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Wednesday, August 16, 2023

08/16 Links Pt2: The West’s Long Demonization of Israel; Palestine and the Holocaust: What If?; More Unicorns Founded by TAU Graduates than Oxford

From Ian:

The West’s Long Demonization of Israel
The Western media’s reporting on Israel has been equally unfair, if not malevolent. For example, the corporate media regularly report casualty figures from Israeli defensive operations to stop terrorist violence against their civilians. The coverage always suggests that a “disproportionate” number of Palestinian Arabs have died compared to Israeli casualties––with the implication that the latter are needlessly callous and brutal with no regard for Arab lives, while ignoring the difficult conditions of fighting terrorists who willfully target civilians and sacrifice their own people as human shields

But as Alan Dershowitz explained in his 2003 The Case for Israel, the media rarely discriminate between combatant and non-combatant deaths. Reporting on the Second Intifada in September 2000, the media said that through the end of November, 2497 Palestinians had died compared to 874 Israelis. But according to a statistical analysis by the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism (www.ict.org.il), 911 Palestinian non-combatants had died compared to 679 Israeli: that is, 27% of Palestinian deaths were non-combatants, whereas 77% of Israeli dead were.

Equally preposterous is the specious excuse that Arab terrorist violence is an understandable reaction to the creation of Israel and its alleged subsequent “ethnic cleansing” of “Palestinians” from their “homeland.” Dershowitz surveys the history of Arab assaults and terrorism against Jews decades before Israel existed––including the massacre of 60 Jewish women, children, and other unarmed civilians in Hebron in 1929; and the chronic cross-border raids that murdered thousands of Jews before 1948, to name just a few. Such violence has continued down to the present, committed by terrorist armed not just with bombs, cars, knives, and guns, but with multiple thousands of missiles.

Dershowitz rightly concludes that even taking into account the rare Jewish terrorist attacks, the conflict is remarkable not for Israeli callous indifference to civilian casualties, but for its restraint in the face of a century of attacks on its people by those willing to hide in ambulances, use mosques for armories, sacrifice their own families, indoctrinate their children in Jew-hatred, and dress up as women in order to kill Jews. Indeed, the specious charge of “genocide” regularly made against Israel more accurately describes the incessant, publicly sanctioned, and celebrated attempts to destroy the Israelis.

A typical example of Israeli restraint is its incursion into Jenin in April 2002 after hundreds of suicide bombings. As Dershowitz points out, Israel did not bomb from the air, thereby killing civilians along with combatants. Rather, infantrymen entered the city on foot, searching house by house for terrorists and bomb-making factories. The cost? Fifty-two Palestinians, many of them combatants, were killed, while 23 Israeli soldiers died––a tally that could have been reduced to zero if Israel had simply bombed from the air, as the Allies did in World War II.

Yet the head of the United Nations Relief Agency at the time, Peter Hansen, a long-time shill for terrorists, characterized this restraint that led to those 23 dead as a “human rights catastrophe that has few parallels in recent history.” To this day, the “Jenin massacre” is a staple of Palestinian propaganda like the “documentary” Jenin, Jenin.

The fact is, as Dershowitz shows in his discussion of the remarkable restrictions Israeli forces operate under, no other nation in history before the post-9/11 wars against terrorism has fought against vicious murderers while operating under similar self-imposed restraints. Yet this willingness to risk its own people to reduce non-combatant deaths is ignored, or worse, in Orwellian Newspeak transformed into “massacres” and “genocide.”

For Biden, like his former boss Barack Obama, along with anti-Semitic members of Congress, to demonize with lies our critical ally is a stain on this country’s honor. It took the “racist” and “fascist” Donald Trump to push back against this sorry tradition of Israel-bashing. He cut off funding to the United Nations Relief Works Agency, a long-time apologist for terrorist violence, and a UN hotbed of anti-Americanism. He moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the strategically critical Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory, and brokered peace-deals between Israel and several Arab states. The Biden administration undid much of this progress, and the result has been the worst violence in decades.
Palestine and the Holocaust: What If?
In 1903 — 120 years ago, and well before the Nazis existed — a devastating pogrom took place in Kishenev (today Chişinău, Moldava) over two days, during Easter. The pogrom, sparked by the antisemitic libel accusing Jews of using the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes, resulted in 49 Jewish deaths, hundreds injured, and hundreds of women raped. This was not the first nor the last of the pogroms. But it was one of the first of the 20th century, it received worldwide publicity, and it led to the emigration of thousands of Russian Jews, including 40,000 that went to Palestine.

