08/31 Links Pt2: Young Anti-Zionist Jews Claim to Speak For My Generation; Yes, antifa is the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis

From Ian:

---

Young Anti-Zionist Jews Claim to Speak For My Generation. They Don’t. It’s Time We Called Them On It.

“If six million people were walking around saying that they were ‘chosen,’ you would want to kill them, too.”
A few months ago, I was shocked to hear these words from a fellow Brown University student. With a remarkable degree of ignorance about the history of the Holocaust and Jewish theology, he suggested that the Jews are so repulsive that we brought the Nazi genocide upon ourselves. He shut down another student for daring to bring up her grandparents’ Holocaust experiences at a Shabbat dinner conversation, calling her selfish for recounting her own family’s history. He declared that Jewish religion and ethics are meaningless as long as Israel, which he regarded as the epicenter of global evil, exists.
He was Jewish.
He had internalized a toxic culture of anti-Semitism and grown to resent Holocaust survivors, Zionists, and all who represented resistance to the mentality that he had chosen to adopt. Anti-Zionists had repeated the narrative that they represented “young Jews” and “our generation” until he believed them. He couldn’t stand to be confronted with millennial Jews like me who had taken the harder path, had chosen to name anti-Semitism, talk about it, and fight back.
People like him claim to speak for the whole of my generation, but they are a small minority of Jewish millennials. According to Pew’s comprehensive study of American Jews, a full 81 percent of Jewish 18-29 year-olds consider “caring about Israel” to be “essential” or “important” to being Jewish. Only 11 percent of us say we are “not at all attached” to Israel. We may be critical of its policies and politicians, but not its existence.

Judea Pearl: The Basel Conference — 120 Years Later

However, I believe that Herzl, in effect, founded the Jewish state much earlier. True, Herzl’s specific plan to persuade the Ottoman sultan to allocate land for a Jewish state was sheer lunacy and led to painful disappointments. But transforming Jewish statehood into an item on the international political agenda was a monumental achievement; it maintains this position today.
Moreover, the idea that Jews are reclaiming sovereignty by right, not for favor, completely changed the way that Jews began to view their standing in the cosmos. It transformed the Jew from an object of history to a shaper of history.
This new self-image was the engine that propelled history toward a Jewish statehood already in the early 1900s. The 40,000 Jews who made up the Second Aliyah (1904-1914) were different in spirit and determination from the 35,000 Jews who came earlier with the First Aliyah (1882-1903). At their core, the second wave knew that they were building a model sovereign nation and that Zionism was the most just and noble endeavor in human history. They established kibbutzim, formed self-defense organizations, founded the town of Tel Aviv and turned Hebrew into a practical spoken language. This spirit of hope, purpose and immediacy emanated from the Basel Congress, not from the utopian “in time to come” Zionism of Ahad Ha’am.
The diplomatic efforts that led to the Balfour Declaration and the subsequent ideological immigration of the Third Aliyah (1919-1923) all were direct products of the Zionist movement and made statehood practically inevitable.
The miracle of Israel was planted, indeed, in 1897.
If I had to choose the single most significant impact that the Basel Congress has had on our lives here, in 2017 America, I would name one forgotten statement that Herzl made in his first speech at the Basel Congress. On the morning of August 29, 1897, after 15 minutes of wild cheering, Herzl took the stage and said: “Zionism is a homecoming to the Jewish fold even before it becomes a homecoming to the Jewish land.”
As I observe how the miracle of Israel is becoming the most powerful uniting force among our divided communities, and as I witness the excitement of our children, grandchildren and college students as they internalize the relevance of Israel to their identity as Jews, Herzl’s statement about “homecoming to the Jewish fold“ stands out, perhaps, as more visionary than his prediction about Israeli statehood. It was the future of the Jewish people, not just of Israel, that was forged there in Basel, 120 years ago.

Reflecting on Zionism

Some 120 years after this historic congress, the State of Israel today deals with questions Herzl has already asked. In our day, he represents the connection between the State of Israel in the Land of Israel and the solution to the Jewish problem.
Herzl searched for a real solution to this problem from the roots up. He completely changed how the future of the Jewish people was conceived. The idea of uprooting Jews from Europe and transferring them to Israel depended on re-evaluating the relationship toward Jews by European society and the features of this society. As it was impossible to predict that European society would eventually adapt itself to the values of tolerance, freedom and equality toward Jews, anti-Semitism was understood as a permanent state between Jews and non-Jews that would only get worse if the Jewish problem would remain unsolved.
Today, 120 years after the First Zionist Congress, we have a duty to examine the way we went since then,do some soul searching and evaluate the aims of both the Zionist movement and the state. The Zionist movement succeeded in realizing its dream by virtue of its leadership, ideology and the mobilization of its people. The question is what is the essence of Zionism today. This ideology succeeded in gathering together the Jewish people, not only those who were citizens of one country, but all the Jews living in the Diaspora. Is our leadership capable bringing about the realization and fulfillment of aspirations and form concrete plans for the future, or does it cause us to occupy ourselves with the day-to-day and a decline in the present as we abandon our future?

UN embrace of anti-Israel BDS movement endangers the very peace it claims to support

Just last week, the city government in Frankfurt, Germany, passed an initiative to “ban any municipal funding or the renting of rooms for any activities of groups or individuals who support the antisemitic BDS movement. We also instructed our city-owned companies and called upon private landlords to act in the same way,” said the city’s Deputy Mayor Uwe Becker.
He went further and noted that: “The BDS movement does not only strongly resemble the ‘Don’t Buy from Jews’ argumentation of former times of the National Socialists, but the movement is built on the same toxic ground and it is poisoning the social climate in the same dangerous way.”
Scores of banks in France, Germany, Austria and Ireland have terminated accounts held by BDS organizations.
All of this helps to explain why the UNHRC’s BDS activity damages the conditions for peace.
What can the US and Europe do? The U.S. along with many European countries sit on the 47-member Human Rights Council. The UN’s economic warfare targeting Israel and companies that trade with it should prompt a counter-attack that includes the U.S. and morally-principled countries resigning from the UNHRC.
A joint announcement at a press conference by Haley with her counterparts, including the German and British ambassadors, warning of a mass resignation if the blacklist is implemented, would be a good first move. After all, many U.S. and EU companies will be directly affected by the counter-productive and discriminatory blacklist.
Put simply, the UNHRC should not be in the business of using the tools of economic warfare to bring about precisely the result it claims it wishes to avoid: a powerful setback to the Israel-Palestinian peace process.

Germany to permit Palestinian terror group to run for parliament

The German Interior Ministry declined on Tuesday to bar the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from campaigning as a political party in the September general election to the Bundestag.
The PFLP has been designated by the EU and US as a terrorist organization.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry told The Jerusalem Post a party’s entitlement to run is “not dependent on the assessment of politics or candidates.”
When asked by the Post if the Interior Ministry plans to outlaw the PFLP, the spokeswoman said it “does not, in general, comment on bans.”
The spokeswoman said, “candidates from parties and candidates in Germany cannot be banned or allowed by the Interior Ministry in Germany,” adding that the federal election committee determines the registration of candidate lists.
The PFLP is running on a joint list with the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany.

Yes, antifa is the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis

Last weekend in Berkeley, Calif., a group of neo-communist antifa — “anti-fascist” — thugs attacked peaceful protesters at a “No to Marxism in America” rally, wielding sticks and pepper spray, and beating people with homemade shields that read (I kid you not) “No Hate.” The Post reports how one peaceful protester “was attacked by five black-clad antifa members, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself.” Members of the Berkeley College Republicans were then stalked by antifa goons who followed them to a gas station and demanded they “get the [expletive] out” of their car, warning, “We are real hungry for supremacists and there is more of us.”
The organizer of the anti-Marxism protest is not a white supremacist. Amber Cummings is a self-described “transsexual female who embraces diversity” and had announced on Facebook that “any racist groups like the KKK [and] Neo Nazis .?.?. are not welcome.” The protest was needed, Cummings said, because “Berkeley is a ground zero for the Marxist Movement.”
As if to prove Cummings’s point, the antifa movement responded with jackboots and clubs — because their definition of “fascist” includes not just neo-Nazis but also anyone who opposes their totalitarian worldview.
And let’s be clear: Totalitarian is precisely what they are. Mark Bray, a Dartmouth lecturer who has defended antifa’s violent tactics, recently explained in The Post, “Its adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists” who believe that physical violence “is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective.” In other words, they are no different from neo-Nazis. Neo-Nazis are the violent advocates of a murderous ideology that killed 25 million people last century. Antifa members are the violent advocates of a murderous ideology that, according to “The Black Book of Communism,” killed between 85 million and 100 million people last century. Both practice violence and preach hate. They are morally indistinguishable. There is no difference between those who beat innocent people in the name of the ideology that gave us Hitler and Himmler and those who beat innocent people in the name of the ideology that gave us Stalin and Dzerzhinsky.
The United States defeated two murderous ideologies in the 20th century. So we should all be repulsed by the sight of our fellow Americans carrying the banners of either movement, whether they are waving the red flags of communism or black flags of Nazism. Yet we are not. Communism is not viewed as an evil comparable to Nazism today. As Alex Griswold recently pointed out, the New York Times has published no fewer than six opinion pieces this year defending communism, including essays praising Lenin as a conservationist, explaining why Stalinism inspired Americans, and arguing that the Bolsheviks were romantics at heart and that women had better sex under communism. Can one imagine the Times running similar pieces about the Nazis?

