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Thursday, November 11, 2021

11/11 Links Pt2: The Sinister Targeting of Israel's Ambassador in London Follows Iran's Agenda; Progressives are harming Palestinians, not Israel

From Ian:

‘I Will Not Be Intimidated’: Israeli Ambassador to UK Evacuated After Event Amid Pro-Palestinian Protest
Hotovely responded to the incident on Wednesday morning, tweeting, “I had an excellent event #LSE and I will not be intimidated. I will continue to share the Israeli story and hold open dialogue with all parts of British society.”

The Israeli Embassy to the UK also responded, saying, “the aggressive actions of protestors yesterday run counter to all principles of justice and tolerance in both our democracies. As we engage with British society, we will continue to overcome extremism and to condemn violence in all forms.

An LSE spokesman said on Wednesday that the university is investigating the students’ threats against Hotovely.

“Free speech and freedom of expression underpins everything we do at LSE. Intimidation or threats of violence are completely unacceptable,” he said, according to the BBC. “We are aware of some threats of violence made on social media around this event. Any LSE students identified as being involved in making such threats will face disciplinary action.”

Senior British officials and Jewish groups roundly condemned the incident, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews urging LSE and the police to discipline any students “who exceeded the bounds of police protest.”

“Huge credit to @IsraelinUK Ambassador @TzipiHotovely for facing down intimidation & for an engaging 90-minute event with students,” the group tweeted. “The bullies will not win.”
Phyllis Chesler: Creative Palestinian Arab terror - now into stifling free speech
The world sees it all but remains indifferent. Some blame the Jewish state for “provoking” such brownshirt-like attacks.

This latest outrage against Ambassador Hotovely was hardly the first time that a mob prevented an Israeli diplomat from speaking. In 2002, in Montreal, at Concordia University, former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was similarly unable to speak; even with 100 police officers, the anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian mob could not be contained or dispersed. (I wrote about this way back in 2003, in The New Anti-Semitism.) A good friend, a Talmudic scholar, and her rabbi-husband were caught up in the melee and beaten.

Yes, beaten. Pummeled. Bruised.

Back in the day, Palestinian Jihadists “merely” hijacked planes, shot up airports and synagogues, and passed resolutions at the United Nations. Then, they turned themselves into human bombs and blew up Israeli buses and their passengers, Israelis in their beds, at their seder tables, in nightclubs, study halls, and on the street. They also rammed cars into civilians and went on stabbing sprees.

Then they took it to the streets of foreign capitals in the West. For about 19 years, such Jew-hating mobs have been smashing windows, beating people, attacking vulnerable individuals, and also preventing pro-Israel speakers from being heard by utilizing mob tactics, not through open debate.

I have been tracking this for a while. Speaking out about it, I’ve also faced some menacing mobs of my own, as well as turned backs, and a lot of friendly fire.

I’m lucky, I’m retired as a Professor. But American academics who are still on the job and who are—who are seen as pro-Israel—are similarly hounded out of their classrooms, jobs, friendships, and futures. Many do not recover. Those who return to their campuses must teach in agonizing, hostile silence.

Israel has creatively “managed” these relentless attacks. What, if anything, have we done about their counterparts in the West? What can we do? What must we do?
Murderer of Holocaust survivor sentenced to life in prison in France
A French court sentenced a man to life in prison for what it termed the antisemitic murder of a Holocaust survivor in Paris in 2018.

The murderer of Mireille Knoll, Yacine Mihoub, will be eligible for parole in 22 years, according to the ruling Wednesday by the Criminal Tribunal of Paris, AFP reported. An accomplice of his, Alex Carrimbacus, was sentenced to 15 years for theft aggravated by a hate crime for their actions in 2018.

The charred body of Mireille Knoll, 85, was discovered in her apartment on March 23, 2018. Knoll, who escaped deportation to a Nazi death camp when French police rounded up Jews in Paris in 1942, was stabbed 11 times before her apartment was set ablaze by the perpetrators.

Mihoub, 29, is a son of Knoll’s neighbor and had known her all his life. He and Carrimbacus, 23, were indicted in May 2020.

In the verdict, the two men’s crimes were found to have been antisemitic because they targeted Knoll out of the belief that robbing and killing her would be lucrative because she is Jewish.

Knoll’s murder provoked an outcry by French Jews, including a protest march through Paris organized by Jewish community leaders in which 10,000 people participated.