In 1936, as a result of violence between Palestinian Jews and Arabs, instigated by the Arab leadership to force the curtailment of Jewish immigration to Palestine, the British government created the Peel Commission. The Commission’s report, a 400 page document available online, is a remarkably detailed analysis of the situation in Palestine at that time.

In 1936, the population of Palestine consisted of 400,000 Jews and 900,000 Arabs. The Commission judged that the gulf between the two populations was too wide to bridge, and recommended that Palestine be partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish state, constituting only 17 percent of Palestine, would include a coastal strip from Rehovot and Tel Aviv northwards, as well as the Galilee. The Arab state would make up 75 percent of the total; the remaining 8 percent, mainly Jerusalem and surrounding areas, would continue to be governed by Britain.

Prior to World War I, the Near East was under the thumb of the Ottoman Turks and there were no independent Arab states. The Turkish defeat by the British liberated about one million square miles of Arab land. The Peel partition plan would have allocated about 0.2 % to the Jews.

But this was too much for the Arabs in Palestine. They rejected the proposed partition outright. The Arab leadership boycotted the Commission’s deliberations, although they did participate in the final sessions. The partition plan was discussed and debated at the 20th World Zionist Congress and reluctantly accepted. According to “A History of Zionism,” 1972, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion argued in favor of accepting the plan, with reservations.

But the British were not willing force the Palestinian Arabs to acquiesce, and the Peel Commission Partition Plan was quietly shelved. Britain imposed a severe limit on Jewish immigration at a time of greatest Jewish desperation

How many Jewish lives might have been saved if a small Jewish state existed in 1937? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Would such an influx have had a negative effect on the Arab demographic in Palestine as a whole?

This would have been the right thing to do. Instead, Palestinian opposition to a small Jewish state likely helped ensure that countless Jews could not escape the horrors of the Holocaust.
Is The Foreign Press Too Easy On Israel?
Bibi And The “Easy” Foreign Press
Since coming back to power on December 29, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given 22 interviews to the foreign press and only four to Israeli media outlets, including the English language Jerusalem Post.

The explanation given by his media adviser Topaz Luk is “The American media lets you speak. You start a sentence and finish it.”

Netanyahu’s critics, on the other hand, accuse him of speaking to the foreign press to bypass the Israeli media.

“By giving interviews about domestic issues overseas, Netanyahu can often get away with inaccuracies, and sometimes even alternative facts, Haaretz diplomatic reporter Jonathan Lis wrote.

In a podcast last week, former Netanyahu spokesman Aviv Bushinsky said “It’s the easiest for Netanyahu in foreign media because they don’t ask tough questions.”

Veteran Yediot Aharonot diplomatic correspondent Itamar Eichner went further, writing that “[Netanyahu’s] interviews on international outlets allow him to avoid hard questions primarily because the interviewers often lack knowledge of Israeli law and familiarity with recent events, and they have little interest in questions about matters critical to Israelis such as the rising cost of living.”

HonestReporting stays out of politics. We don’t defend or justify policies or decisions of the current Israeli government – or any government. Not even its media strategy.

But our expertise with coverage of Israel by the foreign media enables us to analyze those claims with perspective.

So Is The Foreign Media Making It Easy On Bibi?
Most of the international journalists who’ve interviewed the prime minister are knowledgeable about Israel and cannot be manipulated. He gave interviews to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, NBC’s Raf Sanchez and Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua, none of whom made it easy on him.

Netanyahu was also interviewed by Fox’s Mark Levin, who praised him and Israel throughout the interview, mocked the prime minister’s critics and was not tough at all. Why Does It Matter?

Perception matters. Nowhere is that more true than for Israel and Israeli leaders. When the foreign press so often spins a narrative about Israel that is blatantly dishonest, its leaders should be allowed to respond by making Israel’s case.

The foreign press is far from easy on Israel, and that is why the media monitoring of HonestReporting is so critical for Israel’s future.

So long as events in Israel continue to have an outsized impact on international media, the world’s top journalists should be engaging with and holding those Israeli leaders accountable. And, HonestReporting will be there every step of the way to hold the international media accountable.


DansDeals Interview With The “Haredi” Accused Of Discrimination On United; Israeli Journalist Invented A False Narrative
Nigel politely asked Neria if she would trade 47F for 47C, an aisle for an aisle, so his son could sit next to his friend in 47E.

Initially she said no problem, she would happy to do so once boarding concluded.

But then Nigel removed his baseball cap, revealing his yarmulka underneath, and Neria started shouting about discrimination upon the realization that he was religious. She screamed at him asking why she had to trade just because she’s a woman and acted completely out of control, despite the request having nothing to do with her being a woman.

He responded calmly that all he asked was if she was willing to trade and that she obviously didn’t have to move if she didn’t want to.