Antifa and the Academy

The argument the professors make relies on a much narrower reading of self-defense than Bray uses. For Bray, violence is not simply a question of kicking a fascist if a fascist kicks you but of “preemptively” shutting down “fascist organizing efforts . . . before they turn deadly.” Indeed, practically the whole point of Bray’s analogy between our time and that of the rise of Fascism in Europe is that “by any means necessary” thinking should kick in much earlier than most people think. The Campus Reform piece on Bray was certainly polemical, and I hold no brief for that publication, but it did not fundamentally mischaracterize his position. The threats against Bray are disturbing, and I hope the people who made them are tracked down and prosecuted. But, however well-intentioned the professors’ letter may have been, it does not come to grip with Bray’s position.
As for President Hanlon, there are times when university leadership should distance itself from the opinions of faculty members. I was heartened, for example, that many college university presidents declared their opposition to academic boycotts when the American Studies Association endorsed such a boycott against Israel. Though there is now talk of setting up some kind of shop in academia, Antifa does not call for a response from academic leaders in the same way that the academic wing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement did. Certainly, sympathetic treatment of the Antifa movement by a single faculty member does not call for a presidential statement. I agree with Noah Rothman that the left should denounce rather than romanticize its violent wing and would add that liberals should have nothing to do with a crew that Bray informs us “have no allegiance to liberal democracy.” A political figure like Nancy Pelosi can certainly be expected to distance herself from Antifa.
But college presidents have no obligation to denounce individual professors who hold wrongheaded views. Whether violence is ever justified is a legitimate ethical question, and I doubt very much that, whatever Hanlon may say, Dartmouth’s values are really inconsistent with the endorsement of any kind of violence under any circumstances. It is a legitimate empirical question to ask under what circumstances violence could be more effective than nonviolence. As for the rejection of liberalism, although colleges and universities owe their status and safety to liberalism, college presidents should not be called upon to denounce every intellectual departure from it. If they are called upon to do so, their typical response should be that tolerance for free inquiry is among liberalism’s great strengths.
Academic administrations have a duty take sides in moral and policy disputes from time to time. But when they do, they take the risk of compromising their Socratic core in favor of preaching, or what may be worse, of constantly reassuring anyone who will listen that professors who might shock us are rare and perhaps undesirable in academic communities. So they should be reluctant to wade into such disputes. It is hard to see what good Dartmouth has done by making a statement about one of its visiting scholars. It is not hard to see how, if college presidents keep answering the call to sound off on every stray utterance of their staff members, they might do colleges and universities more harm than good.

Virginia received DHS warning before Charlottesville rally

The Department of Homeland Security issued a confidential warning to law enforcement authorities three days before the deadly Aug. 12 Charlottesville protest rally, saying that an escalating series of clashes had created a powder keg that would likely make the event “among the most violent to date” between white supremacists and anarchists.
The “law enforcement sensitive” assessment, obtained by POLITICO and reported for the first time, raises questions about whether Charlottesville city and Virginia state authorities dropped the ball before, and during, a public event that was widely expected to draw huge crowds of armed, emotional and antagonistic participants from around the country.
The Aug. 9 report by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis was done in coordination with local, state and federal authorities at the Virginia Fusion Center. It stated that white supremacists and anti-fascist “antifa” extremists had clashed twice before in Charlottesville, at a white nationalist rally on May 13 and a Ku Klux Klan gathering July 7. At each event, “anarchist extremists” attacked protesters who had been issued permits, leading to fights, injuries, arrests and at least two felony charges of assault and battery.
And both sides were clearly gearing up for an unprecedented confrontation in the weeks leading up to the Aug. 12 “Unite the Right” rally and a weekend of events planned around it by white supremacist rally organizers and those protesting it.

IsraellyCool: Stop the #NaziWashing

Left-wing radicals often accuse Israel of “pinkwashing,” a term used to accuse Israel of “whitewashing” its “crimes” by flaunting its gay-friendliness. Israel, they argue, purposefully makes its policies in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria less egregious by broadcasting its acceptance of progressive values. God forbid people should recognize that Israel is an overall leader in liberalism and human rights! But the Left is guilty of a far more dangerous and now popular form of whitewashing: Naziwashing.
Radical leftists position themselves as the heroic crusaders against Nazism, which they inflate as a world threat. In doing so, these radicals cast themselves as moral touchstones who are immune from criticism because, after all, they take a clear stance against one of the world’s worst evils. But this contempt for Nazism is a far cry from the kind held by the likes of Winston Churchill. It’s anti-American, anti-capitalistic, and anti-individualistic in nature, the successor of another evil, Communism.
This tactic needs to be called out and discredited.
Naziwashing provides Leftist extremists, Jews included, cover for their desire for immoral rule, in which they would, for example, shut down or physically assault someone (or something) who does not eschew antisemitism or Nazism as fiercely as they deem appropriate. They become self-appointed, righteous vigilantes who should not be punished if, for example, they take a bat against protesters in Charlottesville who made antisemitic remarks. Meanwhile, they wouldn’t dare lay a hand on the Palestinian who slaughtered an Israeli family in cold blood last month during their Shabbat dinner celebration. Palestinians are, after all, victims of Israel’s pink-washed “occupation.”
We then enter the new, insidious phase of Naziwashing: Since Nazism today is the Evil of the World, and Israel, according to their revisionist interpretation, behaves like Nazis for “oppressing” a minority group, taking a knife against regular Israeli “Nazi-sympathizers” is justified, too.

Follow the Money: The Israel-Boycott Movement and Its Accomplices

U.S. banking giant Comerica’s closure of an account earlier this year held by an organization that wages legal and economic warfare against America and Israel may be the harbinger of a successful strategy against BDS.
BDS—or the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement—is a global effort that seeks to isolate the Jewish state from the international community in order to secure a Palestinian state by endangering Israel’s existence. BDS seeks a one-state solution rather than an Israeli and Palestinian state living side by side in peace. Our research shows many BDS organizations are entwined with states and other entities that advance hate groups and terrorism at large.
Dallas-based Comerica said in May that it closed the account of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, also known as IADL, due to a “business decision.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s signing into law of an anti-BDS law in early May set the stage for the shutdown of the anti-Israel organization’s account
Months of growing pressure on the bank from Texas politicians, human-rights groups and the prominent Harvard jurist Alan Dershowitz certainly played a role in Comerica’s calculus.
Dershowitz said the IADL “was founded as a communist front and supported financially by the Soviet Union. It is anti-democratic to its core and supportive of terrorism and repression. No decent person or institution should be associated with or supportive of its anti-democratic agenda and actions.”

Linda Sarsour Steering Money to Political Group, Not Hurricane Harvey Victims

Look at the groups at the bottom of the picture. Anyone shocked? Yeah, me either. Not shocked at all to see SEIU, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aide, Communications Workers of America, and Faith in Texas listed as sponsors…all left-wing groups and unions.
From LawNewz:
LawNewz reached out to TOP in order to clarify–and break down exactly–where funds raised for the Hurricane Harvey Community Relief Fund are headed, but a full response was not received at the time of publication. This post will be updated as soon as TOP replies. A request to Ms. Sarsour was not answered either.
Sarsour insisted that she didn’t mislead anyone, even though the way she worded her tweet, any sane person would think she meant immediate humanitarian aid…which is exactly what Houston needs right now.
People immediately caught onto the scheme and realized that the tweet does mislead people, tricking them to donate to raise awareness:
The people in Texas need actual relief, NOT political organizing. Here are some ways you can actually give humanitarian aid:

Linda Sarsour assigns blame for backlash over political fundraising disguised as Harvey relief, and it’s PATHETIC

As Twitchy told you earlier today, Linda Sarsour was blasted for raising money for a liberal political action group by masquerading is as a Hurricane Harvey relief fund.
The backlash was immediate:
However, here’s who Sarsour blames for the backlash:

"Alt-right" must have sent out an email blast. My mentions are on steroids.

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) 30 August 2017

She’s got to be kidding…

Who could possibly object to trawling for political donations in the name of "hurricane relief"? Nazis, that's whohttps://t.co/rnR0DVeTCd

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) 30 August 2017

Protesters chant about killing Jews at Netherlands rally

A Jewish umbrella group has filed a police complaint over demonstrators in Rotterdam shouting in Arabic about killing Jews.
The Dutch Central Jewish Board said in a statement Wednesday that the July 22 incident occurred at a rally advertised by a newly formed organization called the Palestinian Community in the Netherlands, or PGNL. The Rotterdam branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which also advertised the event on its Facebook page, was the real organizer of the rally, according to the statement.
A day earlier, BDS Rotterdam shared a call on Facebook to attend the rally by Amin Abou Rashed, a senior operative of the Al Aqsa Foundation, which the Dutch secret service and judiciary in 2003 flagged as a Hamas front and banned.
Participants in the rally, which was protesting the use of security measures by Israel around the Al-Aqsa mosque following a deadly terrorist attack there, shouted in Arabic, “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning,” the statement said. The cry relates to an event in the seventh century when Muslims massacred and expelled Jews from the town of Khaybar, located in modern-day Saudi Arabia.
The Rotterdam rally, including the anti-Semitic chants, was broadcast live by the Shebab News Agency, an organization banned by the Palestinian Authority over its alleged ties to Hamas.
The Jewish board’s complaint with police was for racist incitement to violence, the statement read. Earlier this year, a Belgian court convicted a Palestinian who shouted the same words in 2014 in Antwerp.

