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6:13 PM
Elder of Ziyon
From Ian:
Palestinian NGOs Reject European Aid, Due to Refusal to Renounce Terror Ties
David Collier: Antisemitism and the conflict – explained in two simple maps
New Israeli Scholarship Shows That an Alleged 1948 Massacre Never Happened
French Philosopher: ‘Left-wing Islamism and antisemitism have a future,’
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Palestinian NGOs Reject European Aid, Due to Refusal to Renounce Terror Ties
Over 100 Palestinian NGOs have refused to sign an EU grant request because it demands that funds cannot be handed over to terrorist groups.50 Leftist Jews to Spend Winter Vacation in ‘Direct Co-Resistance’ in Judea & Samaria, Fly Home in 10 Days
The director of the BDS organization Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, told The New Arab, “We demanded to include conditions stipulating that we do not have to recognize the criteria listed regarding terror groups.”
Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs said in a statement that this was due to “shared ties between supposed Palestinian human rights organizations and terrorist groups,” and cited its report “The Money Trail,” which found that “EU institutions have awarded millions of euros in financial aid to Palestinian civil society organizations which have ties to terrorist entities and promote boycotts against Israel.”
In another report, titled “Terrorists in Suits,” the ministry revealed “over 100 ties shared between BDS organizations and internationally designated terrorist groups … including the PFLP and Hamas.
“According to the report, so-called Palestinian civil society organizations act as medium for funds for terrorist entities, enabling them to raise money for their activities through legitimate bodies including the EU,” the ministry added.
“The opposition of these organizations to criteria preventing the transfer of funds to terror related activities proves the report’s claim,” the ministry’s statement asserted.
To start, you should know there’s a thing called The Center for Jewish Nonviolence, and that it “strives for a future that honors the full equality and shared humanity of both Palestinians and Israelis.”
Then you should know that on Monday the CJNV tweeted: “CJNV delegation begins—International Jewish activists defy crackdown on Palestinian solidarity activism during delegation to the Occupied Territories.”
IfNotNow, one of the groups represented in this unusual Xmas vacation in the Holy Land, tweeted: “A group of our members, along with members of J Street, JVPlive, Naamod UK and other Jewish left orgs around the world just hit the ground in the West Bank as part of CJNV’s newest delegation. They’ll engage in direct co-resistance work with Palestinian activists.”
We have no blessed idea what the crackdown on Palestinian solidarity activism even means, never mind how one goes about defying it, and what’s the meaning of “direct co-resistance work” – in ten days or less (they’re flying home at the end of the revolution). We do know from the group’s press release that it will include “civil disobedience, educational sessions and community building projects.”
Then lunch.
That’s a lot to accomplish in ten days. We signed up for the daily updates, in the hope they’ll be as entertaining as the first couple of tweets.
David Collier: Antisemitism and the conflict – explained in two simple maps
This is the entire story of antisemitism and the Israel / Arab conflict delivered in two simple maps. One map is based on Jewish populations in the 1930s, the other Jewish populations today. The maps are not just of Europe or the Middle East, but the entire Europe, Middle East and North Africa region. People love to make everything seem complex. Sometimes the best thing to do is cut out the noise:
Map: Jewish populations Europe and MENA region 1930s
Map: Jewish populations Europe and MENA region 2010s
If anyone notices any important mistakes, let me know. The figures in the maps are a collation of official European pre-holocaust figures, scholarly estimates from the Arab ethnic cleansing of their Jewish populations and contemporary population figures. Only significant populations of 50k+ have been considered unless the population is smaller but still a sizeable % of the total population.
Put the two images side by side and everything suddenly becomes clear. The horrific scale of the destruction of Jewish communities. But also the antisemitic obsession with Israel. Some spend their time arguing that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism, but just look at the maps. Tell me that having hounded, persecuted, expelled and murdered their Jewish communities throughout the regions, that the current obsession with that one tiny concentration of Jews that is left – the Jews in Israel – isn’t driven by antisemitism.