However, other people around heard her shouting about discrimination and made the scene ever bigger.

The flight attendant heard Neria making a scene and came and told her that if you’re going to cause problems, fighting and shouting about discrimination, we’ll cancel the flight.

Nigel told the flight attendant there is no fight as far as he’s concerned.

However, there was still a scene around them and Neria continued shouting.

The Tel Aviv ground staff then came onto the plane and asked if she would be able to continue to Newark without causing a scene. They told her that even if plane takes off, if you continue to cause a commotion, we’ll stop in Egypt to deboard you.

Neria was livid. She started taking pictures of Nigel and Tweeting angrily about United not siding with her and threatening her with removal.

She stopped making a commotion at that point and Nigel asked her why you don’t like hardeim, which made her quite defensive. But that was the end of the drama for the rest of the flight.
The Consequences of the AAA Boycott
Several of the AAA’s avowed prohibitions combine personal and institutional harms: “Being listed in AAA’s published materials, including AAA’s AnthroGuide to Departments,” “Participating in the AAA Departmental Services Program,” and “Participating in joint conferences or events with AAA and its sections.” It is as if Israeli universities, their students, and their faculty suddenly cease to exist, erased from disciplinary identity and recognition. As the AAA resolution declares, Israel now has only one identity, that of an outlaw Apartheid regime. That designation, first affixed by anti-Israel propagandists, and now used by the AAA to demonize Israel in its entirety, remains objectionable for many of us. The AAA seeks to isolate all Israeli universities from the worldwide community of academics. Their isolation is cemented with the last two especially petty prohibitions, against “Advertising on AAA publications, websites, and other communications channels, including the AAA Career Center” and against “Republishing and reprinting articles from AAA publications in journals and publications owned by Israeli institutions,” though those will eventually accumulate a record of individual harm as well.

This effort to cast a group of universities exemplary in their commitment to academic freedom out of the academic community is without precedent and without warrant. It is itself a definitive violation of academic freedom. Universities in Europe and the Americas are themselves in violation of academic freedom for every week that they allow their departmental and institutional AAA memberships to stand.

Adding philosophical insult to personal injury, the AAA president declares that the actions above will “increase dialogue about how archeology is used in political arguments” (https://ift.tt/FrS3K5Y). But perhaps instead there will be further debate about how anthropology should not be politically instrumentalized. In any case, Israelis and Zionists worldwide will not feel welcome in those discussions. The AAA board generously assures us that Israeli libraries can still subscribe to AAA journals. And Israelis can still attend AAA conferences, though how many of them would wish to when their institutional homes are ostracized and disparaged remains to be seen. But the AAA will still accept payments from Israel and from Jews of all persuasions. Not everyone will be comforted.

Opponents of academic boycotts have long recognized that they impede the free exchange of ideas and research results between academic disciplines and across international borders. The AAA has now provided clear evidence of how they will also block educational and research opportunities for individual students and faculty. Universities must not help this destructive agenda go forward.
BDS pressures social workers to ignore Arab and Muslim antisemitism
Social work as a profession stands for universal social justice and human rights. Yet it is increasingly being pressured by representatives of the extremist Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to privilege the national and human rights of one people (i.e. Arabs) over those of another people (Jews). Professor Philip Mendes of Monash University, Australia, exposes a disturbing trend:

The 2022 UK-Palestine Social Work Network statement, which was co-signed by about 12 Palestinian organisations including at least two founding affiliates of the BDS movement (BDS 2005), attacked the British Association of Social Workers for approving what they labelled the ‘biased’ IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. They argued that this alignment had instead distorted a legitimate struggle against anti-Semitism into an endorsement of the ‘oppression of the Palestinians, the denial of their rights and the continued occupation of their land’. In short, they constructed a hierarchy of oppression, arguing that support for Palestinian claims of violation of human and national rights by Israel had to take precedence over any concerns about anti-Semitism in Britain (Palestine-UK Social Work Network 2022).

The above statement was highly contentious for a range of reasons.

Firstly, the Palestinian groups, acting without any authority from a representative Jewish community or group, arrogantly asserted a right to speak on behalf of the experiences of oppressed Jews.

Secondly, contrary to all available evidence, they claimed that Jews were only a religious group, that most Jews were not Zionists, Israel was not the fulfilment of Jewish national self-determination, and that the destruction of the existing State of Israel would cause no harm to Jews.

Thirdly, they essentialised all Israeli Jews including particularly Israeli social workers as bad oppressors who acted contrary to social work ethics and values.

Most notably, the statement failed to acknowledge or condemn the long history of anti-Semitism emanating from Arab peoples including the Palestinians.