McCaskill Skips Israel Question, Says She Doesn’t Know What BDS Is

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D.) had to skip a question on the anti-Semetic efforts to boycott Israel because she doesn't not know what the acronym "BDS" means.
McCaskill was asked about the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement, commonly referred to as BDS, during a town hall stop in Camdenton, Missouri, last week.
"I don't know what anti-BDS is," McCaskill said as she moved on to the next question.
McCaskill is one of thirteen Democratic senators to sponsor the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which directly addressed the BDS movement.
A spokesman for McCaskill said that the senator is "obviously" familiar with the issue, despite not recognizing the acronym.
"She didn't immediately recognize the acronym, but is obviously familiar with the issue," said the spokesman.
McCaskill's support for the anti-BDS legislation has become a hot-button issue for her, forcing her to tell the Intercept that she is "taking a look at" the legislation. She was also criticized in the local Missourian for her support for the bill.

Why a British Muslim Is Suing the Southern Poverty Law Center

British Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz is suing the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) after the group denounced him in a report calling him an anti-Muslim extremist.
Earlier this year, Mr. Nawaz announced that he would be seeking damages from the SPLC along with several Christian groups after being put on a “hate list”. The list, referred to as a “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” by the SPLC, put Nawaz and several conservative Christian groups along side extremists like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and members of actual neo-Nazi organisations.
In a video statement put out on YouTube in July. Nawaz said: “The Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, who made their money suing the KKK, was set up to defend people like me but now have become the monster they have claimed they wanted to defeat.”
Nawaz was placed on the hate watch list alongside Somalian-Dutch national Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim and anti-Islam activist who lives under constant security protection because of threats to her life from radical Islamic adherents.

LOONS THREATEN TO DESELECT “ZIONIST” JESS PHILLIPS

Jess Phillips is the latest Labour MP to bravely speak out about some members of the British-Pakistani community “having issues about women’s roles in a family, in society”. The response from the hard-left? Threatening to deselect her at the next election. Oh, and they’ve added in their online graphics that Jess is apparently a “Zionist“. Not sure what that has to do with anything…

IsraellyCool: YouTube Again Targets My Channel

It looks like YouTube has undergone a face lift, with a brand new look and feel.
But the aesthetics can’t hide the fact something very rotten is still going on there.
About a month after they took down my Roger Waters video as “hate speech” – only to reinstate it a week later – they’ve now done it again, this time regarding a Hamas video I uploaded for this post.
Is this part of a campaign to target pro-Israel accounts? Or is it YouTube trying to crack down on videos from terrorists? Given it is the raw video without commentary, I accept if they want to remove it (although I think it is a mistake since exposing Hamas’ hatred and lies to as many people as possible is important). But to issue a strike against my account, as if I support the content of the video (note the video title) – that’s just wrong.
I have appealed and we’ll see if that does anything. I would hate to lose the 170+ videos with combined views of over 1.2 million.

NPR Skews the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

In his 2004 book The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross provided a post-mortem of the failed peace negotiations he mediated in 2000 during President Bill Clinton's administration. He lamented that then-Palestinian leader and PLO chief Yasir Arafat was unwilling to "give up Palestinian myths," "compromise or concede" or "generate a fundamental transformation" among his people to prepare them for peace with the Jewish state.
Instead, the Palestinian leader continued to assure his people that accords with Israel were just a first step in a "phased strategy" to replace the Jewish state with a Palestinian one, while presenting a peaceful face to a Western audience. This "phased" strategy is spelled out in the Palestine National Council's 1974 ten point program, known as the "Phased Plan" for Israel's destruction, which would first create a Palestinian state on any territory handed over by Israel (Article 2) and then use that state to "complete the liberation of all Palestinian territory." (Article 8).
This approach, continued by Arafat's successors, has resulted in the persistent failure of Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas continues to publicly and categorically reject a Jewish state in the region. Palestinians are taught – both by the Hamas leadership in Gaza and the Fatah leadership in the West Bank – that Israel has no right to exist, that Jews have no history or rights in the region, that Jews and Israelis are evil interlopers trying to take over Muslim holy sites and that it is incumbent upon Muslims and Palestinians to wage violent jihad in order to protect these sites.
But these unassailable fact were not to be found in NPR's Morning Edition's recent coverage of U.S. envoy Jared Kushner's visit to the Middle East. Those filtered reports about the prospects for peace were predicated on the notion that any failure to advance peace is due only to Israeli policy and the supposed inability of the Israeli government to compromise with the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians and their leaders, by contrast, are presented as having no agency of their own in the matter. Their rejection of previous statehood offers, their repeated refusal to accept a neighboring Jewish state, and their continuous demonizing of Israeli Jews and calls to jihad are treated as if they never occurred.

Independent, Times of Israel Update: Police Find Palestinian Girl Died in Car Accident

Fatal Palestinian road accidents are, sadly, all too common, and it seems unlikely that The Independent would have reported on the tragic death, on Saturday (Aug. 26), of a young Palestinian girl in the West Bank if there wasn’t a "settler" angle. The girl, Aseel Abu Oun, was killed after an Israeli vehicle struck her on a road which runs through the Jordan Valley.
Here’s the Indy’s headline accompanying their story on the incident.

The article opens:
An Israeli settler has reportedly been questioned by police after running over and killing an eight-year-old Palestinian girl. Aseel Abu Oun was killed near her village of Furush Beit Dajan in the occupied West Bank. She was leaving a supermarket with a friend when she was hit by the car, Al Jazeera reported.
Then, after citing a Haaretz report that “police detained the driver for questioning and had opened an investigation,” the article continued:
Members of Aseel’s family told Al Jazeera they had asked for an independent actor to oversee the investigation. “We are used to the Israeli police and their ways of dealing with settler aggression or attacks on Palestinians,” Jawdat Abu Oun, one of Aseel’s relatives said.
CAMERA's UK Media Watch contacted Mickey Rosenfeld, spokesperson for the Israeli police, to check on the results of their investigation. Rosenfeld said that police determined that Abu Oun was killed in an accident, and ruled out the possibility of any negligence or criminal actions by the driver. UK Media Watch tweeted Samuel Osborne, the journalist who wrote the article.
A couple of hours later, the Indy added text noting the police conclusion that it was “a regular road accident.” Though the headline wasn’t changed, the strap line was updated and now reads: "Israeli police say event was 'regular road accident.'"

BBC report on UN SG’s Israel visit omits his statements on anti-Zionism

As readers may recall, back in July the BBC’s coverage of commemoration of the mass arrest of French Jews in World War II did not include any mention of the French president’s remarks concerning anti-Zionism.
“Macron’s statement is of course in step with the IHRA working definition of antisemitism that was adopted in recent months by the British government and the EU parliament as well as in accord with the US State department’s definition. […] However, the BBC News website’s report on the ceremony made no mention whatsoever of the French president’s recognition of anti-Zionism as a manifestation of antisemitism.”
Moreover, several days later a regional BBC radio station described President Macron’s statement as a “very controversial claim” to its listeners.
During his recent visit to Israel the UN Secretary General told President Rivlin that:
“I do believe that […] those that call for the destruction of the State of Israel that that is a form of modern anti-Semitism”

Poland fires tourism boss for ‘scandalous’ Auschwitz remark

Poland’s tourism minister said Wednesday he was firing the head of the national tourism organization after he said he wanted to remove the Auschwitz memorial and a Jewish history museum from tours for foreign journalists.
Witold Banka said on Twitter he was dismissing Marek Olszewski immediately over “scandalous remarks” the head of the Polish Organization of Tourism made in Wednesday’s Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
The newspaper quoted Olszewski as saying he wanted to “promote the values of Poland’s culture” and had “no need to show places and events relating to the history of other nations.”
According to the paper, he had removed the site of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz and POLIN Museum of the History of Poland’s Jews, in Warsaw, from tours for foreign journalists.
“Auschwitz is not a tourism product but a place of martyrdom and deep thought, while we do promotion of Poland as a tourist attraction,” Olszewski said.

Swastikas, anti-Semitic graffiti painted on Connecticut public school

Swastikas and graffiti, some of it anti-Semitic, was painted on the wall of a public high school in Stamford, Connecticut.
The vandalism discovered Saturday morning at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering was the second act of anti-Semitic vandalism to occur this summer in Stamford. In July, a city resident used feces to smear a swastika and a Star of David in the window of a downtown television station.
In addition, two people were reportedly called anti-Semitic slurs while leaving local synagogues in the past two weeks, according to the United Jewish Federation of Greater Stamford, New Canaan and Darien.
“We cannot and will not tolerate hate in our community,” the federation said in a statement. “We call on faith leaders to come together and speak out against hate. These hateful and disturbing acts are not just a Jewish problem, but one affecting all minorities.”