New Israeli Scholarship Shows That an Alleged 1948 Massacre Never Happened
Reviewing three Hebrew-language works about Israel’s War of Independence, Yoav Gelber begins with Eliezer Tauber’s study of the battle of Deir Yassin, long assumed to have culminated in a massacre of Arabs by the Jewish Irgun and Le?i militias. Tauber demonstrates that (like the “massacre” in Lydda) it was nothing of the sort. Both sides, however, greatly exaggerated the number of Arab casualties for propaganda purposes, with consequences that also bear examining:Yisrael Medad: Eliezer Tauber's Treatment of Deir Yassin
[Before the battle of Deir Yassin], the bulk of the Arab population had looked on the fighting from the sidelines. The local Arab leadership in Jerusalem strove to excite the Palestinians, and bolster their motivation to fight. This was the main purpose of the propaganda campaign that Hussein Khalidi, the only member of the Higher Arab Executive who remained in the country, and his associates launched in the days following the battle. They achieved the opposite outcome: instead of inspiring the Arabs’ stamina and will to fight, the inflated numbers of casualties and faked atrocity rumors shocked and intimidated the non-combatant population and considerably encouraged the mass flight.
Nonetheless, I think that Tauber overstates the part of Deir Yassin in causing the Arab mass flight. Before Deir Yassin, about 100,000 Arabs left their homes, huts, or tents and went to the neighboring countries or to purely Arab regions within Mandatory Palestine. The Palestinians have tried to minimize the scope of this early wave of refugees and claim that only members of the elite fled, but the refugee population was much larger and more varied.
Gelber concludes his review by offering some general conclusions about the 1948 war:
The Palestinians’ refusal and inability to build institutional and administrative infrastructure that would take over the Arab areas from the receding mandatory authorities caused anarchy and created a vacuum that was only partly filled by the Arab armies later, after the invasion. The few vain attempts to create quasi-governmental institutions were an exception testifying to the rule and took place mainly in Jerusalem. [As a result], invading Arab armies increasingly had to devote attention and logistical resources to fill the vacuum at the expense of their military mission.
My own post on Eliezer Tauber's book on Deir Yassin is here.2019 Man of the Year: Benjamin Netanyahu
I quote from Yoav Gelber's review
"...Tauber deserves every kudo for his meticulous work, which is exemplary for this genre of historiography. He left no stone unturned and used all the available sources, written and oral, Arab, Jewish (Haganah, IZl, LHI, and political), British, and Red Cross. This resolution of microhistoriographic analysis requires a massive use of oral testimonies, extracting the valuable material from the rubbish and a careful scrutiny of the findings. His expertise in Arabic and on Palestinian society equipped him with vital tools for conducting such a study.
In examining the oral testimonies about the battle in Deir Yassin, Tauber has shown how the stories of witnesses on both sides, Arab villagers and IZL and LHI combatants, are close to each other. Of course, each witness speaks from his individual and national perspectives, but it is clear that they all speak of the same battle and that their stories are supplemental rather than contradictory. At the same time, the narratives that were circulated by both sides’ higher echelons immediately after the fighting was over are propagandist and conflicting.
...At that stage of the war, occupying an Arab village was something new, still without precedent. Under the circumstances of the inter-communal civil war overshadowed by waning British sovereignty, it was also impossible to hold people in captivity and POWs should have been either released or killed. This axiomatic assumption forecasted the flight of the non-combatant population at the beginning of the raid. In the case of Deir Yassin, the axiom proved mistaken for various reasons analyzed by Tauber.
It has been a turbulent year for long-serving Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Gaza begins exporting Israeli-style 'Krembo' treat to Bahrain
Encased in a cloud of indictments, Bibi, as he is often called, continues to survive.
In fact, at the time of this writing, Netanyahu is barely trailing his rival contender for prime minister, despite multiple investigations into his political dealings. Furthermore, polls indicate that Netanyahu would still garner more seats in the Israeli parliament than his likely replacement in the Likud Party, Gideon Sa'ar.
A natural leader, Netanyahu has served as prime minister since 2009. He also held that post from 1996 to 1999, making him one of the most successful international political figures of all time.