There were arguably three relevant examples of historical and contemporary Arab anti-Semitism that the Palestinian statement could and should have specifically presented in order to educate their community of Palestinian and Arab social workers to speak out against anti-Semitism.
In Brazil, pro-Palestinian protest leads to injury and arrest at pro-Israel speaker’s university lecture
Pro-Palestinian protesters injured a university employee while demonstrating against a lecture speaker who heads the Brazilian chapter of a pro-Israel advocacy group.

Andre Lajst, the director of StandWithUs Brazil, was speaking about ways that Israeli technologies could help develop the Amazon region at the Federal University of Amazonas in Manaus on Thursday when protesters clashed with security and other university employees outside the lecture auditorium.

According to news reports, the advisor to the university’s rector left the scene with a broken nose after attempting to safeguard her daughter. Several students entering the lecture were also harassed, and police officers escorted Lajst into and out of the venue. One protester was reportedly arrested for pushing a police officer but later released.

“The tight security was commensurate with the widespread slander and slurs about me and about Israel,” Lajst later wrote in a social media post. “The extremism of a minority does not represent the university and the students.”

Protesters called Lajst, a Brazilian-born Jew who served in the Israeli air force from 2011-2013, a “defender of Israel’s apartheid regime.” The Arab-Palestinian Federation of Brazil had written before the event that “the university cannot be a stage to defend an apartheid regime.”

Lajst, a grandson of Polish Holocaust survivors, said the university’s Central Student Directory also called him a “Nazi” on their website.

“There is no worse offense for me,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.


Film Critic-Cum-Golden Globe Actress Howaida Hamdy in English Vs. Arabic
Significantly, Hamdy’s extremism is not limited to her 2022 Arabic praise for terrorism. In a Sept. 1, 2013 X (then Twitter) exchange about the film “World War Z,” she started out relatively moderately, “merely” denigrating Israel and its citizens as inherently hateful: “What is important is that this time, the film is presenting Israel and its citizens as the embodiment of nobility, humanism and sacrifice – a repulsive thing.”

She subsequently expanded her target range, attacking American Jews: “Hollywood is the Zionists’ stronghold anyhow, with most films oriented [in the Zionist direction] and biased.” (Screenshot at left.) The allegation that Jews control Hollywood is classic antisemitism. Indeed, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s antisemitism definition, adopted by dozens of Western governments, includes:
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

Hamdy’s antipathy of Jews drives her to some strange conclusions, such as her Sept. 6, 2013 statement that Islamic terrorism is a Zionist-American conspiracy:
Behind every Islamist-terrorist there is a Zionist-American planner who wiggles him. Removing the Islamists will not eliminate terrorism, the Islamists are just an instrument.

Then there’s her denial of Jerusalem’s Jewish history. Responding to a 2018 tweet from Israel’s official Arabic account announcing the finding of a 2,000-year-old ring near Jerusalem’s Old City and its possible connection to the Jewish pilgrims who visited the Temple at the time, the film critic fabricated: “They [Jews] have nothing there, it is the alleged Israel – [rhetorically] how old is it exactly?”

As for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the founder of the Golden Globe Award, this is not the organization’s first encounter with a member tainted by antisemitism. More than a decade ago, the same HFPA threatened to discontinue the membership of another correspondent, Husam Asi, for writing for the antisemitic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi. Although his membership was eventually spared reportedly on the grounds that al-Quds al-Arabi’s professional level was “no different […] than Haaretz’s,” by 2022 Asi was expelled from the HFPA due to alleged sexual misconduct.

What corrective measures will the association take in Hamdy’s case?
BBC News silent on PA political upheaval
Dr Michael Milshtein of Reichman University noted that most of most of the fired governors in the PA controlled areas are seen as loyal to Jibril Rajoub – one of the would-be successors to Mahmoud Abbas – and that the move could be linked to the long-running question of who will replace him as PA president.

MEMRI’s analysts connected the move to the PA’s attempts to assure foreign parties that it is reasserting its presence over the areas supposedly under its control.

“First, it is increasing the visibility of its leaders in the West Bank, especially in its northern part, reinforcing its security apparatuses there and highlighting its concern for the citizens in the media. Furthermore, in the recent days President ‘Abbas took a dramatic and surprising measure when he issued a presidential decree “sending to retirement” most of the district governors in the West Bank, apparently due to their failure to curb the terror organization in their districts. In addition, it is carrying out an extensive wave of arrests against armed operatives from various factions, and is reportedly even offering them jobs in the PA apparatuses in return for laying down their arms. At the same time, it continues to express public support for the local armed fighters and their struggle against Israel, so as to maintain its popularity with the locals and the legitimacy of its rule and avoid being perceived as collaborating with Israel.” [emphasis added]

As regular readers will be aware, the BBC’s coverage of the rise in terrorism from PA controlled areas over the past two years has provided its audiences with very little information about the relevant topic of the Palestinian Authority’s loss of control in some areas, its failure to meet its Oslo Accords obligations to combat terrorism, internal political turmoil and the involvement of members of the PA security forces in terrorism and armed attacks.