German case against Auschwitz medic, 96, to be thrown out

German prosecutors called Thursday for the case of a 96-year-old former Nazi medical orderly at the Auschwitz death camp to be thrown out because he was deemed unfit for trial.
Hubert Zafke had faced charges of 3,681 counts of being an accessory to murder in the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
But concerns over his mental and physical health had led to repeated postponements of the trial, which began in February 2016 in the northeastern lakeside town of Neubrandenburg.
Stefan Urbanek, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor’s office, said in a statement that medical evaluations in March and July this year had found the wheelchair-bound Zafke “unfit to stand trial.”

European Jewish group pans Poland’s ‘lack of concern’ over anti-Semitism

In an unusually harsh condemnation, the European Jewish Congress said the Polish government has a “staggering lack of concern” about anti-Semitism and a “transparent divide-and-rule tactic” vis-a-vis Jews.
The statement Thursday follows an open feud between leaders of Polish Jewry on whether Poland has seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents or sentiment since the rise to power of the nationalist Law and Justice Party in 2015.
The EJC statement offers support for the organization’s Poland affiliates, the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland and the Jewish Community of Warsaw, in their fight with other Jewish organizations in Poland.
The fight erupted earlier this month when leaders of the affiliated groups blamed the government for allowing if not encouraging an alleged increase in anti-Semitism. Other Jewish leaders disputed this claim, saying it constitutes a partisan tactic against the ruling party by the EJC affiliates.

French sporting goods giant Decathlon plants flag in Israel

French discount sporting goods giant Decathlon is set to open its first store in Israel Tuesday. Spanning 3,000 square meters (32,000 square feet), the new store in Rishon Lezion's G Center, in central Israel, has 60 departments and will sell athletic shoes, sports equipment and clothing, as well as dietary supplements at competitive prices.
Decathlon is the third international sports chain to enter the Israeli market, following American retailer Foot Locker and Switzerland's Intersport. According to financial daily Globes, Decathlon's arrival is expected to spark fierce competition in the sector, which features higher prices than in other Western countries, is controlled by only a few players and has an annual revenue of over 2 billion shekels ($560 million).
Founded in France in 1976, Decathlon employs 78,000 people in 1,221 stores across 32 countries. Decathlon's sales increased some 50% between 2006 and 2010, and the company ended the 2016 fiscal year with 10 billion euro ($12 billion) in revenue.
At a press conference on Sunday, Decathlon Israel CEO Louise Chekroun said, "I have been in Israel for a while now. People here have told me, 'Decathlon is great, it's wonderful -- but at what prices? Will the prices be like in France?' Israelis travel the world and they know the prices and they told us, ' Don't come if it's not the same prices.' I can say with great pride that the prices in Israel will be the same prices as in France."

Cutting-Edge Israeli Device Accurately Tests Fruit for Freshness

The clementines that Avi Schwartzer picked from his backyard tasted disappointingly bland. As a computer scientist then working as R&D manager at Hewlett-Packard in Israel, he figured there must be a tool or app to help determine, on the spot, a fruit’s quality and ripeness.
He discovered “lots of scientific instruments” that each provide little pieces of this puzzle, necessitating further analysis and interpretation.
“Fast feedback is well-known in the software industry, and I was amazed that feedback in the agriculture world is so slow,” Schwartzer tells ISRAEL21c.
“This is when I came up with the idea for the AclaroMeter,” says Schwartzer, who based the name on a Latin word for understanding or clarity.
“Know Your Fruit” is the motto of AclarTech, the company he founded in December 2016 with partner Ruby Boyarski in the Rehovot suburb of Ness Ziona.

Some education gaps between Jews and Arabs nearly closed, report says

Despite lingering budget inequality, significant gaps in the level of education between the Jewish and Arab education systems have “almost completely closed,” according to an independent Israeli study released on Wednesday.
Among the improvements listed in the report are a substantial increase in Arab Israelis enrolling in all levels of schooling and taking high school matriculation exams, as well as improved test scores.
According to the report, released by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, an independent Israeli research institute, the 2016 school year saw a substantial increase in math scores and a moderate increase in English scores on the fifth grade Meitzav exams for Arab Israelis. On the eighth grade test the gap in scores narrowed in science and technology, but the gap in math scores increased, and the gap in English remained unchanged, the report said.
One area of clear improvement in the Arab Israeli community was the percentage taking the high school matriculation exams.
Today, 81 percent of Arab-Israeli pupils take the exam, in contrast to 84% of Jewish students, and in the Druze sector the number rises to 90%.

West Point and Naval Academy Cadets Share Impressions of Visiting Israel

Our Soldiers Speak, a U.S.-based NGO, recently brought 28 West Point cadets and Naval Academy midshipmen on a 12-day tour of "Israel through the Defense & Policy Lens."
Lauren Larar, a senior at the Naval Academy, said that while it was a somewhat peculiar site for her to witness IDF soldiers carrying guns when she first walked Israel's streets, any anxiety was swiftly replaced by a heightened sense of security.
Austin Neal, from West Point, said, "I expected it to be a lot more intense, especially around the borders we went to, but I felt safe even around the hot areas. It didn't seem nearly as violent as it has been portrayed to me....We were in Jerusalem when an attack occurred a few days ago and there wasn't a time when I didn't feel safe. I felt safe the entire time. In terms of security, Israel's got a hold on what they're doing pretty well."
Hannah Fairfield, a West Point senior, pointed to the proximity of Israel's air defense sites to the civilian population. "It was crazy to me just how close we were to the city. Everything is just really compact and they really don't have much operational depth. The IDF is really impressive in that sense how they still get everything done that they have to get done."
Drew Bennet, a junior at the Naval Academy, said, "I am taking away a much greater appreciation for the Jewish people in general over the last 2,000 years and how much of a miracle it is that Israel has become what it is today." He lauded the "one gem of a country that is able to stick out against all the odds."
Lauren Larar was most profoundly struck by Israel's sense of patriotism, which she said constituted the most inspirational takeaway of the tour. "To us, we think, 'oh my goodness, they have to deal with this,' but no matter how difficult the situation was that they told us about, the reoccurring theme at the end of every conversation with every person was just how much they love their country."

Haredi female psychotrauma pioneer heads to Houston with Israeli medics

Jerusalem therapist Miriam Ballin is the kind of person who takes the initiative.
Despite resistance from her ultra-Orthodox community, she became a medic. Then she launched a pacesetting psychological first aid unit. Clearly she was not just going to stand idly by while Tropical Storm Harvey flooded her native Houston.
So on Wednesday evening, Ballin left her husband to watch their five young children and headed to southeast Texas, where she and six other Israeli mental health professionals will help locals cope with the flooding. Their work will be guided by hard-won experience responding to local emergencies, including dozens of terrorist attacks.
“I just feel it’s necessary and needed, and simply the right thing to do,” she said. “When we have 150 people who have been trained to deal with exactly this, not to send them to Houston to help out is I think wrong.”
In addition to her day job as a family therapist, Ballin, 33, is the head of the psychotrauma unit of United Hatzalah, a mostly ultra-Orthodox volunteer emergency service based in Jerusalem. She spearheaded the creation of the unit last year amid a wave of Palestinian violence to provide psychological support to those experiencing potentially traumatic events.

Third Israeli aid group rushes to help beleaguered Texas

Elite members of United Hatzalah’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit will be arriving in flood-stricken Texas this afternoon to help locals cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, America’s fiercest storm on record.
Sent by the Israel Rescue Coalition (IRC), they are the third Israeli aid team to arrive in the region, which this week has seen days of torrential downpours that have devastated and paralyzed the city of Houston, America’s fourth largest city, and wrecked coastal towns across Texas.
Earlier this week, Israeli NGO IsraAID sent a team of seven disaster management experts, mental health experts, and engineers to Houston to help with debris removal and trauma relief, and another Israeli aid group, iAID, sent a team of nine to the city.
“It’s overwhelming,” said Yotam Polizer, co-CEO of IsraAID, whose team began work in Houston yesterday, as Harvey, now downgraded to a tropical storm, continued to wreak havoc in Louisiana. “The flooding is catastrophic and we still haven’t been to the worst-hit areas and seen the full scale of it.”

---

---

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Read More

Leftist Israeli leader: Talk to Arabs, not to NYC Consul General Dani Dayan

Avner Inbar is the Co-Chair and Co-Founder of Molad, a Jerusalem-based progressive think tank.

Of course he wants peace with Palestinians. He supports Israel negotiating with Palestinians, Jews talking with Arabs, Israel embracing the Arab Peace Initiative, and Fatah unifying with Hamas.

But some kinds of dialogue are out of bounds.

In an audio recording published in Makor Rishon, Inbar says to a group of American Jews that they must not speak to Israel's New York Consul-General Dani Dayan.

Dayan, you see, is a settler, which makes him far more toxic than Arabs who cheer killing Jews. He told the American leftists that they have to choose sides between his position and that of a representative of the Israeli government. Which is sort of amazing for someone who claims to support Israel.