Netanyahu gracefully braved eight years of the anti-Israel Obama regime and it's likely he will see his way through this current domestic scandal. This fortitude has enshrined him as a hero to the Jewish people and earned him a spot as a 2019 Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.
A shipment of Krembo, one of Israel's favorite snacks, made its way from the Gaza Strip on Monday on its way to Bahrain.Jewish Voice For Labour promotes graffiti 'vigil', prompting antisemitic conspiracy theories in return
The shipment of Krembo, a chocolate-covered marshmallow and cookie, was produced in Gaza and became the first export of processed food from Gaza since 2007 when it went through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Monday, according to Gal Berger of KAN News.
Eight tons of the treats will make their way through Israel to Jordan and eventually to Bahrain in a shipment coordinated by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories' (COGAT) Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) for Gaza.
Over 450 tons of strawberries have been exported from the Gaza Strip to various locations around the world since the beginning of the season, including the UAE, England and Israel.
According to a report published by the Gaza Ministry of Economy, the Gaza Strip imports almost everything it consumes, paying some $3 billion in customs tariffs per year.
The Kerem Shalom border crossing is the only place commercial vehicles are allowed access to and from Gaza. More than 1,000 trucks pass through the crossing every day (not counting fuel tankers). Prior to 2010, when Israel eased limitations at the Kerem Shalom crossing, only 150 trucks a day were allowed to enter. (h/t Zvi)
Jewish Voice For Labour's Facebook page has been hit by antisemitic conspiracy theories after the fringe group promoted a "vigil" after anti-Jewish graffiti was daubed across a synagogue wall and on shop windows in north London.Antisemitism graffiti demonstration descends into farce as organiser warns of 'Zionist journalists'
The graffiti, which showed a Star of David and the words "9/11", was discovered in Hampstead and Belsize Park on Sunday morning and those who daubed it were condemned as "cowardly pedlars of hate".
JVL posted a link to the event, which is to take place on Monday afternoon and is hosted by the controversial Stand Up To Racism.
One Facebook user replied: "Is this a continuation of the far right Zionist disinformation campaign?”
Another contributor wrote: "Is it antisemitic to accuse Israel of 'false flag' complicity in the 9/11 attack though?
“The Star of David is the political logo of Israel. I don't see any anti-Jewish abuse here? More anti-Israel surely ?
Insisting he agreed it was “completely wrong” to target buildings, including South Hampstead shul with graffiti, he added: “I’m just worried that every criticism of Israeli actions becomes dismissed as antisemitism.”
The news that Stand Up To Racism, which is linked to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), is to host the event was met with widespread dismay in the Jewish community.
A demonstration against the antisemitic graffiti in Hampstead and Belsize Park descended into farce after an organiser was heard warning about the presence of “Zionist journalists” at the event, organised by the far-left Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Sasha Simic, who was wearing a yellow vest bearing the logo of Stand Up To Racism, an SWP-linked organisation, was overheard by the JC referring to a “Zionist” who he suggested was attending the event on Monday evening.
Mr Simic, who has been a member of the SWP’s Hackney branch, did not respond to the JC on Tuesday when asked to clarify his comments.
A group of young Jewish counter protesters began to sing Israeli anthem, the Hatikvah, after they voiced objections to one attendee for wearing a large pro-BDS badge on his hat.
But they were shouted down by activists at the vigil.
Flags of the fringe, pro-Corbyn group Jewish Voice For Labour were flown at the event, hours after someone posted to its Facebook page that the graffiti could be a “Zionist disinformation campaign”.
To those who attended the #antisemitism 'vigil' tonight, it really isn't complicated.
— David Collier (@mishtal) December 30, 2019
If you turn up to a vigil for the antisemitic attacks wearing badges calling for the boycott of the Jewish state - or with banners attacking Israel - that's a really shitty thing to do.