Her murder occurred about a year after the slaying of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish physician, by a neighbor who shouted about Allah as he killed her. The killer in that case, Kobili Traore, did not stand trial because a judge found that he was suffering a psychotic episode induced by the consumption of marijuana. That ruling, which ended with Traore being admitted to a psychiatric institution, sparked a wave of protests by French Jews.


Jake Wallis Simons: The Sinister Targeting of Israel's Ambassador in London Follows Iran's Agenda
But look a little closer and you’ll see what I mean. Among the Palestine flags and placards were other, less easily recognisable banners that revealed a more worrying undercurrent: those of groups like Kata’ib Hezbollah, a radical Iraqi Shi’ite paramilitary group funded by – you guessed it – Iran. (You might recall its leader, Any Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was vaporised by an American missile strike in Baghdad last year, alongside his more famous colleague Qasem Soleimani.)

Some of the placards also featured a group called Innovative Minds, a pro-Iran organisation that has carried at least one tribute to a suicide bomber on its website. An article it published referred to a killer who murdered 19 Israelis outside a nightclub as a 'martyr'. Another piece claimed that Israel had no right to exist and should be 'dismantled'. Back in 2016, as the Labour antisemitism scandal raged, John McDonnell caused outrage when he was found to have linked to the group on his blog.

Take a step back, and it’s very clear what’s happening. Students, convinced in the righteousness of their cause, are being utilised by more sinister forces to further the agenda of Iran and its sympathisers. When LSE students chant – as they did last night – 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', they might not mean it in the spirit of Jew-hatred. Sure, it implies the obliteration of Israel. But perhaps they would want it replaced by a binational state that exchanges a Jewish character for a multi-ethnic one. (Jews living as minorities in multiethnic societies, with no national state as a refuge? What could possibly go wrong?). From the point of view of Tehran, however, there is no mistaking the genocidal drive behind the 'Palestine will be free' slogan.

Watch videos of the shameful scenes of the ambassador being hurried out of LSE last night, and the panic among the security guards is obvious. Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador, in London. He was shot in the head and permanently paralysed; the attack triggered the Lebanon war, the repercussions of which are still being felt today, including in Britain.

Given the dominance of 'woke' culture among the younger generation, these kids may end up being the leaders of tomorrow. There is too much at stake to sit back and hope they grow out of it


Brendan O'Neill: Hounding of Israeli Ambassador Was Shameful Mob Behavior
It was the visceral, aggressive vibe at the protest against Tzipi Hotovely at the London School of Economics on Tuesday by a mob of howling students that was most disturbing. A mob calling for the terrorizing of a Jewish woman? Classy. The whole thing seemed to drip with hatred.

They think nothing of visiting fury upon a representative of the Jewish state in a way they wouldn't do for the representative of any other country on Earth. Why is it Israel and Israel alone incites such fury and passion among the protesting set? It makes some of us wonder if something questionable and dark is at play in these orgies of Israel-bashing - if this is more an outburst of prejudice than a display of political displeasure.

It is hard to see Israel constantly being talked up as the most toxic nation on Earth and not contemplate the possibility that for some people the Jewish state now plays the same role the Jews once played. "It is not anti-Semitic to agitate against the policies of the Israeli government," protesters say. And they're absolutely right. But that isn't what is going on here, and it hasn't been for a long time.
Ian Austin: Woke anti-Semitism is now rife on university campuses
What a disgrace it was to see Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely targeted by a mob at the LSE on Tuesday. Congratulations to her for standing her ground and taking part in the meeting, and well done to the police and Community Security Trust, who safeguard Jewish community events, for ensuring it could go ahead.

It is, of course, outrageous that their protection should be needed at all at a university which is supposed to promote the free exchange of ideas and debate, but it is another example of the double standards on display on too many campuses. Why is it that anti-Semitism is treated so differently from any other form of racism?

The protesters insist they do not hate Jews. They say they are good, virtuous Left-wingers campaigning for oppressed Palestinians, but how does threatening an Israeli diplomat or trying to prevent her answering questions in London bring a Palestinian state any closer?

Look closely at the banners and slogans. In amongst the Palestinian flags were placards proclaiming support for Kata’ib Hezbollah, a radical Iraqi paramilitary force funded by the Iranian dictatorship. These are not peaceful campaigners, but hard-line extremists. When they chant, as they did on Tuesday, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, they are not calling for a Palestinian state living alongside Israel in peace – which is what the rest of us campaign for – but for the abolition of the world’s only Jewish state and the Middle East’s only democracy.

The threats on social media were even worse, with student groups tweeting, “Whoever smashes the Ambassador [sic] car window (Lincoln’s Inn Field), gets pints. Let’s f***in frighten her” and posting: “18:25, we’re storming in. Let’s make her shake. F*** the old bill.”


