09/02 Links: Mr. Trump, don't take the bait on ‘UN reform’; BDS Fail: Israel’s Exports up 6 Percent ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Congress Looks to Restrict U.S. Aid to Palestinian Terrorists

A new congressional measure would restrict U.S. aid to the Palestinian government by barring any American taxpayer dollars from being doled out to Palestinian terrorists currently imprisoned in Israel, according to language of the measure obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
A small amendment in Congress's yearly appropriations bill would stop the U.S. government from giving aid to the Palestinian Authority if it uses these funds to honor terrorists and pay salaries to those militants imprisoned in Israel for carrying out past attacks.
The Taylor Force Act, first introduced in 2016, would cut millions in U.S. aid to the Palestinian government until it shows proof these payments have stopped.
The appropriations amendment, while similar to the Taylor Force Act, provides a quick fix to the problem by banning all payments by the Palestinians to terrorists as a precondition for continued American aid.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), who authored the amendment, told the Washington Free Beacon that in past years members of Congress have not been able to offer amendments to the massive appropriations bill that funds the U.S. government and global priorities.
With amendments now a possibility, DeSantis said he took quick action to address the Palestinian government's payments to terrorists.
"It is beyond maddening that American taxpayer dollars flow to an entity that pays the families of terrorists and that adorns their streets and stadiums with the names of terrorists," DeSantis said. "We finally have the perfect opportunity to stop this and we must seize the moment."

KLEIN: Six Reasons Trump Should Stop Funding the UN's Palestinian ‘Refugee’ Agency

According to reports, the Trump administration has pledged to continue providing its annual contribution of more than $300 million per year to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which ministers to so-called Palestinian refugees.
“America has long been committed to funding UNRWA’s important mission and that will continue,” one official at the U.S. mission to the United Nations told Foreign Policy magazine. The U.S. is UNRWA’s single largest donor.
Below, in no particular order, are six reasons the U.S. should stop funding UNRWA and instead take the approach recommended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called for dismantling the UN’s Palestinian “refugee” agency.
1 – The Palestinians and Arab nations have distorted the history of “Palestinian refugees” to manipulate the international community.
2 – The number of Palestinian “refugees” is the subject of debate.
3 – UNRWA scandalously defines a Palestinian “refugee” in a manner that is different from all other refugees, and does so in a way that sustains the “refugee” crisis instead of solving the problem by finding solutions for the so-called Palestinian refugees.
4 – There is no reason to have a separate agency only for Palestinian “refugees.”
5 – The Palestinians use their “refugee” status to threaten Israel’s existence.
6 – UNRWA has been caught supporting terrorism.

JPost Editorial: Lessons from Guterres

Taken on a photo opportunity in a former Hamas attack tunnel, Guterres confronted the reality of Hamas' anti-Zionism.
In an encounter afterward with an Israeli resident of Nahal Oz, a kibbutz along the Gaza border, he was asked by Oshrit Sabag about the unnecessary suffering of people on both sides.
“We see a huge amount of money that is used in order to build terrorist tunnels and rockets instead of reconstructing the Gaza Strip,” she said, adding, “We think that the people on the other side of the border suffer from Hamas terrorism just as we do.”
Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai told visiting US negotiator Jason Greenblatt at Nahal Oz the same day that it costs some $200,000 to build an attack tunnel 1-kilometer long. This means that the hundreds of tunnels Hamas built over the years – and continues to dig – have consumed enormous amounts of the foreign aid money that supports its despotic Islamist regime.
This, Mordechai noted, is money that should go instead to building hospitals and improving the living conditions in the Gaza Strip. “But Hamas’s priorities are first the military branches’ interests and terrorism, and only then, as a low priority, supporting the civil population,” he said.
Guterres could have addressed the UN complicity in the preservation of Palestinian statelessness. This has been the true function of the UN Relief and Works Agency, which instead of rehabilitating Arab refugees, keeps them in camps that are now generations old.
UNRWA’s greatest roadblock to a Palestinian state is the unique way it defines them as refugees. Arab residents of Mandatory Palestine who fled in 1948 are the only refugees in the world who bequeath their special status to future generations.
This mistaken attitude is a reflection of how well the actual aggressors against the first Arab state in Palestine have persuaded the world that they were the victims. As Guterres said, “Both have a right to live as independent, free people as masters of their own fate.”
Yes, but while the Zionists built a state from the ground up, Palestinian nationalists have devoted themselves to the terrorism of “the resistance” – of reality.
Recently Abbas threatened to sue Britain for the sin of the Balfour Declaration and, as if that were not absurdity enough, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki two weeks ago pleaded for a “Palestinian Balfour declaration.” There is a simple path to peace, but with Gaza the way it is, that path is moving further and further away.