And what really got him upset was an article in Haaretz that showed that despite Dayan's personal opinions, he has been very effective in speaking to - liberal American Jews.

“I have a lot of respect for Dani Dayan,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president and founder of J Street, the largest Jewish group focused on promoting a two-state solution and opposing the settlements. “We don’t agree politically on almost anything, but as a diplomat, his approach has been exactly the right one for the State of Israel.”...
A participant in one of those conversations said “what I liked about it, was that he [Dayan] didn’t try to sell us the usual explanations about how much the current government wants the two-state solution to happen. He didn’t do hasbara on us. He just said — ‘listen, you and I are probably not going to agree when it comes to the settlements and the conflict. I’m here representing the government’s line, and you have a different line — and that’s okay. But let’s try to find areas where we can work together.’ There was something honest and refreshing about his approach.”

So there is a clear consensus among leading Jewish figures in New York that Dayan’s first year in town was a success: He arrived with the “settler thing,” as one leader described it, hovering over his appointment, and has overcome suspicions and built strong relationships all across the city and state.

Lara Friedman,  president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, was quoted in the Haaretz article as well as being against speaking to Dayan.

So a charming Israeli diplomat is more dangerous to some leftist Jews than Arabs are. Good to know that the "ultra-right" Dayan is more interested in dialogue with those he disagrees with than some so-called liberals  are.

(h/t Yoel)

---

---

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Read More

Deport Israel's illegal immigrants (Vic Rosenthal)

The attitude of Israelis to African “infiltrators” or “asylum seekers” or “refugees” – what you call them is indicative of how you feel about them – is a manifestation of a broad cultural divide in our society.

There are about 50,000 illegal immigrants (estimates vary) from various African countries, mostly Eritria and Sudan but also numerous others, who came to Israel in the period between about 2005 and 2013, when Israel completed fencing its borderwith Egypt. In 2012 a law was passed that permitted the detention of illegal immigrants, although the Supreme Court, responding to petitions from various “human rights” NGOs, prevented its implementation. Nevertheless, the flow of immigrants seems to have been stopped, primarily by the physical barrier. Here is an interesting analysis of the immigration phenomenon and the attempts of the state to deal with it, albeit from a left-wing perspective.

Most of the immigrants have applied for humanitarian asylum and have been given visas that must be renewed every three months. They are de facto permitted to work, although many receive welfare benefits. Technically, only a few are eligible for humanitarian asylum as refugees, but the government has decided that most of them can’t be deported to their home countries because conditions there are so bad. Most are Muslims. The majority live in neighborhoods in South Tel Aviv.

The Tel Aviv neighborhoods have been severely impacted by the influx. Local residents say that they are afraid to go out at night because of violent crime committed by immigrants. Resources to help disadvantaged people of all backgrounds have been strained to the breaking point by the needs of the immigrants and their children. Long-time residents of the area that own property find themselves trapped, unable to sell apartments for enough money to move somewhere else.

Although it is irrelevant to the argument about what to do about them, I should point out (probably unnecessarily) that no other Middle Eastern or African country would treat illegal immigrants as well. The Egyptians regularly shoot migrants trying to cross their borders, and other countries deny them the right to work or education for their children. And they certainly would not get welfare benefits!

One can argue about their status endlessly – are most of them “economic migrants” or true refugees? But it should be clear that life in Israel is infinitely better in every way than in the places most of them came from, for both human rights and economic opportunities. It’s understandable that they took great risks to get here. What should we do?

On the one hand, you can say that now that the flow has been stopped they do not pose a demographic danger to the state and we should try to integrate them into the state, give them permanent residency and official permission to work, improve their living conditions and try to absorb them. After all, their children already speak Hebrew as their first language.

On the other, if it becomes known that Israel will welcome illegal immigrants, no fence will stop them. They will find a way, and the influx that has been stopped will resume. The ones that are already here have a high birthrate, facilitated by generous welfare benefits, and the 50,000 that are here now present a demographic threat to the Jewish majority, already under pressure from a growing Arab population. There is also the danger of creating a permanent dependent class. Israel is a small nation-state, and its continued existence depends on maintaining an ethnic majority. While the migrants have human rights, they must be balanced against those of the residents of South Tel Aviv, who have received a very raw deal through no fault of their own.

The government has been trying to find a way to reduce the number of migrants in the country. The current law permits the deportation of illegal immigrants to a “third country” where they will not be endangered. Israel has agreements with several African countries to take deportees, but only if they voluntarily agree to go. Last year, the Knesset passed a law that would withhold some of the salary of the migrants, which would be returned to them if and when they leave (the employer also must contribute to the fund, which discourages them from hiring migrants). This has only been in effect a few months and it’s not clear how effective it will be.

In some cases, the government wishes to deport someone who is uncooperative. Until now, this has been possible by incarcerating him until he agrees to leave “voluntarily” to one of the countries with which Israel has agreements.

But this week, the Supreme Court decided (in response to petitions from various “human rights” NGOs) that illegal immigrants can’t be incarcerated for more than two months, because then their agreement to leave wouldn’t truly be voluntary. Paradoxically, it also ruled that Israel does have the right to involuntarily deport them, but since no third country will take them unless they agree, this right can’t be exercised. The court also suggested that the best solution for the Tel Aviv residents was to disperse the immigrants around the country, which would multiply the problems for both local residents and the migrants. This is the latest in a series of decisions which have stymied attempts to deport illegal immigrants.

And this is where we get to the cultural divide. The government believes that it has an obligation to protect the rights of the immigrants, the Tel Aviv residents, and the Jewish majority in the country. But as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said in a powerful speech at the Bar Association this week, the Court recognizes only the rights of individuals, and not the Zionist imperative to maintain a Jewish majority and Jewish character to the state:

… Shaked sought to make clear that she doesn't make light of … individual rights, saying she considers the system maintaining them to be “almost sacred.”

“But not devoid of context,” she clarified. "Not detached from Israeli uniqueness, our national tasks and our very identity, history and Zionist challenges. Zionism should not—and will not—bow before a system of individual rights interpreted universally in a manner detaching it from the chronicles of the Knesset and the history of legislation we're all familiar with."

Shaked said the Israeli judicial branch operates as if in a “dream,” adopting a “utopian and universal worldview sanctifying individual rights to an extreme degree and ceasing taking part in the struggle for Israel's very existence.”

The Court, she noted, relates its decisions to the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, but there is – as yet – no Basic Law affirming the Jewish character of the state, no “Nation-State Law.”

Shaked was criticized by Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni, both of whom oppose such a law. Livni said, “Zionism isn't bowing down to human rights. It is proudly raising its head, because protecting [human rights] is also the essence of Judaism and part of Israel's values as a Jewish and democratic state.” In other words, the Jewishness of the state is nothing more than its democratic nature. This pernicious idea comes directly from the former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, and is precisely why Shaked correctly demands a Nation-State Law.

It is the primary purpose of a government and all of its subsidiaries, including the judiciary system, to protect the nation’s citizens against internal and external threats. This is the case even if the particular citizens are poor and have little political power, like the residents of South Tel Aviv. The Supreme Court struck down one attempt after another to deport the illegal immigrants that have made their lives hell, and the suggestion that the immigrants be dispersed throughout the country – which, even if it were possible, would mean dispersing their pathologies to other disadvantaged communities, because they certainly aren’t going to be allowed to move next door to Supreme Court justices, or Livni or Herzog – is obnoxious and insulting. It is a subterfuge to justify choosing the welfare of the migrants over the Jewish citizens of the state.

Israel does everything she can to be a moral actor in a world where morality is usually a joke, both when she has to use force to defend herself, and when she can deploy her advanced technology to save lives (e.g., Syria, Sierra Leone and Houston, Texas).

But as Hillel said, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? In this case, justice is on the side of the state. And the Supreme Court should be on the side of justice.

---

---

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Read More

08/30 Links Pt2: J Street Rewrites History to Create ‘Palestine’; Did the Mossad hack Linda Sarsour's phone?

From Ian:

---

J Street Rewrites History to Create ‘Palestine’

The US government’s reluctance to demand the immediate creation of a Palestinian state has sent J Street into a panic. With its candidates having been defeated in elections on both sides of the ocean, and its proposals crumbling in the face of reality, J Street is trying one last desperate strategy: rewriting history to claim that Palestinian statehood has been supported by everybody, everywhere, for as long as anyone can remember.
Asked by reporters on August 24 about the Palestinian state issue, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: “We are not going to state what the outcome has to be. It has to be workable to both sides. That’s the best view as to not really bias one side over the other, to make sure that they can work through it.”
Nauert’s statement was simple, logical and reasonable. But her failure to pledge a full-throated endorsement of the Palestinian agenda sent J Street into a tizzy. The J Street leaders fired off an overheated press release that declared: “For more than two decades, responsible Israeli and Palestinian leaders, US presidents of both parties and virtually the entire international community have understood that a two-state solution is the only viable way to end the conflict.”
Literally everything in J Street’s declaration is erroneous.
American presidents have not supported Palestinian statehood “for more than two decades.” George W. Bush was the first president to publicly support a Palestinian state while in office. That was in 2002, i.e. 15 years ago, not “more than two decades.” Can’t anybody at J Street do basic math?
Not only that, but Bush’s support was conditional. In his June 25, 2002, speech about a Palestinian state, Bush said that such a state could come about only if the Palestinian people elected “new leaders not compromised by terror.” The Palestinians, of course, did exactly the opposite.