Whatever the reasons behind – and implications of – this surprise move by Abbas, it is clear that it is a significant event in Palestinian Authority internal politics. Nevertheless, BBC audiences have yet to see any mention of the story whatsoever.
The Telegraph legitimises Nazi analogy
First, let’s remember that, consistent with the 1997 Hebron agreement signed by the Palestinian Authority, the PA provides security to the Palestinian section of the city (H2), where over 250,000 Palestinians live, while the IDF secures the Jewish section (H1), where roughly 1,000 Jews live.

Palestinians, as CAMERA has documented previously, are largely free to travel between the two parts of the city, which means that Palestinians have access to 97% of the city – the exceptions being small parts of Jewish Hebron, such as Shuhada Street. By way of contrast, Jews are forbidden from entering Palestinian Hebron, which means that Jews have access to just 3% of the city.

While propaganda suggesting that this is an example of Israeli apartheid is, in itself, not only inaccurate, but arguably the opposite of the truth, given that Jews are the ones being denied access to most of the historic Jewish city, the suggestion that what’s occurring there is “just like what happened in Germany” is deranged.

The story is even more ludicrous given that – as the article itself notes – Levin, in 2017, claimed Palestinians “deserved” to be occupied, a sign that the retired general did an ideological 180 – which the Telegraph reporter describes merely as a “change of heart”.

Though it shouldn’t be necessary, let’s also remind the Telegraph that the Nazis didn’t simply subject Jews to restrictions on access to a few streets in Berlin, but to a historically unprecedented system of industrialised mass murder that resulted in the death of two out of every three Jews on the continent.

As the late Manfred Gerstenfeld wrote, “Holocaust [analogies] attempt to delegitimize Israel by associating it with the epitome of evil and criminal behavior, Nazi Germany”. Thus, efforts to destroy the Jewish state can be seen not only as justifiable, but as something of an ethical imperative.

The stray utterings of one retired general don’t render such analogies any less intellectually unserious, or the legitimisation of such libels less morally reprehensible.
The AP Skews Reality in Piece on West Bank Violence
The AP: Legitimizing Palestinian Terrorism?
Near the end of this piece, the AP writes in regard to Palestinian terror attacks, “The Palestinians see the violence as a natural response to 56 years of occupation, including stepped-up settlement construction by Israel’s government and increased violence by Jewish settlers.”

By uncritically citing the Palestinian justification for terrorism, the AP is essentially legitimizing it in the eyes of its readers.

Over the past year, terror attacks targeting Israeli civilians have taken place outside a Jerusalem synagogue, on busy Tel Aviv streets, at bustling restaurants in the communities of Eli and Maaleh Adumim and on Jordan Valley highways.

For the AP, does the “occupation,” the building of settlements or settler violence justify these indiscriminate and deadly attacks?

Is Israel Solely Responsible for “Fueling Tensions”?
According to the AP, Israeli counter-terror raids in the West Bank are “fueling tensions in the region and sending the death toll soaring.”

Despite the article mentioning ongoing Palestinian terrorism and an “uptick” in the firing of West Bank-based rockets, only Israel is accused of “fueling tensions in the region.”

It appears that for the AP, Palestinian violence and terrorism seemingly have no effect on the deterioration of the situation in the region while Israel’s efforts to protect its civilians and put a stop to anti-Israel terror attacks are solely responsible for exacerbating the regional discord.

Such a framing of the situation is not only dangerously misleading, it also rewards those who provoke violence while punishing those who are trying to put a stop to it.

By burying the lede, failing to report the full story and downplaying Palestinian terrorism, the Associated Press has neglected to maintain its journalistic integrity and has also done a disservice to the many readers who turn to it for a comprehensive account of what is happening in Israel and the West Bank.


The Twin Children of the Holocaust
Review of a book on the meeting of twin survivors, subjected to appalling experiments, with a psychologist who wants the world to remember.

As soon as the Jews arrived by train at the Auschwitz/ Birkenau extermination camp, the selection process began. Twins were commanded to identify themselves. They were the special project of Josef Mengele, who had a PhD in physical anthropology and an MD degree. His “hobby was twins,” explained Gisella Perl, a Hungarian Jewish gynecologist deported to Auschwitz in 1944. “His ambition was to multiply the Herrenvolk [the master race] and to give to the German people the greatest manpower through twins. He performed the most execrable research on adult twins and now he had the source of the secret—the newborn twins [ born at Auschwitz]. He acted like a scientist who, after much tiring and exhausting research, had at last reached his goal and discovered the heretofore hidden approach to the secret.”

