be that as it may, Richard Falk also faced a dilemma of credibility in fabricating his report, for, as Falk confesses, apartheid had been defined by the 1973 Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid as consisting of "deliberate and systematic acts of racial discrimination with the purpose of maintaining unlawful structures of racial domination, that is, a dominant race subjugating another race."
"Our report," he continued in his blog ("Is Israel an Apartheid State?"), "also considered whether, in the context of inquiring into the presence of apartheid, it was appropriate to consider Jews and Palestinians as distinct races; we found that there were abundant grounds for doing so. As our report shows, 'race' in this legal context is treated as a socially and politically constructed category developed to identify a distinct people. It has no necessary correlation with biogenetic realities, which in this case actually shows an overlap between Jews and Palestinians."
"No necessary correlation with biogenetic realities"! One has to take a very deep breath before attempting to appreciate the insanity of what Falk is saying, or, if one is so inclined, to appreciate the elegance with which he overcomes a seemingly insurmountable obstacle with some inspired double-talk. First, let it be noted that as much as he might wish to define the Jews as actually constituting a distinct or dominant "race" for the sake of the apartheid argument, he is hindered from doing so by one of the basic tenets of Israel hatred, namely, that Ashkenazi or European Jews (the "usurpers" or "colonists" or "foreigners" in hate jargon) are the descendants of Khazarian converts and therefore have no connection with the Land of Israel and nothing in common genetically with the indigenous people of the region, which include what the haters like to call Jewish Arabs or Arab Jews (and hence the "biogenetic overlap"), the implication being that the Jews are a "mongrel" people (a la Nazism's rants).

Ramadan 2017: 161 Terror Attacks, 1,483 Dead, 1,557 Wounded

For a "religion of peace," Muslims sure do a lot of killing.
Islam's holiest month of fasting and prayer began May 26 and runs until tomorrow, June 24. So far, there have been 161 terror attacks and 1,483 killed, reports The Religion of Peace website, which keeps a running tally. Another 1,557 were wounded.
Among the attacks: A dozen people were killed in Pakistan by a Fedayeen suicide bomber; A suicide car bomb outside a bank killed 30 in Afghanistan; a Shahid suicide car bomber rammed a police station in Somalia, killing eight; Eight more were killed by a Fedayeen suicide bomber in Cameroon; A police officer at a Michigan airport was stabbed in the neck by a man shouting praises to Allah; and
A Shahid suicide car bomber posing as a milk delivery man killed 15 in Somalia.
And that's just the last three days.
Islamist terrorists use the holy month to ramp up attacks on non-believers because they get additional rewards for becoming martyrs during Ramadan. While many of the attacks are in the Middle East, a slew have happened in the West, including two deadly attacks in England and another in Australia. In all, 29 countries have been sites of terrorist attacks.

French terror cell sentenced over grenade attack on Jewish store

A French court on Thursday sentenced members of a jihadist network once considered among the country’s most dangerous to between one and 28 years in prison for an attack on a Jewish grocery store in 2012.
The “Cannes-Torcy cell,” named after the towns where its members were based, was accused of having planned several other attacks as well as seeking to join jihadist ranks in Syria before the network was dismantled in 2012. Eighteen men were found guilty and two were acquitted.
The verdict comes after a wave of jihadist assaults in France that have left more than 230 people dead since 2015 and an attack this week on a police van by a car laden with weapons and gas canisters on Paris’s Champs-Elysees.
Analysts say the Cannes-Torcy network signaled a historic shift in France’s struggle against terrorism, to battling mass attacks by Islamic radicals inspired, or even guided, by foreigners.
During the hearing at a special anti-terror tribunal in Paris, the cell was described as “the missing link” between the self-proclaimed Al-Qaeda terrorist Mohamed Merah — who murdered three Jewish children and a teacher in an attack at their school in the southwestern city of Toulouse in 2012 — and the Islamic State network that hit the Bataclan concert hall in 2015, killing 130 people.

Unveiling clock showing 8,411 days left for Israel, Iranians rage against Jewish state

Iran held major anti-Israel rallies across the country Friday, with protesters chanting “Death to Israel” and condemning the occupation of Palestinian land.
Marchers in Tehran headed from various points of the city toward the Friday prayer ceremony at Tehran University. Similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns in Iran, according to state media.
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard used the demonstration in the capital’s Valiasr Square to showcase three surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, including the Zolfaghar — the type that Iran used this week to target the Islamic State group in Syria. The Guard said it fired six such missiles on Sunday at IS targets in the city of Deir el-Zour, more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. The Guard said the airstrike was in retaliation for an IS attack earlier in June on Iran’s parliament and a shrine in Tehran that killed 18 people and wounded more than 50.
Another missile on display at the Tehran rally was the Ghadr, with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) that can reach both Israel and US bases in the region.
Iran’s ballistic missile program has been the subject of persistent concern in Washington and the target of repeated US sanctions.