Anne Bayefsky: Mr. Trump, don't take the bait on ‘UN reform’

It’s an old UN game trotted out whenever Americans get fed up with throwing money down the UN drain or paying for a global platform used to trash the USA’s best interests and spew anti-semitism. It goes by the name of “UN reform.” And President Trump appears to have taken the bait -- hook, line and sinker.
One day ahead of the president’s first appearance at the General Assembly on September 19, he will host a “UN Reform High Level Event” for the purpose of adopting a “UN Reform Political Declaration.” The Declaration, with ten points, has just been released and its primary characteristic is vagueness – the only kind of “reform” plan capable of garnering any support at the UN.
While America’s Ambassador Nikki Haley is taking ownership of the initiative, there is no doubt that the reform mantra is a UN-contrived antidote to White House noises about slashing UN funding. UN expenditures have ballooned to about $48 billion a year, of which approximately $10 billion comes from U.S. pocketbooks.
It’s more of an ocean than a swamp. With the Secretary-General headlining the “reform” event along with the president, and the Declaration proclaiming the Secretary-General will “lead organizational reform,” the UN just bought itself a chunk of time.
The rationale for altering U.S. support for the UN is suggested by periodic measurements of our UN “successes.” In mid-August of this year, the State Department delivered its Congressionally-mandated report on voting patterns at the UN. It is a tally of how American interests and values line up with UN outcomes and the votes of countries that enjoy taking foreign aid with no strings attached.

Douglas Murray: New NGO Racket: Smuggling, Inc.

Although the European Union successfully bribed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last year -- inducing him to slow the flow of migrants heading through Turkey into Greece -- Italy has received almost 100,000 people so far this year.
This summer, even more than in previous years, it has become plain that some of the NGOs working in the Mediterranean are acting as something more than intermediaries. Many have in fact been acting as facilitators. This makes the NGOs effectively no more than the benign face of the smuggling networks. Undercover workers have also discovered NGOs handing vessels back to the smugglers' networks, effectively helping them to continue their criminal enterprise indefinitely.
A group that which seeks to oppose Europe's current self-destructive insane trajectory can now not even source independent financial support. Groups, however, that continue to push Europe along its current trajectory continue to get all the official support they need. In the difference in reaction to these two groups lies a significant part of the story of the ruin of a continent.

How the left props up Antifa, and why Nancy Pelosi was right to condemn the violent radicals: Now, who will follow?

“Our democracy has no room for inciting violence or endangering the public, no matter the ideology of those who commit such acts,” read a statement released by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday.
Such an unequivocal condemnation of what the Washington Post described as an attack by “black-clad Antifa members” on “peaceful right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley” last weekend probably wasn’t high on the Democratic leader’s agenda. Common decency and civil propriety demanded it, but so, too, did elementary political competence.
Much has been said about a surge of racially charged right-wing violence concomitant with Donald Trump’s rising political fortunes, but the reciprocal brutality on the left and its origins have largely evaded that kind of scrutiny. Bubbling beneath the surface is an ethos that not only celebrates political violence but encourages it.
In 2016, the appropriately extensive coverage of the future President promising material rewards to rally-goers who committed violence in his name left little time to devote to the brewing counteraction.
In March of last year, a gang of student protesters descended on a pro-Trump rally in Chicago and infiltrated the event, where they engaged in physical confrontations with Trump supporters and police. Two Chicago police officers were injured-one was hit over the head with a bottle. These scenes were repeated in places like Costa Mesa and San Jose, California. “Violence against supporters of any candidate has no place in this election,” said Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, as the images of Trump supporters bloodied by protesters threatened to tarnish his candidate.
By June of 2016, these spasms of violence began to develop a more organized character. For weeks, a group of white supremacists had publicized their intention to protest lawfully on the steps of California’s state capitol building in Sacramento. For as many weeks, the organization By Any Means Necessary had been organizing to disrupt that event. When these two armed assemblages met face-to-face, the confrontation that ensued was a bloody one. Ten were injured, some critically.