Exposed: Sinister connections of LSE rabble-rousers to pro-Iranian groups
In the immediate aftermath of the anti-Israel protest outside the London School of Economics (LSE) on Tuesday, all eyes were on the viral clip of Tzipi Hotovely being rushed to her car by police and her security detail.

But to truly understand the gravity of what took place, turn to the footage of the protesters. Standing in the centre of the mob was Massoud Shadjareh, the head of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). In an interview last night with Iranian state propaganda channel Press TV, he called Mrs Hotovely a “hate preacher”.

In the past, Mr Shadjareh has said he was “inspired” by Iranian General Qasam Soleimani, the former head of the regime’s brutal Quds Force. And one of the directors of the IHRC, Saied Reza Ameli, even held an official position with the Iranian government.

It was reported in May 2019 that Mr Ameli “became secretary of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution in Iran an official position in the Iranian government”. He was seen speaking at an IHRC conference in February 2018.

Shortly after Qasam Soleimani was assassinated by the US, Mr Shadjareh made a speech in honour of the former head of the elite Iranian Quds Force in which he said: “You are very fortunate to live at a time [when it is possible] to see and to touch and to feel a man like Soleimani. And we hope and we pray and we work hard to make sure that there will be many, many more Qasem Soleimanis.

“We aspire to become like him, we are inspired and we are jealous of his shahadah [martyrdom] and we want the same thing for ourselves and for our loved ones because that’s the best thing that could happen to us.”

At the demonstration outside LSE last night, flags for the Iran-backed, Iraqi Shia paramilitary group Kata’ib Hezbollah — whose leader was killed alongside Mr Soleimani by an American missile last year — were waved behind Mr Shadjareh while he spoke.

In May, Mr Shadjareh appeared alongside a Tehran-based Hamas representative at a panel event for an “International Quds Webinar”.


Honest Reporting: Own Goal: Mob Abuse of Israel’s Ambassador to UK Actually Silenced ‘Palestinian Perspective’
Among them was Palestinian “activist” Mohammed El-Kurd, who retweeted LSE for Palestine’s statement and commented: “Great. There should be no place indeed for Nakba [Arabic for the ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s creation] deniers and anti-Palestinian racists on campus.”

Others chimed in with remarks such as “Excellent statement. Hotovely did not flee. Her speech was not stopped. Police assaulted protestors,” and “Solidarity with [LSE for Palestine] — their protest was an expression of free speech and not a curtailment of it. Hotovely and anyone justifying coloni[z]ation and occupation *should* be uncomfortable.”

In essence, Tuesday night’s demonstrators and their supporters have been in a self-congratulatory mood, believing they achieved a big win for the Palestinian cause.

However, a statement released late on Wednesday from LSE’s debate society shows the protesters actually had the opposite effect and their actions have, instead, directly led to the “silencing” of Palestinian voices.

Why?

What most media outlets have failed to notice is that the follow-up event to Hotovely’s talk, which should have been the “Palestinian perspective” as put forth by Husam Zomlot, who heads the Palestinian diplomatic mission in London, was canceled.

LSE’s debate society wrote on its Facebook page:
We received a phone call from the Palestinian Mission at around 3pm where the ambassador asked us to reschedule since he ‘wishes to return to his alma matter [The LSE] (sic) when there is a healthier environment [for him to speak]’. We wish to emphasise that this was not a decision made by the LSE, LSE SU or the LSE SU Debate Society. We wish to apologise to our community who were excited to attend tomorrow. We look forward to rehosting the Ambassador as soon as possible, and emphasise the event is to our knowledge not permanently cancelled.” [Note: British spellings]

Meanwhile, the mob’s attempts to intimidate Tzipi Hotovely into silence failed. As video evidence will attest to, she was able to deliver a speech to a packed room and take questions and answers from students afterwards.

The only thing the demonstrators outside achieved was stifling free speech from the perspective they claim to support: the Palestinian one.

It was a spectacular own goal.


Stephen Pollard: The frightening scenes outside the LSE were Jew-hate for the sake of it – this mentality on the anniversary of Kristallnacht is shameful
This is not about protesting over Israeli policy. Everyone has the right to peaceful protest. That is why we are a democracy. But just as last night was not about Israel – it was about a Jewish woman – so last night was also not intended to be a peaceful protest. It was an attempt at violent intimidation of a Jew for being a Jew. Social media posts make the aim very clear, with one from @lseclasswar, for example, calling for her car window to be smashed. ‘Let’s f****** frighten her,’ it continued. ‘Let’s make her shake.’