Did the Mossad hack Linda Sarsour's phone?

The satirical Twitter handle @TheMossadIL, playing off of Israel’s Intelligence Agency, hinted that they were the ones responsible for prominent Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour’s phone issues.
Linda Sarsour took to Twitter on Tuesday to ask for help with her cellphone but did not get the answers she expected. “I just lost all my text threads? I have an iPhone. Any idea why?” she asked her 230,000 Twitter following. The Mossad Twitter account replied to Sarsour’s post with a simple “Yes,” hinting that the Israeli Intelligence Agency is responsible.
This is not the only joke about information gathering by the satirical account created in September 2016. Recent events such as the solar eclipse in America also caught their eye, where they tweeted “Thank you for using those ‘protective eclipse glasses’ everyone, we have now collected your thoughts.”

See @lsarsour, your first mistake was buying an iPhone. http://pic.twitter.com/zgQJnji2OQ

— The Mossad (@TheMossadIL) August 30, 2017

Or perhaps you're just a horrifying human and decent people are appalled by your antics http://pic.twitter.com/KopHidld19

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 30, 2017

PreOccupiedTerritory: Israeli Intelligence Snags KFC’s Secret Blend Of 11 Herbs And Spices (satire)

Israel’s secret intelligence service scored another operational coup last month, agents can finally reveal, when they got their hands on the original Harland Sanders recipe for fried chicken that the KFC company has held as a trade secret since the Great Depression.
Colonel Harland Sanders’s secret blend of eleven herbs and spices, long a famous selling point in the production and marketing of Kentucky Fried Chicken – since 1991 shortened to KFC – has been the subject of speculation, experimentation, and attempts at imitation for decades. Officials at the Mossad reported this morning (Wednesday) that they have been given the green light to disclose that a long-term operation over the course of many years has finally enabled the organization to get its hands on the prized recipe. Sources at the agency declined to discuss how they intend to use the secret information.
“Oh, we’ll think of something, I’m sure,” offered a section chief, licking his lips. “You know us – always focused on enhancing Israel’s security interests. Sometimes that requires the installation of a whole new kitchen facility at our headquarters, if you know what I mean.”
The secrecy behind KFC’s recipe and spice blend occupies such an important role in the company’s operations that its production requires that neither of the two companies supplying the ingredients know what the other contributes to the process. The original recipe is kept in a vault at the headquarters of Yum! Foods, the restaurant division spun off from Pepsico in 2002.

120 years later: 3 days in Basel that changed the course of the Jewish nation

In late August 1897, some 200 Jews from 17 countries arrived in Basel, Switzerland.
Dressed in festive formal attire, the delegates entered the municipal casino concert hall, which was decorated with blue and white flags for the occasion. They heard three knocks of the gavel that launched the Congress and then watched Dr. Karpel Lippe, the oldest delegate, make his way up the stage. He covered his head, and to the tears of the delegates, recited the sheheheyanu blessing, thanking God for bringing the Jews to this time.
With this blessing, that Sunday morning, the first day of Elul, the Jewish state began its journey.
The journey that was embarked on in the First Zionist Congress was not merely a process that would lead to the establishment of the State of Israel. It was the beginning of a Jewish transformation.
Herzl famously stated: “At Basel, I founded the Jewish state.”
He immediately clarified that such state is not simply a geographical representation, nor a collection of citizens who happen to live in a given territory. He wrote: “The essence of a state lies in the will of the people for a state... A territory is merely the concrete basis. The state itself, when it possesses a territory, still remains something abstract.”
It is that abstraction, that ideology, that Herzl founded in Basel and which continues to serve as the bedrock of the Jewish state.
Herzl outlined such a vision in his opening speech. One of the delegates, Mordecai Ben-Ami, described the reaction: “For a few moments, the hall shook from the shouts of joy, the applause, the cheers and the feet-stomping. It felt as if the great dream of our nation, of 2,000 years, was now solved, and in front us stood Mashiach Ben-David.”

Rebels in the Holy Land, The Story of Mazkeret Batya

Rebels in the Holy Land - Mazkeret Batya - An Early Battleground for the Soul of Israel may not be hot off the press, but I'm glad I was given the book to review.
The fascinating story of the early years of the town Mazkeret Batya is told to us by Sam Finkel in Rebels in the Holy Land. Not only did I learn the history of that very special town, but I discovered so much of what I had never known about the history of settlement in the Land of Israel before Herzl and Zionism.
Finkel begins his tale in Europe with a visionary Jewish writer named Yechiel Brill, who was the prime mover for the enterprise of bringing ten simple Jewish farmers from Europe to build a farming community in the Holy Land. Brill was a journalist who taught himself Hebrew and then established a Hebrew language newspaper, Levanon. Just that could put him in History Books, but he made history, too. He did the fundraising, recruiting, organizing, mentoring and more for the establishment of Mazkeret Batya, originally called Ekron.
As I read Rebels in the Holy Land, I felt that I was reading an adventure story, a mystery. This is not a dry history book. The writing is clear, and as you can see the illustrations and graphics are phenomenal, without a doubt. It can almost qualify as a "coffee table book," because you can just pick it up, open randomly and read a page or two. Each section can stand on its own.
The farmers who agreed to Brill's visionary idea of a Jewish farming community in the Land of Israel were simple people. They were neither intellectuals nor wealthy, but they were sincerely Gd fearing. They insisted on following the Torah Laws and the rabbis, even when their financial supporter, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, and his administrators demanded otherwise. Reading of the battle of wills that went on during their first Shmitta, Sabbatical Year, was painful for me. The farmers of Ekron, which had been renamed Mazkeret Batya by the Baron in memory of his mother, feared and respected Gd more than their wealthy patron and his anti-religious administrators.
Those of you who are more knowledgeable about that era in history may not be all that surprised, but for me Rebels in the Holy Land was full of new discoveries.

New NATO Film Unwittingly Glorifies Holocaust Collaborators

NATO recently issued a new film, “Forest Brothers — Fight for the Baltics.”
The movie glorifies the post-war Baltic “Forest Brothers,” who launched a guerrilla war against local Soviet rule. But the film contains no mention of the problems that need to be mentioned — such as the fact that a debatable proportion of the “Brothers” were recycled Hitlerist forces. Or that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of people that they killed were civilians.
Many of the “Brothers” harbored Nazi views of racial purity and hatred of their nations’ minorities, including the Jews, who had recently been subject to genocide. Various “Forest Brothers,” including some major leaders who are documented as having been Holocaust collaborators, are still glorified in the Baltics by statues, street names and public plaques.
For examples of this glorification, read some of the reports by our correspondent Evaldas Balčiūnas about the issue. More specifically, read the reports regarding the alleged Nazi collaboration of Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Juozas Barzda, Konstantinas Liuberskis–Žvainys, Vincas Kaulinis-Miškinis, Juozas Krikštaponis (Krištaponis), Jonas Noreika, Adolfas Ramanauskas Vanagas, Juozas Šibaila, Sergijus Staniškis Litas, Vylius-Vėlavičius and Jonas Žemaitis.
It is sad that Mr. Balčiūnas’s work has not been rewarded with the public recognition that it deserves, but by a series of nuisance court cases and kangaroo prosecutions over the years.
The NATO film’s official description misleadingly implies that these “Brothers” were generally, or equally, comprised of people from “both sides of the war.” The film includes no mention of the related 21st century issues of glorification of Nazi collaborators in Eastern Europe (or the 1950s glee taken by the “Brothers” in the Holocaust).

Our reply to Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman’s charge that Israel ‘appeases’ anti-Semites.

Let’s be clear: Whatever one thinks of Trump and his reaction to Charlottesville, Israel’s close relationship with the US – as Karo and others, such as famed Nazi hunter and Holocaust historian Efraim Zuroff, have stressed – represents one of the key pillars of its defensive strategy. For Israel to continue defending millions of Jews in the Jewish state, and continue to serve as a safe haven for Jews fleeing antisemitic persecution around the world, requires close political, diplomatic and military ties with the world’s only superpower. Israel’s unbreakable alliance with the US is good for Israel, good for Jews and bad for anti-Semites.
Of course, if American Jews were really in serious danger, Hadley would have a point. However, despite the presence of a relatively small number of active white supremacists and Muslim extremists in the US, nobody can seriously deny that, outside of Israel, Jews in the US today are safer and more prosperous than at any time and place in Jewish history. The safety of American Jews after Charlottesville, thankfully, didn’t hinge on the words or deeds of Israel’s prime minister.
Maintaining Israel’s strategic alliances – vital to projecting the soft and hard power necessary to protect its own citizens and serve as a refuge of last resort to world Jewry – often requires careful and measured statements from Jerusalem – rhetoric driven by a sober analysis of its likely real-world impact. Israel’s fealty to its founding mission – as ‘Guardian of the Jews‘ – is best demonstrated not by vacuous virtue signalling, but by wisely and judiciously employing diplomacy and, when necessary, force to defend its interests.
Though reasonable people can of course disagree with Netanyahu’s response to Charlottesville, to characterise the prime minister of the Jewish state as an “appeaser” of anti-Semites who needs lessons in courage from a Guardian journalist is a breathtaking display of hubris.