Iranians chant 'Death to Israel', display military force at Al-Quds rally

State TV covering the rallies showed crowds chanting anti-Israel slogans in solidarity with Palestinians whom they urged to continue their fight against the "occupying regime".
Demonstrators chanted "Death to Israel, Death to America,", carrying banners reading "Israel should be wiped off the map" while people were shown burning the Israeli flag.
People meted out the same treatment for the banner of Islamic State (IS) which has said it carried out deadly twin attacks in Tehran on June 7. Iran blames regional rival Saudi Arabia for being behind the attacks. Riyadh denies this.
"Daesh (IS), America and Israel are all the same. They are all terrorists," a young woman marcher in Tehran told TV.
Marchers included soldiers, students and clerics. Black-clad women with small children were among those flocking the streets of central Tehran, many carrying portraits of Khomeini and his successor Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In Tehran's Vali-ye Asr street, three mid-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles were displayed, including the Zolfaghar missile that Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards used on Sunday to target bases of the IS in eastern Syria.
Top Guards' commanders have repeatedly said that Israel is within range of Iran's missiles. Sunni Muslim states in the Gulf and Israel say Tehran's ballistic missile program is a threat to regional security and has led to the United States imposing new sanctions.
"With this rally our nation is telling America that we are determined to continue our path," Rouhani said, referring to the US Senate's decision to impose new sanctions.

Nearly 2,000 sign petition to keep Holocaust denier out of Canada

An online petition launched by B’nai Brith Canada aiming to prevent an American Holocaust denier from speaking in Toronto has garnered nearly 2,000 signatures.
Kevin Barrett, who has called the 9/11 attacks an “inside job,” is due to address the city’s annual Al-Quds Day rally on Saturday. Al-Quds is the Muslim name for Jerusalem, and the annual march during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is generally a call for the destruction of Israel.
In the petition, B’nai Brith demanded that Canada’s Border Services Agency keep out Barrett.
“Inviting a notorious Holocaust denier to this event demonstrated once and for all that Al-Quds Day is not a mere ‘anti-Israel’ event, but rather a hate rally designed to demonize and denigrate Canada’s Jewish population,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn told The Canadian Jewish News.
Barrett, a teacher at the University of Wisconsin in Madison until 2006, was barred from Canada in 2015. At the time, he reportedly referred to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris as a “false flag” operation.
“Barrett has repeatedly questioned the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany,” B’nai Brith said.

Police launch Al Quds Day rally probe

Claims made by an organiser of the anti-Israel Al Quds Day rally that Zionists were to blame for the Grenfell fire tragedy are now being investigated as a possible hate crime.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police have confirmed that they will review comments made by Nazim Ali – director of the self-styled “advocacy group” the Islamic Human Rights Commission which organised the annual march - during the two-hours he led supporters along the capital’s streets.
The Met also confirmed that they are conducting a second probe into whether an open display of flags of the banned terror group Hezbollah at Sunday’s march contravened UK terror laws.
Around 700 supporters attended the controversial rally which saw men, women, and many children wave the terror group’s yellow and green machine gun flag alongside banners bearing the words “We Are All Hizbollah”, and the website address for the IHRC.
A police spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we have received two allegations in relation to the Al Quds march on Sunday 18 June. The allegations relate to flags displayed during the march and alleged anti-Semitic comments. Detectives from Westminster CID are investigating. “

IsraellyCool: Scenes From Iran’s Al-Quds Day

After UK High Court Rules in Favor of BDS, Expert Says British Government Needs ‘Primary Legislation’ to Counter Israel Boycotts

British Jews have reacted with disappointment to a High Court ruling on Thursday that the UK government acted unlawfully in restricting boycotts of the State of Israel.
“If primary legislation is required, the government must act now,” David Berens — a London-based lawyer who represents the Jewish National Fund on the Board of Deputies of British Jews — told The Algemeiner.
A case brought to the court by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) — a pro-BDS group whose main goal is to oppose “the apartheid and Zionist nature of the Israeli state” — challenged guidance on pension fund investment that was issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government in September last year. The PSC objected to a provision which prevents pension funds set up under a local government scheme from engaging in boycotts and the “ethical divestment” of companies accused of being “complicit” in Israel’s “occupation” of “Palestine.”
The judge in the case, Sir Ross Cranston, said this aspect of the guidance exceeded the powers of the Communities and Local Government Secretary.
Cranston noted that the British government was “concerned that local government pension funds should not be involved in such political issues because of the mixed messages it might give abroad; because it might undermine community cohesion at home by legitimizing antisemitic or racist attitudes and attacks — although it accepts that anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian campaigning is not in itself antisemitic.”