Shameful as this is for the LSE, it is far from alone in inadvertently allowing Jew-hate to fester on campus. Across the UK, Israeli spokespeople are always subject to attack when they appear. But the real problem is not just the relatively small number of visits by official Israeli spokespeople. The fundamental issue is verbal and physical attacks on Jews and Jewish students.

This anti-Jewish campus racism is even institutionalised, with organised hate-fests such as the so-called Israel Apartheid Week, which provides an annual umbrella every March for open and virulent anti-Semitism.

Last night’s events have been rightly condemned by senior politicians. Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi called them ‘deeply disturbing’, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the treatment of Hotolevy was ‘unacceptable’ and Home Secretary Priti Patel said she was ‘disgusted’ by the incident.

But we hear such platitudes every time there is such an incident, and on it goes. This is a government – like its predecessors – which understands these issues and means well. But all too often, those responsible for intimidation on campus – let alone incidents such as last night – are left alone, free from prosecution on grounds of supposed free speech. And we end up with mobs on the streets looking for a Jew.


Progressives are harming Palestinians, not Israel
Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestinian grassroots organization with over 200 chapters across the United States, promotes “a world where everyone’s basic needs are met and their rights respected.” Yet its founders have been linked to organizations such as Hamas, a group that allows ‘honor killings’ – the murder of women guilty of ‘sexual immodesty.’ Under Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip, 51% of women suffer gender-based violence.

The BDS movement, a leading pro-Palestinian organization popular in progressive circles and among some progressive members of Congress, claims to advance “freedom, justice and equality.” Despite this, however, it has well-documented ties to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Yes, that same Hamas allows ‘honor killings’ to run rampant in Gaza. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad also receive funding from Iran, a country that jails women for seeking gender equality.

What Israel’s harshest critics on the Left also fail to realize is that singling out Israel encourages the continuation of objectionable Israeli policies, with disastrous consequences for Palestinians. When progressives throw absurd accusations of “apartheid” or “genocide” at the Jewish state, it simply causes Israelis to dig in their heels and become more insular.

It is no coincidence that the 1975 UN resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism – the brainchild of Soviet propaganda, and a trope increasingly popular in progressive circles – occurred alongside breakthroughs for Israel’s settlement movement. When Israelis are told that their very existence is racist and illegitimate, they build a mental wall and strengthen their own resolve.

Not only does the pursuit of this perverse ideological goal enable the perpetuation of Palestinian extremism, but it silences the many Palestinians who, unlike their supposed progressives ‘allies’ in the West, seek genuine dialogue with Israelis.
Support for critical race theory undermines battle against antisemitism
We already know how these toxic notions are poisoning discourse about Jews and Israel; still, the ADL has neither retracted its defenses of CRT nor ceased its attacks on its opponents.

The reason for that is a familiar one for observers of the ADL. The issue is one in which many Democrats have foolishly doubled down on their support of CRT to the point where the Biden Department of Justice issued a directive seeking to investigate parents protesting about the issue to local school boards as if they were "domestic terrorists." So, as it has throughout Greenblatt's time leading the group, the ADL seems to view honesty about the subject as somehow unhelpful to the Democratic Party. Rather than opposing Attorney General Merrick Garland's outrageous decision, the ADL – once one of the nation's strongest defenders of civil liberties – was silent.

Indeed, when Vice President Kamala Harris was deservedly criticized for praising a student's "truth" when she claimed Israel was the result of "ethnic genocide," not only was the ADL slow to comment on it, it helped her find a way to talk her way out of it by providing her with the keynote speaker's spot in their recent "No Place for Hate" conference. Harris did reverse herself, and in her speech spoke out against the way those who demonize Israel engage in anti-Semitism. But it goes without saying that had she been a Republican and behaved in such an outrageous manner, the ADL would have roasted her as anti-Semite and not just downplayed the incident, giving her a chance to take it back.

The problem of left-wing anti-Semitism isn't simply the question of what some politicians are or aren't saying. It's a woke worldview about white privilege that endangers Jews, which has spread from college campuses to the public square and, astonishingly, become the new orthodoxy for many liberals.