Amb. Friedman talks to Jpost about peace, Syria and working for Trump

In July, a few weeks after the Temple Mount crisis had come to an end, David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, flew to Washington for a private meeting with US President Donald Trump.
On the surface, a meeting between an ambassador and his president doesn’t sound all that unique, except that it was Friedman’s second visit to the White House within the span of two months.
In between, there were a number of phone calls between the two.
The flurry of conversations and meetings between Friedman and the man who appointed him demonstrates the unique relationship between these two men, something that is highly significant for Israel.
Not only is Friedman one of only a handful of ambassadors Trump has appointed since becoming president, but he also enjoys direct access to him, an invaluable asset for a host country. Secondly, it shows Trump’s interest in what is happening in Israel, in the conflict with the Palestinians and, more importantly, in the ways to resolve it.
Friedman made this last point clear during an exclusive interview – his first since becoming ambassador in May – that he gave The Jerusalem Post this week. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, is a “very high priority” on the president’s agenda.

Hamas Attempting to Negotiate with Islamic State Sympathizers in Gaza Amid Arrest Campaign

The Hamas movement has continued its campaign of arrests against jihadists in the Gaza Strip that began after the death of a Hamas security officer in a suicide blast that occurred when he detained a Gazan jihadist who was trying to escape to Sinai to fight in the ranks of Wilyat Sinai, the Egyptian branch of the Islamic State.
Immediately after the attack, Hamas began an investigation into the incident and a security operation against jihadists and supporters of IS in Gaza, which, according to a senior jihadist, led to the arrest of abut 170 jihadists.
However, a senior Hamas source has revealed that even as the arrests continued, Hamas began acting to establish a special committee to communicate with IS jihadist elements or clerics close to the jihadists, some of whom are imprisoned in Hamas facilities.
The committee is comprised of Hamas clerics, Hamas security officials and members of Hamas’ so-called military wing. They have begun to establish contacts with senior jihadists imprisoned in Hamas facilities. Among them are Sheikh Ali Rihan, Sheikh Abdullah al-Ashqar, Sheikh Muhamad Abu al-Atta and others.
Some of these prisoners were wanted for over two years by Hamas and only arrested in recent weeks, while others were arrested a number of months ago.

US says 17-bus IS convoy stranded in Syrian desert

The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State jihadist group says a 17-bus convoy of IS militants and their families is stranded in the Syrian desert.
There are some 300 gunmen and 300 civilians on the buses, which the Syrian army and Hezbollah granted safe passage and which was headed toward Iraq after the Islamist State terrorists surrendered their enclave on the Syrian-Lebanon border.
The coalition issued a statement Friday saying it has sought an unspecified solution that would save the women and children in the convoy from further suffering.
It said the coalition has not attacked the convoy.
But it said it had struck IS fighters and vehicles, including a tank and other armed vehicles, that tried to help the convoy move to the Iraqi border.
The coalition said its officials have contacted Russian counterparts to deliver a message to Syria’s government, which had tried to facilitate the convoy’s movement earlier this week from western Syria to an area near the Iraqi border.