I'd forgotten about this. On top of defending "Israel did 9/11" conspiracists Raed Salah and Stephen Sizer, Jeremy Corbyn also supported Neo-Nazi-grade antisemite Ken O'Keefe, who also—wait for it—argues Israel did 9/11. https://t.co/mRpEycXBrq
— Hughster (@hughster) December 29, 2019
The jew haters over at #BDS, as well as their founder #antisemite Omar Barghouti, is now after Jews AND Christians.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) December 30, 2019
Read our full report on his sickening organization and how its fueling hatred globally here: https://t.co/oaOPgCB0AF pic.twitter.com/B2RHpYrtqR
French Philosopher: ‘Left-wing Islamism and antisemitism have a future,’
One of France’s most important philosophers and a widely recognized public intellectual, Alain Finkielkraut, has sounded strong alarm bells over the rise of left-wing Islamism and radical antisemitism.Antisemitic lecturer invited, then uninvited, at San Diego State University
“In France, it [antisemitism] is part of the extreme Left and a growing part of the population with a migration background,” he told the German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. “It is particularly worrying that the extreme left defends radical, antisemitic Islam for two reasons: ideologically, because for them, the Muslims are the new Jews, the disenfranchised; but also for tactical reasons, because today there are many more Muslims than Jews in France. So, left Islamism also has a future, and I’m afraid of that.”
In February, a Yellow Vests protester hurled antisemitic insults at Finkielkraut, calling him a “dirty Zionist shit” who should “go back to Tel Aviv.”
“Antisemitism is not a thing of the past, it even has a future,” Finkielkraut said. “I was actually the object of aggression with a proven antisemitic character. But I was not called ‘dirty Jew’ but ‘dirty Zionist shit.’ The peculiarity of contemporary antisemitism is that it uses the language of anti-racism. Because of the existence of Israel, the Jews are now considered racists. ‘Filthy Jew’ – that was a morally disgraceful term. ‘Dirty racist’ – that is highly moral today.”
A lecturer who in the past referred to Jews as "godless... blood-sucking parasites [that] sell us alcohol, drugs, depraved sex, and every other type of low-life thing," was recently included in the list of speakers for a program on the topic of US reparations for slavery at San Diego State University, the Los Angeles Times has reported.BBC Complaints contradicts BBC News website article
The event was proposed by graduate students who received funding for $68,000 to organize it, as announced in the university newsletter on December 18, according to the LA Times.
Among the five speakers suggested by Terry Sivers was Ava Muhammad, a spokesperson for the organization Nation of Islam led by antisemitic minister Louis Farrakhan.
Muhammad made the disparaging remarks in a 2017 speech whose clip was widely circulated on social media and was denounced, among others, by the Anti-Defamation League.
"This shows that the committees, faculty and administrators who approved this proposal either did so without vetting the summit's speakers or they did the vetting and approved them anyway," Peter Herman, an SDSU literature professor, told the Californian newspaper. "At the very least, they were irresponsible."
The day after the newsletter was sent, Herman contacted some university administrators to inquire about the inclusion of Muhammad in the program, claiming that he was working on an article about the episode for a local publication.
UN SC resolution 465 dates from the time of the Carter presidency and the 2016 resolution (2334) from the end of the Obama administration. In other words, the BBC has chosen to ignore the interim thirty-six years during which – according to the BBC itself – “the US adopted a position of describing the settlements as “illegitimate” – though not “illegal” – and sheltering Israel from condemnatory resolutions on the issue at the United Nations”.‘Global Conflicts’ Article Shows More Pictures from Israeli-Arab Conflict than Rest of World Combined
Obviously Israeli construction in Ma’ale Adumim or other locations has not “made a significant change to the 1949 armistice line” at all. That line remains as it was when drawn and is specifically defined in that agreement as being “agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.”
However Aleem Maqbool did not claim that construction in Ma’ale Adumim had had the effect of “significantly reducing the width of the remaining West Bank” – he claimed that it “cuts the West Bank in half”. That statement of course remains inaccurate, as does the claim that the US Secretary of State’s announcement “breaks four decades of State Department policy”.