It is precisely the myths about history and the insidious ideas about privilege that are the foundation of the left-wing anti-Semitic hate that Greenblatt has rightly decried. But unless and until the ADL speaks out directly against critical race theory and intersectionality, rather than defending them and attacking those who have sought to curb their influence, it cannot honestly claim to be actually doing a thing about it.
Australian Government Minister Moves to Ban Islamist Group That Shouted ‘Give Us the Necks of the Jews’ at May Rally
An Australian government official has moved to ban an antisemitic Islamist hate group that held a rally where murderous and genocidal hate speech was directed against Jews and Israel, the Australian Jewish News reported Thursday.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) watchdog translated speeches and chants that were caught on video at the rally, which was held in May by the organization Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In the video, the crowd chants “destroy the Jews!” and one speaker rants “Oh Allah, give us the necks of the Jews!”

Another speaker leads a chant of “the army of Muhammad will return!” — a reference to the prophet Muhammad’s ethnic cleansing of the Arabian Jews in the seventh century.

The genocidal slogan “you will see the end of this evil, illegal occupier in Palestine” is also shouted.

NSW police are investigating the group and the event in question, which they believe may have violated laws against incitement.

The Australian Jewish News reported that the New South Wales Multiculturalism Minister Natalie Ward has entered talks with her federal counterpart Alex Hawke in regard to a possible ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Shadow Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism Walt Secord initiated the process when he wrote to Ward, Attorney-General Mark Speakman, and Police Minister David Elliott last month and said “immediate action” was needed against the hate group.
NYC Mayor De Blasio Tells Unilever: ‘Invest in Israel’ to Counter Boycott Movement
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Unilever should demonstrate its opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement by investing in Israel after its subsidiary, Ben & Jerry’s, said it will stop selling its ice cream in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

De Blasio was asked by a Hamodia reporter at a Wednesday press conference about his position on New York divesting from Unilever, after State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced that he would pull the state’s $111 million in equity investments out the conglomerate over Ben & Jerry’s decision.

The mayor believes “there’s a solution still possible that would be better and ideal” than divesting from Unilever, and said the company “should get one more chance to put their money where their mouth is, and announce investments they will make for Israelis and Palestinians, to help move forward the peace process, which really will have a huge economic component.”

If Unilever makes such investments, the mayor said, he would be less inclined to push for city pension funds to divest holdings in the company.

“If we’re going to have peace, it will be, I think, largely through addressing a lot of the underlying economic challenges for everyone in the area. And international companies investing more in Israel is part of the answer,” he explained. “If they make that kind of commitment, I’d be very receptive. If they refuse, then divestment becomes a much more necessary option.”
Nevada Democratic Party Joins ‘Solidarity’ Event With Anti-Semites, Socialists
The Nevada State Democratic Party is partnering with local socialists and anti-Semitic groups for a "solidarity" party.

The official account for the Nevada state party announced Tuesday that it was "excited" to partner with the Las Vegas chapter of Democratic Socialists of America for its annual holiday party, which this year is branded as a "solidarity" event. Another cohost is the group Nevadans for Palestinian Human Rights, which in recent months celebrated terrorists who fight against Israeli "occupation." The two groups in September cohosted a rally to "Globalize the Intifada" that featured the slogan "From Las Vegas to Palestine."

The "solidarity" event comes months after a slate of socialist activists were able to unseat the entire leadership of the state party at its March convention.

Also announced as a cohost for the event is the Sunrise Movement, a radical environmental group that last month came under fire for stating it would no longer work with Jewish groups.

The new leaders of the state party have expressed radical views in the months since. Party chairwoman and former Bernie Sanders delegate Judith Whitmer, for example, has attacked the national leadership of the Democratic Party for supporting Israel during Hamas terrorists' rocket attacks in the Gaza Strip. Whitmer in May said the Biden administration turned "a blind eye to the injustice and violence committed by the Israeli government," a statement that prompted the resignation of a top party official.


Rolling Stone Ignores Anti-Boycott Letter Signed by Top Entertainment Industry Professionals
As CAMERA has noted previously, on May 27, Rolling Stone reporter Daniel Kreps published an article titled “Rage Against the Machine, Serj Tankian, Roger Waters Sign Letter Asking Artists to Boycott Israel.” The article (one of six articles biased against Israel printed in an eleven-day period) quoted extensively from the titular letter, including repeating the false charges of apartheid and war crimes, and names some of the more prominent signers. Kreps did not seem to have reached out to any number of people or organizations in the music and entertainment industry who could have provided a balancing perspective, nor did the article mention Roger Waters’s virulent antisemitism.

Including an opposing point of view, and information about Waters’s well-documented antisemitism, would have been the bare minimum for Kreps to have done at the time.