Jewish group urges US stadiums to boycott Roger Waters

The Zionist Organization of America on Friday urged a number of leading American companies that own big stadiums across North America to boycott former Pink Floyd singer and notorious anti-Israel boycotter Roger Waters.
In a statement Friday, the American-Jewish organization called on corporations such as AT&T, Wells Fargo, Staples, American Airlines, Verizon and Prudential to cancel Rogers’ upcoming performances at their stadiums and to “reject and condemn Waters and his hateful attacks against Jews and the Jewish State of Israel.”
Rogers is currently on tour in the US and Canada and is expected to stop in 46 cities for 61 concerts over the next several months to promote his latest album “Is This the Life We Really Want?”
The group also criticized radio stations across North America for promoting the concerts and giving away free tickets in various promotions.
ZOA said Waters was an “unabashed anti-Semitic bigot” and that fewer people should be exposed to his “Jew-hatred” and “lie-filled, hateful anti-Israel rants.”

Israel haters groups response to anti-Semitism at SFSU "But we're the victims"

The recent lawsuit alleging systemic anti-antisemitism at San Francisco State University has gotten a great deal of press lately
Not being able to control the narrative is a first for the haters. How are they handling the stress?
What is the reaction of, oh, lets say Jewish Voice for Peace to this? After all, their mission statement claims they oppose "anti-Jewish, bigotry and oppression".
Ben Lorber, a JVP staffer has "talking points" to share and can help you write a letter, denying anti-Jewish bigotry and oppression even exists
Other anti-Israel groups are also mobilizing fast as they can, utilizing their perpetual theme of " But, but, but we're the victims" ( so send us money).
A "Launch good" page has been set up to raise money for SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi and her students.

New UK Student Leader Speaks at ‘Women in Jewish Leadership’ Event, In First Public Appearance Since Election to Head NUS

The incoming president of the UK’s largest student group spoke at an event this week promoting gender equality in the Jewish community, in her first public appearance since the student elections two months ago, the Jewish News reported on Wednesday.
Shakira Martin, who will take office as the president of the National Union of Students (NUS) on July 1, attended the Women in Jewish Leadership program as a the guest of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and spoke of her own challenging upbringing in an economically-disadvantaged, single-parent family “where drug abuse played a major part.”
Martin, now a single mother of two, was quoted as saying, “I knew I wanted to make something of myself but never had the confidence to step out of my comfort zone and confront the obstacles, challenges and stereotypes I faced just for being a black, working class woman.”
“All of us will have dealt with the barriers of being a woman from an ethnic minority background,” Martin noted. “When we come together in rooms like these, we’re saying that we want the next generation to have more than what we had. It is important that we women share this journey together to achieve success, we help each other out and not be afraid to dream big. If we can inspire, empower or motivate one person, then it will all be worth it.”
Martin also addressed the difficulties Jewish students have faced on campus, including the strained relations the community has had with student politics in recent years. She made clear that she would support Jewish students and work to unify university-goers.

This Ongoing War: 23-Jun-17: Murder by social media (is anyone at Twitter reading this?)

Ahlam Tamimi, our daughter Malki's confessed murderer, has a Twitter account.
She has had one for years. Actually more than one. The latest Tamimi Twitter account replaces the one about which we - and many other people responding to a campaign we spearheaded in April 2017 - complained to Twitter. After an intense effort, that Twitter account was shut down. So too was her Facebook page.
As we wrote in a blog post here about ten weeks ago: We think this means the many requests we and our followers... filed with Twitter were heard. Whatever the case, the world is a better and safer place with Ahlam Tamimi's voice lowered by several notches... ["12-Apr-17: A modest step toward justice: Twitter today suspended the account of our daughter's murderer"]
But now, as we said a moment ago, she has another Twitter account. For now, we're not publicizing its address. We don't want to contribute to her gaining any more followers; not even one more. She created it in May.
We found it just yesterday and within a few minutes we filed a complaint using Twitter's standard forms and on-line procedure. It works in a frustrating way because it doesn't easily allow for any background or explanation or commentary. And once having filed it, we received this ambivalent, somewhat anaemic and entirely unsatisfying response:

For Palestinians, It’s Lights Out at the Washington Post

In recent months, the Washington Post has put the phrase “democracy dies in darkness” on its masthead — the first time that the paper has ever officially adopted a slogan. Yet, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Post readers have been left in the dark about critical information and events.
The Post seems incapable of reporting on the Palestinians, unless the stories can somehow be connected to Israel. A look at recent coverage offers some examples.
June 2017 marks the ten-year anniversary of Hamas seizing power in the Gaza Strip — a hugely important event for Israelis, Palestinian Arabs and the entire Middle East.
Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group that calls for Israel’s destruction, seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, after a brief, but bloody, fight with Fatah, the movement that dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas had won January 2006 elections in the Strip that many observers had expected Fatah to win. Yet despite Hamas’ victory in the parliamentary elections, PA President Mahmoud Abbas remained the head of government. In 2007, Hamas drove Fatah and Abbas out of Gaza.
Ten years on, the negative consequences of Hamas’ rule are apparent. The terror group has made continuous war on the Jewish state — launching rockets at civilians, kidnapping and murdering Israelis, and trying to carry out the group’s stated objective: annihilating Israel and establishing an Islamic state. Since Hamas seized power in Gaza, there have been three major conflicts with Israel — in 2008, 2012 and 2014.

Polish rights official under fire for saying Poland took part in Holocaust

A leading Polish human rights official has come under fire for saying the “Polish nation” took part in the implementation of the Holocaust — a controversial statement in a country sensitive to its history during World War II.
Adam Bodnar, the country’s human rights commissioner, or ombudsman, apologized for the comment but members of Poland’s conservative government say he should resign.
The flap threatens to weaken Bodnar, who heads one of the last state institutions still independent from the ruling conservative Law and Justice party.
After gaining power in 2015, the party moved quickly to consolidate its hold over the Constitutional Tribunal, public media other state bodies in a way that has eroded the separation of checks and balances, sparking criticism by the European Union.

One year on, Brexit vote casts specter of anti-Semitism over UK Jews

As political earthquakes go, that which Britain experienced on June 23 last year can justifiably be said to register high on the Richter scale. The vote to leave the European Union was the most significant and consequential event in the UK’s post-war history. Its tremors continue to convulse Britain’s body politic and will do so long after Brexit is scheduled to occur in 2019.
A poll for the Jewish Chronicle on the eve of the referendum suggested that Britain’s Jews were slightly more in favor of the UK remaining in the EU than Britons in general. Forty-eight percent planned to vote “remain,” while just over one-third — 34% — intended to vote “leave.” At the same time, divisions within the community — much higher support for the EU among the young, the north leaning more towards “leave” with London heavily backing “remain” — mirrored those in the country as a whole.
However, given the widespread view that, albeit narrowly, Britain would not turn its back on its 40-year membership of Europe, few predicted a particular impact on Jews if the country did vote to leave.
Like much else about Brexit, that forecast has been turned upon its head. The steep rise in hate crimes which followed the referendum result unsettled many Jews, including those who had voted to leave.
Broadcaster and journalist Angela Epstein, for instance, backed Brexit after deciding that, with the specter of the far right on the march across Europe, British Jews would be safer off out of the EU. She soon came to regret her decision, writing last August that “in voting Brexit as a kind of preemptive and protective move against European anti-Semitism and bigotry, I neglected to foresee the fallout in my own country.”
“How long will it take for the searchlight of racism to sweep across other minority communities, like, well, the Jews?” she asked.

Israeli Firm Develops Method to Print Custom Logos on Ice Cubes

Elad Mor, an Israeli mechanical engineer specializing in structural optic coatings, took a refreshment break while experimenting with transferring light onto surfaces without using pigments or dyes.
When he raised the chilled drink to his lips, he had a eureka moment.
Ice cubes come very close to the eyes of the drinker – a perfect promotional medium if one could embed a logo or image in the cubes without any dye that would spoil the drink.
“We would have to do it with 100 percent water. And that’s exactly what we are doing today: putting high-resolution images in the center of the ice cube without any additives at all,” Mor tells ISRAEL21c. “It’s like we discovered a whole new island.”
That is the basis of Icebow, a two-year-old startup in Jerusalem. VLX Ventures and Cresson Management poured $650,000 into the cool venture.
“Ice, a surface no one has ever touched, can finally be altered,” says Sagi Katz, the head of business for Icebow. “It was a big challenge, and engineers love a good challenge.”