The piece is sourced from Agence France-Presse, better known as AFP. The practice of reproducing text, or ‘copy’, as it’s known in the trade, from wire services such as AFP and Reuters is common and a useful filler for news outlets, as well as a substitute for having correspondents on the ground in numerous locations around the world. In this case, the article itself is balanced and unworthy of special comment.MEMRI: 'National Socialist Black Metal' Music Available On Telegram, Last.Fm, VK, Facebook, iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, Bitchute, YouTube
In his traditional Christmas message, Pope Francis remarked upon armed conflicts in Africa as well as the crises in Lebanon and Venezuela, saying, “May Christ bring his light to the many children suffering from war and conflicts in the Middle East and in various countries of the world.”
Given his words, one would expect that if newspaper outlets would attach pictures to the AFP article, they would be primarily of children in Lebanon, Venezuela and Africa.
As such, it’s notable that the International Business Times version of the story includes six images – four of which are from areas within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) music is widely circulated on many social media platforms, including Telegram, Last.Fm, VK, Facebook, iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, Bitchute, and YouTube. Several channels on Telegram share links to songs and ideological content in keeping with the genre's Nazi rhetoric. Links from Telegram channels are also posted to the video-hosting service Bitchute and to YouTube, which often removes this content. There is an overlap between Telegram channels that post NSBM and those that promote violence. Additionally, NSBM music festivals are promoted on these Telegram channels.Over 40 gravestones vandalized at Jewish cemetery in Germany
The following report will look at platforms that host NSBM content. Some make it available at no cost, and others offer it for sale.
On October 28, 2018, the [redacted] Telegram channel published its first post. It says that it focuses on "true terror propaganda, hate literature and W.A.R. anthems by those who act. We will not appease the weak or coddle to any feeble scene tourists who try to ride along our superiority. The line has been drawn and you're standing on our opposing side. Expect death. Sieg Heil."
A December 8 post features links to an NSBM song on YouTube and Archive.org that eulogizes American neo-Nazi terrorist Robert Jay Matthews, the leader of a white supremacist militant group who was killed in a shootout with law enforcement in 1984. On November 2, it promoted two websites that sell NSBM music.
More than 40 gravestones have been vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in the German town of Geilenkirchen, the Bild newspaper reported on Monday.Jewish group urges Amazon to stop selling ‘Secret Hitler’ board game
According to accounts in the German media, two masked men arrived at the Jewish cemetery at approximately 3 a.m. Monday morning and proceeded to knock over dozens of gravestones and deface some of them with blue paint.
The two were arrested near the crime scene following a tip from a witness to the act of vandalism who alerted the authorities.
According to Bild, the two men, 21 and 33, both known as far-right extremists, were briefly detained and released. Law enforcement has opened an investigation into the incident.
Just a few days ago, a similar crime was reported in Slovakia, where some 20 gravestones were vandalized in the country's north.
An Australian Jewish group on Friday called for Amazon to stop selling a board game in which players win by putting Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in power.Gas Pumping From Israel’s Offshore Leviathan Field Gets Underway
The Melbourne-based Anti-Defamation Commission called on the internet retail giant to “show respect to the survivors” and said its objection to the “Secret Hitler” game had been sparked by a complaint from someone whose father survived the Holocaust.
“Using Hitler as part of a board game whitewashes his inhuman crimes, is highly distasteful and shows that still today many do not understand the inexpressible horrors of the Holocaust,” Dvir Abramovich, the group’s chairman, said in a statement.
“It is deeply troubling that Amazon Australia is providing another popular avenue for Hitler’s name to be revived and normalized, and reach a new generation of young people who may think it’s cool to play him. We call on the company to immediately stop selling this game,” the statement said.
The Anti-Defamation Commission addressed its complaint to Amazon Australia, but the game is also on sale on Amazon’s US site, where over 1,400 reviewers gave it an average rating of 4.8 out of five stars.
Gas pumping from Israel’s Leviathan offshore natural gas field got under way on Tuesday after Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry said Noble Energy and its partners had met all necessary conditions, despite ongoing protests from coastal residents and environmental activists warning of pollution emitted by the pumping rigs.‘Hollywood Reporter’ names Gal Gadot as 1 of 5 breakout stars of the decade
The largest energy project in Israel’s history, it is expected that the Leviathan field will yield 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. After extraction, the gas will then make a 120-kilometer journey via pipelines to a processing platform 10 kilometers off the Israeli coast.