Israel and Other Donors Gave at Least $32 Million in Aid for Syria

Israel and donors to the country are said to spend at least $32 million on goods for Syrian civilians this year, including $26 million from donations and $6 million from the army budget for the cause, Haaretz reported.
The numbers, obtained by the newspaper through the Freedom of Information Act, show that a large sum of the money has already been invested to buy medical equipment, food, and medicine. Donations have come from organizations such as the Peres Center for Peace and private citizens, including Syrians residing in Chicago.
The $32 million do not include the costs for the 3,500 Syrian patients who have received treatment in IDF-operated field hospitals along the border and in Israeli hospitals. The sum is estimated to run in the millions of dollars and is covered by the finance, health, and defense ministries.
From August 2016 to June 2017, 92 pallets of drugs, incubators, ventilation machinery, two ambulances, 1,970 feet of pipes, seven generators, 100 tons of warm clothing, 363 tons of food and 1,800 packets of diapers, were transferred to Syria.
“At the end of the day this is help for people who are really suffering on a day-to-day basis,” an IDF officer said. “The Israeli aid is helping save lives every day,” he added.

Iran’s Hold on Syria and its Threat to Israel are Direct Results of Nuclear Deal

The former Obama administration ambassador to Syria said this week that Iran’s presence in Syria is “the new reality that we have to accept, and there isn’t much we can do about it,” and that this reality “has made the situation worse for Israel.”
Iran’s growing hegemony in the Middle East, marked by the creation of a “Shiite crescent” stretching from Yemen, across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and its increased threat to Israel are consequences of the nuclear deal.
Iran’s gains aren’t just the result of the nuclear deal; they are also a consequence that was predicted by its critics.
In February 2015, former White House official Michael Doran observed:
Over the last three years, Obama has given Iran a free hand in Syria and Iraq, on the simplistic assumption that Tehran would combat al-Qaeda and like-minded groups in a manner serving American interests. The result, in both countries, has been the near-total alienation of all Sunnis and the development of an extremist safe haven that now stretches from the outskirts of Baghdad all the way to Damascus.
Obama allowed Iran a free hand in Syria (and Iraq), Doran wrote, because he saw the effort to unseat Assad “as an impediment to realizing the strategic priority of guiding Iran to the path of success” and achieving a “grand bargain” with Iran, which included the nuclear deal.
The strategic partnership endorsed by Obama, which included “treating Syria as an Iranian sphere of interest,” Doran explained, meant that “Obama is allowing the shock troops of Iran to dig in on the border of Israel—not to mention the border of Jordan.”

Nuclear Experts: IAEA Does Not Require Violations to Demand Inspections of Iranian Military Sites

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does not require suspicion of Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deal to demand access to military sites for inspections, two nuclear weapons experts argued in an analysis published Thursday.
While Iran continues to insist that it will not allow inspections of its military sites by the IAEA, Olli Heinonen, former deputy directory-general of the IAEA and David Albright, a former weapons inspector and currently president of the Institute for Science and International Security, wrote that such inspections are justified not only to investigate suspected violations of the deal, but also to ensure that Iran is abiding by restrictions written in the accord.
Heinonen and Albright point to Section T of the nuclear deal and observe that in its first several quarterly reports on Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, the IAEA did not address the concerns laid out in that section. Section T describes a “routine inspection approach” designed to ensure Iran’s “compliance by regular IAEA monitoring.” Access under Section T does not require “alleging violations,” to demand access, but rather it is “analogous to verifying that allowed activities and equipment are not misused, as is common to many aspects of IAEA safeguards at declared nuclear sites.”
Though Section T requirements are not part of the usual safeguards agreements, they were included in the nuclear deal because of “a recognition of the need to do so and Iran’s obligation to cooperate in fulfilling these commitments.”

Which politician is hosting the antisemite?

The Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque is on his way to London. He has been invited by a little known but influential Pro-Palestine lobby group called EuroPal. According to an email seen by the UK political blog Guido Fawkes Sheikh Ekrima Sabri is going to be meeting Members of Parliament this month.
In order to arrange a meeting at Parliament you have to be backed by a Parliamentarian. I’m wondering who invited him in. I’m not wondering whether the Parliamentarian is from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Frankly I’d be flabbergasted if it wasn’t.
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Sabri has made the following comments;
Allah, destroy the U.S., its helpers and its agents. Allah, destroy Britain, its helpers and its agents. Allah, prepare those who will unite the Muslims and march in the steps of Saladin. Allah, we ask you for forgiveness before death, and mercy and forgiveness after death. Allah, grant victory to Islam and the Muslims…
And what seems to be par for the course he also dabbles in Holocaust denial;
“Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer. Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity. It is not my fault if Hitler hated Jews, indeed they were hated a little everywhere. Instead, it is necessary to denounce the unjust occupation endured by my people. Tomorrow I will ask John Paul II… to support our cause,’

UC-Irvine Places Students for Justice in Palestine on Two-Year Probation for Protest

The University of California-Irvine (UCI) placed a student group on two years probation for their intense protest in May of an on-campus event that resulted in police intervention.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) filed an appeal of the decision on Thursday, and the review will likely take a number of weeks. The outcome of that process is final.
The protest occurred at an event hosted by UCI's chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) featuring Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists. Some 40 SJP demonstrators chanted slogans advocating for the elimination of Israel and accusing the soldiers of "genocide." A number of students wore t-shirts bearing the words "UC intifada," an apparent declaration of support for violent Palestinian uprising.
As the tension escalated, SSI co-founder Kevin Brum contacted the UCI Police Department, who arrived 10 minutes after protesters had left the room and gathered in the narrow corridor immediately outside, blocking the main passage to exit the building, the Algemeiner reported.
Officers escorted the event's attendees through the narrow path left by the demonstrators, and out an employee exit.
The incident occurred almost exactly a year after SJP launched an extreme demonstration of a screening of a film about the IDF, during which SJP were alleged to have barred the doors to the room where the movie was being shown. A female student, who arrived late to the program, said she was chased by protesters into an adjacent building, where she hid in fear.
An investigation into that incident resulted in a written warning that expired days before the May 2017 incident.

Michael Lumish: KPFA Speaks to Matt Finkelstein on Reem's antisemitic restaurant

Matthew Finkelstein spoke to KPFA radio out of Berkeley, yesterday, concerning the vigils against the mural honoring progressive-left antisemitic anti-Zionist Rasmea Odeh at Reem's bakery/cafe in Oakland, California.
These are ongoing vigils in Oakland in honor of college students Leon Kanner and Edward Joffe who were murdered by Odeh and her friends in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1969 at a grocery in Jerusalem, yet she remains celebrated on the left for her "social justice" work in Chicago.
Apparently, KPFA cut the contribution of local Democrat, Susan George, who is a rare type of friend. Susan is a non-Jewish, Sanders supporting, progressive-left friend of Israel and the Jewish people.
{Such as these are not so easy to come by.}
In any case, it is a brief piece that begins at the 51-minute mark.
I think that Matt did an excellent job, although the piece slanted toward the murderer Rasmea Odeh, but this is hardly surprising given Northern California public radio.
Odeh has, thankfully, been deported from the United States.
To where I wonder?
So long, Roz.
Happy travels.

Jewish Voice for Peace 's Ellen Brotsky attacks peaceful anti-terror vigil at Reem's, Oakland

On July 8, several community members held a vigil at Reem's Okaland restaurant, to protest a mural glorifying convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh.
Reem Assil has since characterized this as a "racist" attack by "Zionists"
This is what Reem's calls a racist sign.
Photos have just been released showing the assault.
Ellen Brotsky, a self described activist from Jewish Voice for Peace wrestled this sign out of the hands of member of the vigil, while another opponent of free speech stood by. Its been reported that the younger woman attempted to steal the activists purse during the scuffle.
Ellen Brotsky proceeded to rip up the stolen sign.
Oakland police declined to arrest her.
Why are "Jewish" Voice for "Peace" activists so afraid of allowing dissenting voices to be heard?