The “Angel of Death,” as he was known by the prisoners, directed the selection process, during which he arbitrarily decided “with the power of his index finger” who shall live and who should be sent to the gas chambers. “He was far and away the chief provider for the gas chamber and the crematory ovens,” explained Olga Lengyel, a Hungarian Jewish prisoner at the camp. “He was a specialist at the ‘selections.’” He “was the tyrant from whose decisions there was no appeal.” He “profaned the very word ‘science.’”

With a considerable number of inmates at his disposal and no ethical restraints, Mengele was free to conduct his “satanic” experiments unhindered on twins and others “with genetic anomalies.” Giselle Perl said this included approximately 40 Polish and Hungarian Jewish midgets, some of whom lived with their entire families, which were held in a separate barracks. Mengele did not work alone. He forced “highly skilled” inmate physicians to “design and conduct research, perform tests and autopsies, and produce research papers, without the need to share credit with them,” notes historian Henry Friedlander.

It is against this background that Nancy L. Segal, an evolutionary psychologist and behavioral geneticist, specializing in the study of twins, decided to meet with the twin survivors at the 40th anniversary reunion held at Auschwitz/Birkenau (January 27-January 30, 1985). She believes there is “universal meaning for those who care deeply about the injustices and cruelties done to innocent children.” She points out that between the Spring of 1943 and January 1945, several hundred twins were subjected to appalling medical experiments.
Italian Jewish leader says new $67 million Holocaust reparations fund ‘is a joke’
The Italian government has agreed to pay Holocaust reparations on behalf of Germany in July via a newly established fund, drawing a mixed reaction from the country’s Jews.

The fund was approved by the government of former prime minister Mario Draghi in April 2022, after a legal battle in the UN’s top court between Germany and Italy over continued civil claims against Germany for Nazi war crimes.

Last month, the fund was officially allocated 61 million euros (roughly $67 million), which will be made available incrementally over the coming years through 2026. The money is earmarked to compensate victims of Nazi crimes including Jews, Roma, and political prisoners.

Bice Parodi, the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor who lost her entire family in the Holocaust, was quick to file a claim with the fund.

“My sister and I sued as a matter of principle,” Parodi told The Times of Israel. “The Italians have never really come to terms with the past. In Germany, there was the Nuremberg trial, but in Italy, after the liberation, there was no in-depth reflection on what had happened during fascism.”

Parodi said that her now-deceased mother, Piera Sonnino, was a writer who worked to educate about the Holocaust. Sonnino received a stipend as a result of the 1961 Bonn Accords which saw Germany pay Italy the equivalent of 1.5 billion euros ($1.65 billion) in today’s money, said Parodi. But, she said, she and her sister are making the additional claim to “spread greater awareness among Italians.”
Attacks on Berlin Holocaust Memorials May Be Work of Serial Far-Right Offender, Report Says
A spate of antisemitic and homophobic acts of vandalism in Berlin may be the work of a serial right-wing offender, according to an investigation by the German daily news outlet Die Tageszeitung.

The newspaper’s investigation was prompted by a third act of vandalism reported early on Monday morning at a lesbian community center in Berlin’s Neukölln district. Witnesses reported seeing a damaged shop window, and police discovered the charred remains of leaflets and brochures when they arrived at the center.

The latest attack comes on the heels of two acts of arson over the weekend, with one targeting the memorial to the more than 10,000 Jews deported from Gleis 17 (“Platform 17”) at Berlin’s Grunewald station to Nazi concentration camps, and the other the memorial to LGBT victims of the Nazis in Berlin’s Tiergarten park. Both attacks are being investigated by state security as hate crimes.

However, according to Die Tageszeitung, the attacks may be the work of one person who is possibly responsible for several similar outrages. In a report on Tuesday, the newspaper observed that at the scene of all the offenses, police officers discovered “notes or graffiti with a similar pattern of antisemitic annihilation fantasies.”

All the notes bore the same signature, the paper reported: the name “Kassandros,” with “Berolinensis” sometimes added as well.
NYPD Searching for Suspected Antisemitic Vandal Wanted for Targeting Jewish Sites
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is searching for a man suspected of vandalizing multiple Jewish targets and attempting to force his way into a synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

An individual believed to be a Black male on Monday defaced with graffiti and attempted to forcibly enter Temple Shaaray Tefila. According to sources familiar with the situation, the same man also went to an ambulance zone of Hatzalah, a Jewish volunteer emergency medical service, located near another synagogue, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, and confronted a worker there. Multiple vehicles were also defaced with graffiti, including one with the words “Drop Dead.”