From there, the processed gas and stabilized condensate will be transported by pipeline to the national gas transmission system and pipeline.
“For the first time since its establishment, Israel is now an energy powerhouse, able to supply all its energy needs and gaining energy independence,” said Delek Drilling CEO Yossi Abu, a partner in the field. “At the same time, we will be exporting natural gas to Israel’s neighbors, thus strengthening Israel’s position in the region. [The] Leviathan project will bring the coal era in Israel to an end, and will supply efficient, inexpensive and clean energy to people in Israel and in the Middle East.”
The Hollywood Reporter named Gal Gadot as one of the top five breakout stars of the 2010s. The Wonder Woman star and IDF vet from Rosh Ha’ayin shares the honor with three highly-acclaimed actors and one director: Elisabeth Moss, the star of the television series Mad Men and The Handmaid’s Tale; Timothée Chalamet, star of Little Women and an Oscar nominee for Call Me By Your Name; Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the star and creator of the offbeat, Emmy-winning television series, Fleabag; and Jordan Peele, director of the innovative films that mix horror and social commentary, Get Out and Us.587 exits worth $70b: Startup Nation had booming decade, has still bigger dreams
Gadot wrote in an Instagram post: “Wow! Thank you @hollywoodreporter for the honor of being named 1 of the 5 breakouts of 2010’s. And in such great company. Finding out about it on @elisabethmossofficial post was mind blowing Overwhelmed by all the support you’ve shown throughout the years...! To many more.... 555.”
The article was not yet on The Hollywood Reporter’s website, but apparently Moss got an advance look at the layout and posted it on her Instagram account.
The honor caps an extremely busy year for Gadot. In addition to her upcoming films – Wonder Woman 1984, which will be released in 2020 and is the follow-up to her smash-hit 2017 film; the Netflix film about an art heist, Red Notice, with Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne Johnson; and Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile – she founded the Pilot Wave Motion Pictures production company with her husband, Yaron Varsano, and is moving into the producer’s chair.
The last 10 years have seen the so-called Startup Nation flourishing, with increasing numbers of multinationals taking notice, snapping up Israeli companies and technologies and setting up local R&D centers.Celebrating innovation: Startup Nation’s 10 biggest tech deals of the decade
Startup entrepreneurs, once eager to sell their firms to the highest bidder as soon as they could, are now holding out longer and raising more money from venture capital or private equity funds to grow their companies on their own.
A look at the figures shows that in the past decade, Israel saw 587 exit deals — defined as initial public offerings of shares, or merger and acquisitions of Israeli startups — for a total of $70 billion, according to data compiled by PwC Israel. The deal of the decade was the acquisition by US tech giant Intel Corp. of Israel’s Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based maker of self-driving technologies, for a whopping $15.3 billion.
The past decade has also seen entrepreneurs who sold their businesses come back to the tech arena to set up other companies, this time equipped with more daring, skills and experience, and train a fresh generation of tech entrepreneurs.
“Startup Nation has grown stronger and bigger and deeper, and it has strengthened in pretty much every metric, whether it is number of startups or the amount of VC funding raised,” said Saul Singer in a phone interview with The Times of Israel.
Singer, together with Dan Senor, was the author of the book “Start-Up Nation,” which gave Israel the nickname and to a large extent defined the decade that followed its publication in 2009.
Over the course of that decade, Singer said, Israel’s tech ecosystem “has matured. We have more serial entrepreneurs, more people who have started multiple companies, have had some failures and some successes, and are now building companies that have a better chance at success.”
To celebrate the end of the twenty-tens, a booming time for Israel’s tech industry, The Times of Israel presents a list of the 10 biggest tech acquisition deals of the past decade.The top 45 stories of the decade
According to data compiled by PwC Israel, the country saw 587 exit deals — defined as initial public offering of shares, or merger and acquisitions of Israeli startups — over the past 10 years, for a total of $70 billion. These helped put Israel’s tech scene on the global map in a whole variety of fields, including auto technologies, semiconductors and processors, health technologies, medical devices, and navigation apps.