Africa’s Top University Risks Endangering US Partnerships Over Proposed Boycott of Israel, Leading American Law Professor Says

Africa’s top university will be placing its partnerships with its US counterparts in jeopardy if it succumbs to pressure from BDS activists to adopt a full-scale academic boycott of Israel, a prominent American law professor told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.
The governing bodies of the University of Cape Town (UCT) — which is regularly ranked as Africa’s number one university as well as among the world’s top 200 universities — will be debating the adoption of an academic boycott resolution on September 15. If passed, UCT would be obliged to cut all ties with Israeli faculty and academic institutions — a move that would trigger outrage among US academics and their colleagues in other countries, Prof. David Bernstein of the Scalia Law School at George Mason University said.
“They are trying to isolate Israel, but they may find that the University of Cape Town is internationally isolated instead,” Bernstein told The Algemeiner. “There would be a substantial number of professors like myself who would have nothing to do with UCT should they adopt an academic boycott of Israel.”
UCT currently has partnership agreements with at least 44 American universities that facilitate student and faculty exchange programs and other joint projects — among them Columbia Business School, Ohio State, Vanderbilt University, the University of Chicago, Pennsylvania State and Arizona State.

IsraellyCool: Major Jewish Studies Program Joins Anti-Israel Academic Assault

Stumbling across the promo ad for an upcoming lecture at the University of Washington, the words “A Half Century of Occupation” resting upon an ink-blot stained map of Israel, one could be forgiven for assuming it is sponsored by an anti-Israel group on campus – it is in fact sponsored by the Stroum Center for Jewish studies.

Of Seattle’s Jewish institutions, few are as revered as the University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. Since its inception the center has maintained a robust engagement with the local Jewish community, offering popular lectures, programs and exhibits.
Thus some in Seattle’s Jewish community were taken aback by the Stroum Center’s hosting of an upcoming public lecture by Israel-critic Gershon Shafir titled “Unsettling the Occupation“. In his books, classes and speaking engagements Professor Shafir promotes a single overarching theme of Israel as a “colonial enterprise”, the Jews of Israel being a foreign transplant. In the academic world such views are de rigueur, as courageous as lauding the benefits of coffee in the Starbucks boardroom. But to the lion’s share of world Jewry, the notion of the Jewish people as alien invaders in their indigenous homeland is considered both offensive and dangerous.

Law Group: Companies Targeted by UNHRC for Doing Business With Israeli Settlements Will Have Legal Recourse

International firms targeted by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for doing business with Israeli settlements will have legal recourse, a US-based pro-Israel nonprofit law group noted this week.
It is expected that a “blacklist” of such companies will be published by the UNHRC by the end of this year — a move which both the US and Israel oppose and are lobbying against.
According to the Washington Post, the list could include Caterpillar, TripAdvisor, Priceline.com and Airbnb.
On Monday, the Lawfare Project issued a statement saying the purpose of the UNHRC’s potential action was “clear” — “to coerce the blacklisted companies into reducing or ceasing their Israeli operations, and/or to prompt other business entities (and consumers) to boycott or refuse to deal with the named companies.”
However, the Lawfare Project continued, “what the UNHRC seems to ignore, perhaps purposefully, is that compliance by business enterprises with the boycott of Israel can violate a slew of US federal and state laws.”

Disgraced British politician Tonge embroiled in further antisemitism scandal

British politician Baroness Jenny Tonge, no stranger to controversy and accusations of antisemitism, has caused a further uproar after sharing a Facebook post that depicts a clearly antisemitic image and refers to the "Jewish lobby".
Tonge, a vocal critic of Israel, shared a Facebook post on Saturday featuring a quote attributed to musician and BDS proponent Roger Waters about the "AIPAC Jewish lobby in the USA" that included an antisemitic caricature of a large-nosed Jewish man clasping his hands together.
The original post, written by Saeed Sarwar, seemed to preemptively dismiss any concerns that the post could be considered antisemitic.
"I've checked with 4 specialist friends incase [sic] anyone tries to suggest this is antisemitism. It's actually bang on," wrote Sarwar.
Tonge has since deleted the post from her Facebook page but a tweet posted by pro-Palestinian activist Gary Spedding shows that the former Liberal Democrats peer is not ready to apologize for any offense caused.
"I will delete that one because I did not notice bottom right hand corner which could be an Arab looking horrified?" wrote Tonge in an email to Spedding.

Frankfurt Mayor explains why he banned BDS

Frankfurt Mayor Uwe Becker has been on the forefront of an an effort to pass a bill that would ban municipal and city-owned funding or renting rooms for BDS individuals, activities, or groups, and requested private landlords do the same.
The bill has already passed the City Council, and is expected to pass Frankfurt's Parliament and become law. Becker says that the bill already has the necessary support.
"I think that many people do not understand that BDS is a deeply anti-Semitic movement that in its core a way to deeply delegitimize Israel," Becker told i24News. "There is no room in Frankfurt for any kind of anti-Semitism."
Becker said the BDS uses tactics that bring back shades of the Nazis. "They use the same language that the Nazis used in the darkest chapter of German History," he said. "They said then not to buy from Jews, and today they say not to buy from Israel."

CHANNEL 4‘S ASSED BAIG OUT AMID PROMOTING TERROR-SUPPORTING ISLAMIST

A senior reporter has left Channel 4 News amid presenting a package last week promoting a racist Islamist who supported ramming attacks. Last Thursday Channel 4 News aired a film presented by reporter Assed Baig showcasing Muslim women who “fight back by rejecting stereotypes”. The film heaped praise on notorious anti-Israel activist Nadia Chan, who has previously:

• Said she: “strongly advocates that the parasitic entity known as ‘Israel’ MUST cease to exist. Furthermore, every single Israeli is a parasite.”;
• Appeared on Iranian state television to praise “the armed resistance from the Islamic Jihad … and also Hamas” in Israel;
• Suggested Palestinians should use “everyday items to resist, whether it’s knives, cars … everyday items to strike the fear in the hearts of their oppressors”;
• Described white people using the racial slur “honkies”;
• Called mixed martial artist Conor McGregor “an arrogant white Irish parasite”;
• Quoted Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, saying “the only white man you can trust is a dead white man”;
• Described the Independent Police Complaints Commission as “made up of ex cops (pigs) … Pigs are pigs, time to get justice done ourselves”.

Israel backs away from shutting Al Jazeera

Israel on Wednesday appeared to back down from its threat to shut the offices of the Al Jazeera television station, saying it would not revoke the press accreditation of its Jerusalem correspondent for now.
The Government Press Office said that the reporter, Elias Karram, who had been accused of being an “active partner in Palestinian resistance,” could now keep his press card following an investigation and hearing in which he said he condemned any use of violence.
“Following his remarks, it was decided to defer the suspension of his GPO card for six months, during which his press reports will be monitored,” the GPO said in a statement.
Two weeks ago the GPO said it decided to revoke his credentials after it was alerted to a 2016 interview in which the Arab Israeli reporter said that “media work is an integral part of the resistance.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that he wanted to expel the Qatari broadcaster from the country, accusing it of inciting violence.

Guardian describes Israeli accusations over Iran’s military expansion as “bellicose rhetoric”

The word “bellicose” is defined by Merriam Websters as “favoring or inclined to start quarrels or wars”.
Here’s the opening paragraph of a Guardian article by Peter Beaumont (Netanyahu accuses Iran of building missile production sites in Syria, Aug. 28)
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has accused Iran of building sites to produce missiles in Syria and Lebanon during a meeting with the UN secretary-general, António Guterres – part of increasingly bellicose rhetoric from Israel and the US against Tehran.
So, what “bellicose rhetoric” by Israel is Beaumont referring to?
Here are the relevant paragraphs:
Were you able to spot the “bellicose” Israeli rhetoric? We certainty weren’t. Is Beaumont suggesting that Israeli warnings concerning ongoing Iranian threats to annihilate Israel represent “bellicose” rhetoric? Of course, such bellicose threats by Iranian leaders are ubiquitous, and impossible to deny. As recently as this past February, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei characterised Israel as a “cancerous tumor” and called for a “holy intifada” to destroy the country.
It really takes a lot of ideological conditioning to cover tensions between Israel and Iran, and not only ignore or obfuscate Iran’s genocidal designs, but to frame Israel as the belligerent party in the dispute.

IsraellyCool: Al Jazeera Disables Comments After Getting Taste of Their Own Medicine

Oh the irony! Al Jazeera, purveyors of some of the worst vitriol, bigotry, racism and sectarianism – especially when it comes to its efforts to vilify Israel – has decided to disable comments on its site. Because of “vitriol, bigotry, racism and sectarianism.”
Bonus irony: they have been complaining about silencing freedom of expression recently too.
Why we’re disabling comments on aljazeera.com
Today, we disabled the ability to comment on stories on aljazeera.com. It’s a decision that we’ve given much thought to, and one that we feel ultimately best serves our audience.