Jewish charity Norwood and its tie-up with Islamic Relief

So, following on from CST's endorsement of a video promoting the "Free Gaza" (i.e. death to Israel) symbolism (see also image below) - all in the name of 'community cohesion' and 'combating Islamophobia' - we now have another Jewish charity - the excellent Norwood - teaming up 'in solidarity with' Islamic Relief at Selfridges presumably with the same naive intent (hat tip to Ambrosine Yolande Shitrit for both of these stories). I am sure there are many suitable Muslim charities that Norwood could have teamed up with. Unfortunately, Islamic Relief is not one of them.
Islamic Relief is a British-based 'charity' that has long been accused of involvement in terrorism as reported here. In 2006 the Israeli Government outlawed Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) from its work in Judea and Samaria, declaring that it was "designed to further Hamas's ideology among the Palestinian population" and in 2014 claimed that the 'charity' was involved in sending cash to Hamas.
In 2014 HSBC cut its ties with IRW due to concerns over its terrorist links. Even the United Arab Emirates banned IRW because of its terrorist links.
While IRW has denied the links with Hamas, what is certain is that the 'charity' has a disproportionate obsession with 'Palestine'. Two of its 'current' appeals are devoted to 'Palestine' and 'Gaza'. While IRW is banned from operating in the West Bank it still operates extensively in Gaza where Hamas controls all money that comes in. The IRW web pages also push the standard exaggerations and blood libels against Israel such as:
The most recent conflict in Gaza saw thousands of innocent civilians lose their lives – including six-year-old Ismail Bakir, who was hit by a rocket and instantly killed when he was playing on the beach, not far from home where his mother was.
(The claim of "thousands of innocent civilians" is a proven lie as is the implied claim that an Israeli rocket killed a child on the beach).
Given that Norwood made the decision to team up with Islamic Relief I would have expected the minimum due diligence would have involved a) checking the charity was not implicated in terrorism; and b) checking the charity's annual reports. Clearly neither of these happened. So who is responsible for this fiasco which brings more shame to the so-called 'Jewish leadership' in Britain?

Newsweek Guilty of the "Big Omission": Concealing Palestinian Rejection of Statehood Offers

Above Gregg Carlstrom's most recent article on the Newsweek website is a short video about tensions in Jerusalem last July. The video, dated July 17, explains that "Palestinians protested new Israeli security measures," noting that "Israel installed metal detectors at the entrances to Al-Aqsa mosque." But the segment devotes not even a single word about what precipitated the security measures: the brazen slaying just three days earlier of two Israeli police officers guarding the holy site.
The video, with its glaring omission, serves as a good opening act for the lengthy article that follows, which also conceals essential facts. Entitled "How Israel Won the War and Defeated the Palestinian Dream," Carlstrom's essay purports to explore the roots of Palestinian statelessness. His survey of the conflict's history, though, begins only with the 1967 Six-Day War, omitting the previous two decades during which a Palestinian state was not created even though the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under Arab control. The Arab world and Palestinian leadership during this era was less concerned with statehood than with eliminating Israel.
Carlstrom's history continues with the first intifada, which he describes as Palestinian "mass protests" to which Israel "responded with brute force" that killed many Palestinians. He fails to explain how these "protests" managed to take the lives of over 200 Israelis. Those deaths, in fact, go unacknowledged.
One section of the essay discusses both Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian Authority's $800 million budget gap, but manages to avoid mentioning the controversy over the vast sums of money the Palestinian government gives to Palestinian incarcerated for violently attacks against Israelis — about $300 million per year that is widely seen as incentivizing terror attacks.
Another passage references recent municipal elections in Hebron, but neglects to point out that the newly elected mayor murdered six Israeli worshippers on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1980.

Does Berlin’s mayor belong on Wiesenthal Center’s top 10 list for anti-Semitism?