• The biggest deal of the decade, and actually the biggest deal ever for Israel, was of course the acquisition by US tech giant Intel Corp. of Israel’s Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based maker of self-driving technologies, for a whopping $15.3 billion in 2017.
Mobileye’s tech emerged from the Hebrew University’s department for computer vision. The firm is a maker of vision technology for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving technologies. The firm, founded in 1999 by Prof. Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, had its shares traded in the US before Intel acquired it.
• The second largest tech deal of the decade — though it is still awaiting regulatory permits for completion — was the acquisition by US chip maker Nvidia of Mellanox Technologies Ltd. in 2019 for $6.9 billion.
It’s only been 10 years, but in that time the world has been transformed. Social media has gone from angel of democracy to demon. Climate change has become something we can see with our own eyes. All over the world, established orders have been overturned.Top 5 Israeli innovations of the past decade
In Israel, new technologies like auto-tech, fintech, AI and food-tech have emerged to dominate Israel’s high-tech scene, while Israel’s food scene has come of age – as you can tell by the high number of accolades to Israeli restaurants rolling in. Israeli TV has also won its fair share of praise, spurring an unexpected new area of export.
In this decade, Israel lost one of its most internationally popular leaders, Shimon Peres; but women the world over got two strong new role models — Israeli actor Gal Gadot, who stormed the world with her portrayal of Wonder Woman, and Netta, who swept Eurovision with her bubbly empowerment song, “Toy.”
We’ve looked back through our archives to discover your favorite stories. It’s an extraordinary journey that charts the emergence of Israel’s aid industry, the move toward veganism and alternative meats, and the growth of tourism to Israel – from just 1.9 million tourists to Israel in 2010, to 4m. in 2019.
Some of the technologies we wrote about went on to huge success, some pivoted, and some – notably Shai Agassi’s Better Place – went out with an almighty bang.
Take a look through the decades and remember some of the highlights of every year.
While Israeli discoveries reach far and wide, the past decade marked a high number of Israeli technological milestones in an astounding variety of fields – from medicine to high-tech to space exploration. Some of those startling advancements include finding potential cures for diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and improvements in transportation by using artificial intelligence-run devices. Leaping into the unknown, Israel launched objects into orbit, such as the Amos communications satellites, and earlier this year made history as the seventh country to send a spacecraft to the Moon.Israel’s population at 9,136,000 on the eve of 2020
1. The first Israeli spacecraft to the Moon, Beresheet
In February of this year, Israel Aerospace Industries and SpaceIL did the impossible – after years of a combination of hard work, Israeli ingenuity, and budgeted-funding – the first Israeli spacecraft, Beresheet blasted off to the Moon. Beresheet – in the beginning – as it was aptly named, was sent into space, and orbited the Earth for two months relying mainly on solar powered energy in order to save fuel costs, before it crash-landed on the lunar surface in April.
Although communication was ultimately lost with the craft, it made history as both the cheapest and lightest probe ever built. Beresheet generated a combined cost of $100,000, and was funded by SpaceIL President Morris Kahn, Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Canadian businessman Sylvan Adams, the Science and Technology Ministry, the Israel Space Agency, Israel Aerospace Industries, and numerous other private donors.
Although the Jewish state has only been in existence for 71 years, it is on a direct trajectory to technological innovation-success, from new developments in medicine to future space exploration projects.
So, who knows what the next decade may hold?
On the eve of the new decade, Israel's population stands at 9,136,000 according to data by the Central Bureau of Statistics, as reported by Ynet, up from 7,509,000 in 2009, an increase of 17.8%.Israel's TOP 10 events of 2019.
According to CBS estimations, 6,772,000 Israelis identify as Jews – or 74.1% of the total population - and 1,916,000 as Arabs - 21%.
In 2019, the population grew by 1.9%. A total of 177,000 babies were born, and about 34,000 people immigrated to the country under the Law of Return.
The CBS added that according to its calculation, Israel's population will top 10 million by the end of 2024.
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