Since then, more than 200 entertainment industry leaders have signed a letter opposing the cultural boycott of Israel circulated by Creative Community for Peace. The signatories include Warner Records CEO and Co-Chairman Aaron Bay-Schuck, Kiss’s Gene Simmons, singer Lance Bass, Easy Star Records co-founder Michael Goldwasser, and actors Neil Patrick Harris, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Piven, Mayim Bialek, and Dame Helen Mirren.
BBC WS radio airs inarticulate preaching on 'the conscience of Israel'
National Service (Sherut Leumi) is not limited to women or to Jews.
Shabi: “That’s right. So…ehm…women are allowed to do national service that would involve volunteering…ahm…and that’s a very sort of open slate of what that could be and you are seeing more and more people do that. But again it is something that is….[sighs]…because military service is seen as such a necessary part of belonging to Israeli society which – by the way – speaks volumes of the exclusion the Palestinian citizens of Israel would feel partly as a consequence of that. Ahm…but it is so stigmatised still that…ahm…it is just very, very difficult for people to do.”

Listeners were not told that Arab Israelis can – and do – volunteer for military service and are hence only subject to “exclusion” if they chose it.

Henley then appeared to promote the bizarre notion that obligatory military service in a country constantly under threat from terrorist organisations and neighbouring hostile countries is an “anachronism”.
Henley: “Paul Basu – it seems like quite an anachronism from Israel, doesn’t it?”

The anthropologist whose field of expertise is “genealogical heritage tourism and the historical imagination in the Scottish Highland diaspora” proceeded with inarticulate preaching on “the conscience of Israel” and the ‘wrongness’ of Israelis defending their country.
Basu: “Yes, I mean it’s quite hard to believe I think, you know, for many other places in the world that this can really go…go on and, you know, one can only be, you know, full of admiration of these few individuals who actually do stand up…ehm…against what’s, you know, much of the world seems…sees as absolutely, you know, shockingly wrong, you know. Ahm…but that kind of stigma, I mean, that people then…that carries through people’s lives once they’ve done this. So full of admiration and shock that, you know, I mean where is the conscience of Israel in all of this? These people are really standing up and expressing something so powerful.”

Apparently Basu is unaware of – or unconcerned by – the fact that various European countries with threat levels far lower than Israel (including Sweden and Finland) have military conscription, with penalties for those failing to meet that obligation.

To summarise, on October 31st the BBC World Service found fit to widely promote throughout the entire day a radio report featuring a person inaccurately portrayed as a ‘conscientious objector’ despite the fact that she chose to deliberately break the law in her country as part of a political campaign. The BBC’s amplification of a political narrative that portrays service in the IDF as taking part in “the oppression of millions of people who live in the West Bank and Gaza” was not balanced by the provision of any objective factual information.

Moreover, in the edition of ‘Weekend’ highlighted above, listeners around the world heard additional one-sided, inaccurate, uninformed and judgemental comment from a presenter and guests unperturbed by the fact that they were clearly out of their depth on this issue but nevertheless intent on amplifying their own politically motivated talking points.
Polish soccer referee sends antisemitic rant to group fighting antisemitism
Jewish groups in Poland complained after a professional soccer referee ridiculed the work of a group trying to root out antisemitism in the sport.

Lukasz Araszkiewicz, a referee from Poznan, called the work of the Never Again association “hogwash by Jewish centers and milieus.” Never Again, which seeks to curb expressions of racist hatred in soccer, had invited him and others to participate in the group’s activities, the Poznan edition of Gazeta Wyborca on Tuesday reported.

“Jews are not a chosen people despite this everlasting pretense of theirs,” Araszkiewicz replied in an email, “and portraying Poles as antisemites and talking about Polish concentration camps is the biggest Jewish f*****g despicable thing since World War II,” according to Never Again.

Never Again and the American Jewish Committee’s Warsaw office urged FIFA, the world soccer federation, to take disciplinary action against Araszkiewicz, Never Again wrote on Facebook Wednesday.


Acquisitions of Israeli companies reach $9.5b value so far in 2021
The value of acquisitions of Israeli startups and companies so far in 2021 has reached $9.5 billion across 86 deals, nearly double the value of acquisitions in 2020 when the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and up nearly 25 percent from 2019 with $7.7 billion in deals, according to an upcoming report by consultants PwC Israel.

The firm is in the process of analyzing the figures and completing the study, expected sometime in the next few weeks, but The Times of Israel got a glimpse of the initial findings on Wednesday.

“During the process of putting the report together, we noticed this huge pattern,” said Yaron Weizenbluth, partner and head of the high-tech cluster at PwC Israel. “Over the course of 2021, everyone was busy with the amount of IPOs [initial public offerings] and the SPACs [special purpose acquisition companies, which were a preferred alternative route to the public markets for many Israeli companies earlier this year], but we didn’t really notice that we have a tremendous amount of tech exits and this reflects the current trends in the Israeli ecosystem.”