The incident occurred two days after an individual scrawled antisemitic graffiti on an electronic message sign on the property of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. It’s unclear if the same man was behind this incident as well, although descriptions of the suspect appear to match in each case.

The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is looking into what appears to be a string of antisemitic incidents in Manhattan.

According to the executive director of the Community Security Initiative (CSI), a nonprofit that provides security to synagogues and Jewish organizations across New York City, these latest incidents are part of a broader nationwide surge in antisemitism.
Abraham Accords empower tech women's growth
Women in tech companies all over the world often face the broken-rung problem—the struggle to break through to managerial positions from lower-level jobs. Despite modest gains in representation over the last few years, women, especially women of color, are still dramatically underrepresented in the corporate workforce. This dynamic is especially true in senior leadership: Only one in four C-suite leaders is a woman, and only one in 20 is a woman of color.

In 2020, Israel created FemForward, the country’s first junior-to-manager program designed to address the broken-rung problem. The same year, the Abraham Accords were signed, establishing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, soon followed by Morocco. In May of this year, the first FemForward MENA cohort was launched in Morocco, aiming to build business connections between women in the Abraham Accords countries. This culminated in a bilateral Israel-Morocco summit held in Jerusalem this month, with 23 women from both countries’ tech sectors taking part, including the two of us.

In addition to shaping our two countries, the Abraham Accords have also had a direct impact on us personally, by introducing us to each other and providing a cohort with whom to grow in our careers.

As a Moroccan woman, Milouda has been empowered by FemForward to seek a more significant role in the male-dominated tech world. She is leaving the program more determined than ever to make her voice heard.

As an Israeli woman, Katrin has had her eyes opened to the similarities in the challenges faced by women in workplaces around the world, including their similar struggles with the fear of asserting themselves to demand deserved promotions.
3 Israeli universities rank among world's top 100
Three Israeli universities were recognized among the world's top 100, according to the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) released on Tuesday by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.

Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot ranked 67th, compared to 83rd place last year. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa placed 78th, while the Hebrew University of Jerusalem dropped to the 85th position from 77th in 2022. Harvard University topped the ranking list for the 21st year in a row. It is followed by two other US universities – Stanford and MIT.

England's Cambridge ranked fourth, followed by the University of California, Berkeley. Other institutions in the top 10 are Princeton, Oxford, Columbia, Caltech and University of Chicago.

The US is leading in the prestigious ranking with a total of 38 American universities making it to the top 100 this year.


"More Unicorns Founded by TAU Graduates than Oxford"
A new study from Stanford University ranks Tel Aviv University first in Israel and first in the world outside the US in the number of unicorns (privately held startup companies valued at over $1 billion) established by its alumni.

According to the study, conducted by entrepreneurship researcher Prof. Ilya Strebulaev from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (this is his post on Linked In), Stanford University is first in the world in the number of unicorns founded by its alumni, and Tel Aviv University is first outside of the US, with 43 unicorns (Oxford in the UK only has 33). The ranking, counting the total number of unicorns regardless of each university’s size, is based on a dataset of 1,100 startups that have raised over $1 billion from venture capital funds in the US.

Moscow-born Ilya A. Strebulaev, 48, is a financial economist, researcher, author, and speaker with expertise in venture capital, startups, and corporate innovation. He has been a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business since 2004. From 2018 to 2022, he was on the board of directors of Yandex, the Russian equivalent of Google.

“Prof. Strebulaev’s findings prove once again that TAU is Israel’s entrepreneurial university, nurturing more startups, and specifically more unicorns, than any other university in the country,” says Prof. Moshe Zviran, Chief Entrepreneurship & Innovation Officer at TAU, and former Dean of the Coller School of Management.

“We have attained this status because we serve as home to the best students in a wide range of disciplines, and also because in recent years, under the leadership and vision of Prof. Ariel Porat, President of TAU, we have become proactive in the entrepreneurship and innovation arenas. We no longer wait for the ‘magic’ to occur. We incorporate entrepreneurship into the curriculum – in the classic disciplines like Computer Science, Engineering, and Management, but also in the Departments of Humanities, Social Sciences, Law, and the Arts. In fact, most of the students at TAU can now include an entrepreneurship cluster as an integral part of their studies for a degree, thereby acquiring tools for establishing their own startups, which in the future may become unicorns,” Zviran said.


Intel Drops $5.4 Billion Deal With Israeli Chipmaker Amid US-China Spat
Tech giant Intel has decided to abandon its $5.4 billion plan to acquire Israeli contract chipmaker Tower Semiconductor due to a lack of regulatory approval from China.