US Jewish Groups Praise Tillerson’s Renewal of State Department Antisemitism Envoy

B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin said they were “pleased” by Tillerson’s announcement.
“B’nai B’rith has long spoken out about the vital nature of this position,” their statement said. “The impact of the United States government placing its power and prestige behind the issue of anti-Semitism and combating it, cannot be overstated.”
World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said he commended “the US administration for its encouraging decision to prioritize the appointment of a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.”
Said Lauder: “America’s Jewish community is undoubtedly among the safest in the world, but the demonstrations of blatant antisemitism, bigotry and racism that we have seen of late make the importance of such an envoy ever clear.”
American Jewish Committee (AJC) CEO David Harris commented: “The Administration’s decision to keep the position of Special Envoy comes as welcome news. As antisemitic expressions and acts multiply in many parts of the world, the work of this office only becomes more important and offers a model for other likeminded countries to emulate.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO, said that the envoy’s position “has been an essential diplomatic and political tool in fighting antisemitism around the globe.”
“At a time when there is a growing prominence to anti-Jewish movements and actions, the special envoy to combat anti-Semitism continues to be essential,” Greenblatt said. “We urge the State Department to refrain from eliminating other special envoy roles which are vital to promoting American values of democracy, tolerance and religious freedom across the globe.”

Hungarian monument to Jewish Holocaust victims smashed

A monument in Hungary commemorating Jewish slave workers later murdered in the Holocaust was defaced.
At least three marble plates signifying Jewish headstones were smashed Sunday in Balf, a town located 120 miles west of Budapest, the Hungarian Jewish weekly Szombat reported Monday.
A government spokesman issued a “strong condemnation” of the act, which police are investigating. There are no suspects.
The monument, which comprises dozens of marble tablets in the shape of headstones, was unveiled in 2008. The positioning of the headstones evokes a group of people walking – meant to honor the memory of those forced to work there by pro-Nazi Hungarians before they were murdered.
Those commemorated in the monument are victims of what the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem calls the death marches of Hungarian Jews through Austria in the spring of 1945. The previous year, Hungarian Interior Minister Gabor Vajna pledged to provide the German Reich with 50,000 Jewish men and women as slave laborers.

Shia Imam in Orange County Offers Full Apology for Sermon Accusing Israel of Backing ISIS

A Shia imam in California who stated during a sermon that Israel “finances, arms and trains” the Sunni Islamist terror group ISIS has offered an unreserved apology for his remarks.
As The Algemeiner reported last week, a video distributed by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) showed the founder and director of the Islamic Education Center of Orange County, Dr. Sayed Moustafa al-Qazwini, declaring to his congregation on June 23: “You know who paid for them, who financed them, who helped them, who purchased weapons for them, who even trained them, who protected them…ISIS is the production of the Israeli intelligence. Most of their officers were trained in Israel, including (terror group founder) Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.”
Al-Qazwini has now expressed regret for the comments, acknowledging that he had made an error in trusting claims from Iraqi intelligence — which has been heavily penetrated by Iran — that Israel supports ISIS.
“While I made these comments based on information that I had received from Iraqi political and military sources, after careful reflection on the reliability of these sources and on the realization of the extent to which these comments have offended and hurt members of the Jewish community, I have decided to rescind my comments,” al-Qazwini said in a statement on Friday.

Japan’s deputy PM retracts remark seeming to praise Hitler

Japan’s deputy prime minister on Wednesday retracted a comment he made a day earlier that seemed to praise the motives of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Taro Aso was speaking at a seminar for his faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Tuesday when he said: “I don’t question a politician’s motives; it is delivering results that matter. Hitler, who killed millions of people, was no good, even if his intentions had been good.”
Aso said that remark was “inappropriate” and he would like to retract it and regretted having caused a misunderstanding. He said he meant that Hitler was a bad leader with bad intentions.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a US-based Jewish human rights organization, denounced the comment as “downright dangerous.” Official at the center, Rabbi Abraham Cooper asked, “When will the elite of Japan wake up and acknowledge that they have a ‘Nazi Problem’?”
Aso is also the finance minister in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet and served as Japan’s prime minister in 2008-9.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said after Aso retracted his statement that the deputy prime minister “should make his own explanation when the time comes.”
Aso in 2008 was criticized for comparing the tactics of the Democratic Party of Japan to those of Nazis in 1930s Germany. And in 2013 he withdrew a comment that seemed to suggest Japanese leaders should follow Nazi Germany’s example in changing the constitution.

Man yelling 'Hitler was a good man' hurls glass bottle at Jewish teenage girls in Hackney street attack

Two Jewish girls were attacked with a glass bottle by a man who yelled: “Hitler is a good man.”
The teenagers ran for cover after they were approached by the young man who continued his anti-Semitic tirade, shouting it was “good he killed the Jews”.
The suspect then threw a bottle at one of the girls in what police described as an unprovoked attack.
Officers are now appealing for anyone who saw what happened to come forward after the incident in Finsbury Park on Sunday.
According to the Met, the two girls, aged 15 and 16, have been left “badly shaken” by the abuse.
Anti-Semitic attacks in UK reach record high
It happened at around 7pm on Heron Drive. The suspect is described as a light-skinned black man in his early twenties, with a slim build.
He was wearing a black t-shirt, black trousers and wearing a black cross body bag.

Miami cops looking for man who threatened to shoot up synagogue

Police are calling on the public in the Miami-Dade area to help locate a man who threatened to shoot up a local synagogue.
Miami-Dade Police identify the man as Steven H. Brooks. A flyer distributed by police asking the public for information about his whereabouts says he “made verbal threats to shoot with an Uzi and kill everyone at the Beit David Highland Lakes Shul Synagogue.”
He last made a threat on August 14 and has been warned twice about trespassing near the synagogue.
The poster also says that “Subject Brooks stated that he only has six months to live and does not care if he gets arrested.”
The poster stresses that “no probable cause exists” for his arrest.

Israeli doctors successfully operate on Gaza ‘tree man’

Doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center successfully operated on a Palestinian man from the Gaza Strip suffering from a rare disease known as “tree man syndrome.”
Mohammed Taluli, 42, arrived at the hospital with large growths on his hand, caused by complications from human papillomavirus infection, which can be cancerous.
“This is a very rare case that has no documentation whatsoever in the medical annals,” said Dr. Michael Chernofsky, an orthopedist and hand specialist who operated on Taluli, according to a statement published by the hospital Tuesday.
Chernofsky said the surgery was successful and that Taluli is now receiving medications and vaccines to complete the treatment.
Taluli said he sought treatment for his rare condition at hospitals in both Egypt and the West Bank, but was unable to find a cure until the Palestinian Authority coordinated his treatment in Israel.

Conan goes undercover for hit Israeli TV series

American comedian and talkshow host Conan O’Brien revealed Tuesday that he was making an appearance in a hit Israeli television drama that follows the action-packed world of undercover security operations in the country.
O’Brien tweeted that he had filmed a scene from the “Fauda” series, describing it as one of his favorite shows.
He included a photo of himself posing next to the show’s lead actor Lior Raz, who wrote the series with Times of Israel correspondent Avi Issacharoff. Its first season aired in 2015.
Twitter users responded to O’Brien by noting that the tall, pale, ginger-haired celebrity does not look a typical Israeli or Arab, making him an unusual character for a show with a storyline all about blending in.

Conan O’Brien’s Whirlwind Tour of Israel is Exactly What You’d Expect—and That’s What Makes It So Fun

Despite the role of Jews in comedy in America, there tend to be very few members of the Tribe hosting late-night talk shows. So kudos to Conan O’Brien for taking his show on the road, or rather, on an El-Al flight; Conan has come to Israel.
“Conan Without Borders” is an ongoing show special; O’Brien created an episode earlier this year where he visited and produced his show in Mexico. And now, he’s in the Holy Land, eating the food, seeing the sites, and meeting, God help us, Israelis.
Conan introduced this special on his regular TV show, so if you want to know more, you can watch the clip in which he does some sort of generic gangly dance to fake klezmer music, because apparently that screams Israel.
So what sort of shenanigans has the redheaded comedian gotten into so far? While the special doesn’t come out till next month, Team Coco is sharing details of the trip (#ConanIsrael) on Facebook. After getting off to a great start with his flight (and yes, he did fly El-Al), it seems that O’Brien spent the weekend in Tel Aviv, and is currently in Jerusalem. He will also visit the West Bank soon, at least Bethlehem.
He enjoyed Goldstar beer! He loved shakshuka, even though he had trouble pronouncing it! He has noticed that Israelis are super attractive! He even visited Waze headquarters, therefore reminding Americans that the driving-directions app is an Israeli invention. Clearly, this trip is the best thing to happen to Israel’s international rep in pop culture since Gal Gadot starred in Wonder Woman.
Adorably, Coco ran into an older man named David on the streets of the Old City, and the whole camera crew ended up going to his place for a cup of coffee.

Today I had my butt kicked by the women of the #IDF Karkl Battalion. That's me in the middle. #SquadGoals #ConanIsrael #Israel http://pic.twitter.com/ddCm9nZA8D

— Conan O'Brien (@ConanOBrien) August 30, 2017

The Maccabeats - Despacito

---

---

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Read More