Although there were no huge deals like the 2017 Intel acquisition of Mobileye for $15.3 billion or the 2019 acquisition of Mellanox Technologies by Nvidia, there were still 86 acquisition deals at a value of $9.5 billion, said Weizenbluth. “This figure doesn’t include the IPOs and the SPACs, just pure acquisitions, tech exits,” he added, noting that a majority of the deals were for small- and medium-sized companies and startups.
Israeli Startup Lusha Achieves Unicorn Status With $205 Million Series B at $1.5 Billion Valuation
Israeli startup Lusha announced on Wednesday that it has raised $205 million in Series B funding at a $1.5 billion valuation. Yoni Tserruya, CEO and co-founder of Lusha, confirmed to Calcalist that the round includes a significant secondary element, although stated that most of the funds will still enter the company’s coffers. This is Lusha’s second funding round after raising $40 million in a Series A in February following five years of being bootstrapped.

“We were still bootstrapped one year ago when we understood that we have a big opportunity to surge forward. We have since tripled our revenue growth rate and that is why we required another funding round faster than we thought,” Tserruya explained to Calcalist. “The next stage will be to go public. I’m not sure when that will be, but it will take at least two more years. We are seeing many companies that are going public too early and are facing difficulties in making projections and meeting expectations.”

PSG, a growth equity firm partnering with middle-market software and technology-enabled services companies, led the Series B after also leading the Series A. Additional investment was received by ION Crossover Partners, bringing total investment in the company to $245 million.

Lusha’s biggest rival is ZoomInfo, which has made several acquisitions of Israeli companies and has built up a large R&D center in the country. Lusha was founded by Tserruya together with Assaf Eisenstein in 2016 and it currently employs 200 people in its Tel Aviv and Boston offices. “We will end the year with 240 employees, 20 of them will be based in Boston,” said Tserruya.
New York Times invests in Israeli firm OpenWeb at $1b valuation
The New York Times Company was among a series of investors who participated in a $150 million Series E funding round for Israeli company OpenWeb, the developer of online community engagement and content solutions for publishers and brands worldwide.

The investment was led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners and Canadian investment firm Georgian Partners, valuing OpenWeb at over $1 billion and making it Israel’s newest “unicorn” — a privately held startup valued at over $1 billion — according to the announcement Wednesday. Other investors included US-Israeli venture firm Entrée Capital, Japan’s Dentsu, and Samsung Next, as well as Prof. Scott Galloway, an author and business professor at New York University who has joined OpenWeb’s Board of Directors.

Founded in 2012, OpenWeb says it builds technologies that allow publishers to foster and engage with online communities while maintaining civil discourse, increasing user retention, and reducing toxicity. The company’s software OpenWebOS helps “publishers host the engaging discussions the public is starving for, right beside the stories everyone wants to talk about,” OpenWeb says.

The company works with over 1,000 publishers globally including Hearst, a major media company that owns TV channels and stations such as ESPN and periodicals including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire, as well as Yahoo! and News Corp., owned by the Murdoch family (of Fox News fame).
Israel tech makes Time's list of 100 best inventions of 2021
Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 best inventions of the year, released this week, included a number of Israeli-developed technologies.

Percepto, based in Modi’in, was listed in the Artificial Intelligence category for its software that enables drones and robots to automate inspections, emergency response and security. The company’s solution allows critical infrastructure and industrial facilities to monitor sites remotely and without a human operator to prevent serious failures, respond quickly to disasters, and enable business continuity. The company also makes Sparrow, the most deployed drone-in-a-box solution on the market.

“It is truly an honor to receive this award from Time, a great and respected media brand for nearly a hundred years,” said Percepto CEO Dor Abuhasira. “Percepto created a new paradigm for industrial facility inspection by integrating AI and autonomous robot management with advanced visual data analysis. Being on this list is a testament to this accomplishment, and we thank the editors and staff at Time for this recognition.”

In the transportation category, ElectReon was selected for its system to charge electric vehicles wirelessly using electrical fields generated by coils under the asphalt roads. This reduces the size of batteries required in vehicles, reducing their weight and cost, and enabling an almost unlimited driving range as it obviates the need for infrastructure for charging stations and gas stations.

The company is currently working on various pre-commercial projects in Germany, Italy, Sweden and Israel, and intends to expand to North American markets soon.