Berlin’s mayor, many local Jewish leaders agree, could do more to counter the city’s vocal BDS movement.
But does that make him an anti-Semite?
A report that the California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center may include Mayor Michael Müller on its annual list of the world’s 10 worst cases of anti-Semitic activity has perplexed prominent Israel supporters in Germany.
In an interview Monday with The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, charged that by declining to publicly oppose recent high-profile anti-Israel events in the city, Müller is “mainstreaming the BDS movement that never contributes to the daily life of Palestinians. BDS is widely recognized as anti-Semitic.”
Jewish leaders in Germany note that other cities have done more to block activities by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. But they say this is no reason to put Müller in the stockades and could be counterproductive.
While it’s “embarrassing for the city of Berlin that the mayor hasn’t yet taken a clear and unequivocal position against BDS,” it is “grotesque to put him in line with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the worst anti-Semites in the world,” Joseph Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement Thursday.
Though a clear stance would be appreciated, Müller “definitely does not belong on this list,” the Jewish Community of Berlin’s commissioner on anti-Semitism, Sigmount Königsberg, said in a statement Thursday. He called BDS “nothing less than the continuation of the anti-Jewish boycotts” of the 1930s in Germany.

Anti-Semitic graffiti found in Toronto suburb

Anti-Semitic graffiti was found on Friday in the city of Vaughan, a suburb of Toronto.
The phrase “Hitler was right!” was spray painted in neon orange paint on a concrete construction barrier on Highway 400 near Bass Pro Mills Drive, according to Toronto radio station 680 News.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) released a statement saying they contacted police when they were alerted to the offensive material.
FSWC first found out about the graffiti after the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors posted an image of it on social media.
Police responded at around 8:00 a.m. and the graffiti was removed, according to 680 News. Hate crime investigators with the York Regional Police are investigating the incident.
FSWC president and CEO Avi Benlolo said on Friday the government must take these matters more seriously.
“Hate crimes must be prosecuted and dealt with accordingly,” he said, adding, “These types of incidents continue to intensify, particularly against the Jewish community. I’m calling on community members and officials to help stop hate crimes and anti-Semitism.”

Antisemitism in Poland being 'normalized,' European Jewish group warns

There has been a "distinct normalization of antisemitism" in Poland, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) warned on Thursday and called on the Polish government to respond forcefully.
The EJC also expressed "grave concerns" over the deteriorating relationship between the Polish government and Poland's Jewish population at a time of rising antisemitism in the country, stating that no senior Polish government official has met with the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland, the democratic body responsible for representing Polish Jewry, in approximately one year.
"We have seen a dramatic rise in recent antisemitic incidents in Poland, which appear to have coincided with the Polish Government closing its communications with the official representatives of the Jewish community," said President of the EJC Dr Moshe Kantor.
"There has been a distinct normalization of antisemitism, racism and xenophobia in Poland recently," continued Kantor. "We hope that the Polish government will stem this hate and act forcefully against it."
The EJC statement declared that Jewish community concerns have peaked following a string of antisemitic incidents in Poland, including by representatives of Poland's largest political party, Law and Justice (PiS). According to the statement, the rise in antisemitism "appears to have permeated many layers of Polish society."
“We hope the Polish leadership will restart engagement with the Jewish community and condemn antisemitism in all its forms,” Kantor said.

Dutch Jewish group files complaint over 'death to Jews' protest

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.

Israel’s Exports up 6 Percent in First Half of 2017

Israeli exports rose 6 percent — to $50 billion — during the first half of 2017, according to the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute.
The jump is exports was driven by rapid growth in high-tech services and incoming tourism, the institute said. Exports of services totaled $21 billion in the first half of this year, boosted by the rising trend in exports of computer and software services, which grew 12 percent to $6.8 billion. Exports of tourist services were up 16 percent, to $3.2 billion, in the same period.
Exports in industrial sections — including drugs, chemicals, refined oil products and electronic components — grew 5 percent.
“Increasing exports is a strategic goal of the Ministry of the Economy and Industry, because the export industries feature high productivity,” Israel’s Minister of the Economy Eli Cohen said, Globes reported. “We are continuing our efforts to attract international companies. With the help of incentives for exporters, we will cross the $100 billion mark, which is our annual export target.”

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