Israel's top innovators look to India for new opportunities

With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit less than two weeks away, Israeli innovators are looking to benefit from a wide array of untapped partnership opportunities.
“The Israeli business community is only right now starting to realize the potential of the East,” Anat Bernstein-Reich, chairwoman of the Israel-India Chamber of Commerce and managing director of A&G Partners, told The Jerusalem Post this week. “The market of tomorrow is India and China and the rest of Asia.”
Although local innovators have begun to open their eyes to the East, the Israeli business mindset has all too long been focused on Western markets, Bernstein-Reich said. The high visibility of Modi’s visit could provide a much-needed boost in the business community’s awareness of mutually beneficial economic collaborations.
“He is like a mega-star wherever he goes because of his charisma,” Bernstein-Reich said.

Congressional bill named for Elie Wiesel aims to stop genocides

A bipartisan bill introduced in the US House of Representatives and named for the late Elie Wiesel aims to improve the US response to emerging or potential genocides.
The Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2017 introduced Thursday serves to improve US efforts to prevent major casualties overseas.
Reps. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., and Ann Wagner R-Mo., introduced the measure named for the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate. It ensures that the official policy of the United States deems the prevention of genocide and other crimes a matter of national security interest.
“Atrocities and violence committed over the last century and today make it all the more important that our government and leaders take steps to detect and prevent atrocities before they start in the first place,” Crowley said.

60 New Ethiopian Immigrants Arrive in Israel

Sixty new Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia arrived at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport this week. They were greeted by jubilant family members and supporters, who danced and waved Israeli flags.
The latest Ethiopian aliyah follows a group of 72 Ethiopian immigrants who arrived in Israel on June 6, in a collaboration between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ).
Additional immigrant flights from Ethiopia are expected to arrive this summer as part of the Israeli government’s Ethiopian aliyah program, which was reactivated in October 2016.
ICEJ, a Christian Zionist global ministry, has worked to raise funds for the first year of the reintroduced program, which will bring 1,400 new immigrants to the Jewish state.
Some 9,000 Jews still reside in Ethiopia and are awaiting Israeli government approval to make aliyah.

Israel-born T.J. Leaf drafted by NBA’s Pacers in first round

Tel Aviv born T.J. Leaf was picked by the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the NBA draft Thursday night, becoming the third Israeli to make it to basketball’s big leagues in the US.
Leaf was selected No. 18 in the first round of the draft, leaving UCLA after one year, where the power-forward was overshadowed by hype-machine Lonzo Ball despite leading the Bruins in scoring.
Leaf was born in Tel Aviv and lived there the first two years of his life while his father Brad Leaf, who was also drafted by the Pacers in 1982 but never joined the team, played in the Israeli premier league.
Brad Leaf spent 17 years in Israel, playing for Maccabi and Galil Elyon and winning the league MVP award once.
“We loved it there. The people are great. I didn’t know if we’d ever come back,” Brad Leaf told the Los Angeles Daily News.

Robert Kraft-led trip to Israel has profound impact on Hall of Famers

Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis bleeds Pittsburgh Steelers black and gold, but as he boarded an airplane Tuesday set to return from Israel to the United States, he reflected on spending a week with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and laughed.
"I told my wife [Trameka], he has a new fan," Bettis said. "My phrase was 'I'm a friend of him, not of them.'"
That's how strongly Bettis -- who played several high-stakes games against the Patriots during his lengthy career with the Steelers -- felt about what transpired from June 13-21. Bettis was one of 18 Hall of Famers who joined Kraft on a trip to Israel.
"To have an opportunity for me and my wife to be baptized in the Jordan River, that was amazing. To have an opportunity, as a Christian, to see where Jesus Christ was born, was amazing. To walk in his footsteps. To go to the Church of Holy Sepulchre, those kind of things, things I read about in a Bible but to actually have an opportunity to walk and see it with my own eyes, they were amazing," Bettis said in a phone interview.
Bettis was joined by Pro Football Hall of Famers Lem Barney, Jim Brown, Cris Carter, Dave Casper, Eric Dickerson, Marshall Faulk, Joe Greene, Willie Lanier, Joe Montana, Andre Reed, Mike Singletary, Bruce Smith, John Stallworth, Roger Staubach, Andre Tippett, Aeneas Williams and Ron Yary. Hall of Fame president and CEO David Baker also made the trip.
This marks the second time in three years that Kraft has led an ambassador-type trip to Israel. Part of the trip's mission involved increasing American football's popularity in the region.

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