Nvidia unveils new partnerships and AI products, some developed in Israel
United States gaming and computer graphics giant Nvidia Corp unveiled a range of new products, some developed in Israel, and partnerships on Tuesday at the annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2021, a bi-annual event that brings together developers, engineers, researchers and investors for discussions and workshops on the latest in artificial intelligence (AI), data science, and machine learning.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang presented the technologies at the online conference held by the firm on Tuesday, building on some of the announcements at the previous GTC event held in April.

The US firm, founded in 1993 by Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem as a graphics chip company, inventing the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), is today a leader in the field of artificial intelligence.

Among the new products unveiled Tuesday was the Nvidia Quantum-2, the next generation of the company’s InfiniBand networking platform developed by its Israeli team.

Nvidia says the platform “offers the extreme performance, broad accessibility and strong security needed by cloud computing providers and supercomputing centers.” Quantum-2 consists of the Nvidia Quantum-2 switch, the ConnectX-7 network adapter, and the BlueField-3 data processing unit, also co-developed in Israel.

“The requirements of today’s supercomputing centers and public clouds are converging,” said Gilad Shainer, Nvidia’s senior vice president of high-performance computing. “They must provide the greatest performance possible for next-generation HPC [high-performance computing], AI and data analytics challenges, while also securely isolating workloads and responding to varying demands of user traffic. This vision of the modern data center is now real with Nvidia Quantum-2 InfiniBand.”

Huang said Quantum-2 was “the most advanced networking platform ever built,” and the first “to offer the performance of a supercomputer and the shareability of cloud computing.”
Nick Cave's Israel show rescheduled for next summer
Australian cult superstar Nick Cave and his band The Bad Seeds seem to be headed for Israel after all.

Promoter Shuki Weiss announced Wednesday that Cave would be performing on August 23 at Live Park Rishon Lezion.

Cave had originally been slated to perform this year at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv, but that show, along with Cave’s entire 60-plus-show world tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Due to the change in schedule and the new date in August, the concert won’t take place at Bloomfield Stadium, and instead it will be at Live Park Rishon Lezion, which offers the audience seated and standing seats,” a statement put out by Weiss’s office said.

People who had purchased a ticket to this year’s show and have a voucher will receive an email explaining how to convert it into a ticket for next summer’s show.


Largest US Documentary Festival Features Six Films With Jewish, Israel Focus
Six films that center on Israel or Jewish-related topics will be screened at America’s largest documentary festival, DOC NYC, beginning Wednesday.

“Three Minutes: A Lengthening,” which made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, is a 69-minute documentary that focuses on three minutes of a color home video that is believed to be the only footage left of the predominately Jewish village of Nasielsk, Poland, before the Holocaust.

Also being screened is “Charm Circle,” in which Jewish director Nira Burstein revisits her childhood home in Queens, New York, as she “attempts to bridge the fractured relationships” between herself, her parents and her two sisters. The 79-minute documentary includes home videos from Burstein’s family.

DOC NYC will additionally feature the US premiere of the Hebrew and French-language documentary “The Forgotten Ones,” by French-Israeli director Michale Boganim. The film highlights the discrimination Jews from North African and Arab countries faced in Israel when they arrived in the Jewish state in the 1950s and ’60s.
Evading Hitler and Winning the Silver Star: A Jewish Veteran’s Day Story
Bronx native Harry Zeller was headed to medical school in Vienna in 1933, because he couldn’t get into one in America. Being Jewish was an obvious disadvantage at the time. Despite his excellent grades at City College of New York, medical school quotas made it extremely difficult for Jews to get in.

On the ship to Vienna, Harry — who was my uncle — got a telegram from his mother. Adolf Hitler had just become chancellor of Germany. It wasn’t a particularly good time to be Jewish in neighboring Austria.

His mother’s telegram said that he needed to get off the boat. Harry disembarked when the ship reached England, and planned to figure out his next move.

He somehow obtained a seat at a medical school in Scotland, and upon graduation, he wore a full Scottish nobleman’s outfit, complete with kilt and tall fur hat. Then he traveled back to the US and enlisted in the army before Pearl Harbor.

In October 1943, Captain Zeller was sent overseas to England as a medical corpsman and field surgeon, as part of the preparation for the invasion of France. Harry wrote letters to his family at least once a week — sometimes more when conditions permitted.

Unknown to me until recently, Harry’s family kept all his letters from the war. Once I found out about them, I read through them all.

Captain Zeller sent a letter home from France on November 23, 1944, where he commented on German morale: “Their faith in Hitler is comparable to a religion, and they don’t know when they’re licked.”







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