The deal, signed in February 2022, faced a requirement for Chinese regulatory clearance, which Intel failed to secure within the stipulated timeframe.

The failure, experts say, highlights the impact of U.S.-China tensions on corporate transactions, particularly in the tech sector.

Intel won’t pursue an extension of the contract and will instead pay Tower a $353 million breakup fee. It remains uncertain if regulators would have eventually approved the deal had the companies prolonged the contract for review.

The escalating disputes between the United States and China regarding trade, intellectual property, and Taiwan’s future have slowly impacted business deals, particularly within technology firms.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger had sought approval from Chinese regulators and even visited China recently for discussions. However, the company continues its investment in its foundry business, which manufactures chips for other entities, irrespective of the Tower acquisition.

Although Israel’s Tower Semiconductor saw its Nasdaq-listed shares trade at $33.78, significantly lower than the $53 per share deal price, investors had already abandoned hope in light of the situation.

This episode mirrors DuPont De Nemours’ experience when it canceled its $5.2 billion deal to purchase electronics materials maker Rogers due to delays in securing Chinese regulatory approval.
The Double Standard of Non-Jewish Actors Playing Jewish Roles
Actress Sarah Silverman said on her podcast that, “There’s this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being. One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile [a non-Jew] playing Joan Rivers correctly would be doing what is actually called ‘Jewface.’ It’s defined as when a non-Jew portrays a Jew with the Jewishness front and center, often with makeup or changing of features, big fake nose, all the New York-y or Yiddish-y inflection. And in a time when the importance of representation is seen as so essential and so front and center, why does ours constantly get breached even today in the thick of it?”

Against that backdrop, it was reported recently that well-known actor Bradley Cooper is wearing a large prosthetic nose in a trailer for his new film Maestro about the famous composer, Leonard Bernstein.

Jewish actress Tracy-Ann Oberman told the New York Post: “If Bradley Cooper is able to play the Elephant Man without any prosthetics, he should be able to play a Jewish man without any need for prosthetics — especially a ‘Jewish’ nose. If he needs to wear a prosthetic nose then that is, to me and many others, the equivalent of Black-Face or Yellow-Face.”

And its not just on the big screen, Katerina McCrimmon is starring as Fanny Brice in the national tour of Funny Girl, the Broadway musical about a trailblazing Jewish comedian.

As actor Jennifer Apple rightfully said, “Fanny Brice was a real human being. She was a Jewish icon. She was a heroine. She in and of herself paved the way for performers like myself to be able to have a career. If it wasn’t for her, and her chutzpah, many of us Jewish women specifically wouldn’t be able to be performers. So it’s integral to this role, specifically.”
Leonard Bernstein's children defend Bradley Cooper's 'nice big nose' in Maestro
Leonard Bernstein’s children say they are “perfectly fine” with Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of their father after the actor faced criticism for wearing a large prosthetic nose.

A new trailer for the film portraying the American conductor reignited a new "Jewface" debate after Cooper wore makeup to look more like Bernstein.

Netflix released the teaser for the film Maestro yesterday, starring Cooper alongside Carey Mulligan in what has been described as a "fearless love story" between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.

In a statement posted online his children Jamie, Alexander, & Nina Bernstein said the actor included the family “along every step of his amazing journey as he made his film about our father.”

The three said: “We were touched to the core to witness the depth of his commitment, his loving embrace of our father's music, and the sheer open-hearted joy he brought to his exploration.”

They said any criticism of the actor was "heartbreaking" and described it as “misrepresentations or misunderstandings of his efforts.”

His children added: “It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose. Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we're perfectly fine with that.

“We're also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well. Any strident complaints around this issue strike us above all as disingenuous attempts to bring a successful person down a notch, a practice we observed all too often perpetrated on our own father.“

"At all times during the making of this film, we could feel the profound respect and yes, the love that Bradley brought to his portrait of Leonard Bernstein and his wife, our mother Felicia.

“We feel so fortunate to have had this experience with Bradley, and we can't wait for the world to see his creation.”
'I am very fond of Israel; I genuinely appreciate the local fans' affection'
Renowned soccer legend Rivaldo sits at home in Brazil, just over eight years after hanging up his boots, but when you speak to him about the game in which he excelled, the glint returns to his eye. The word "moving" crops up time and again during the conversation, especially when he is reminded that he is about to don the kit of Barcelona once again, something that will occur in two exhibition matches due to take place in Israel against an all-star team of former Maccabi Tel Aviv legends (Sept. 5 at the Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv) and Maccabi Haifa legends (Sept. 7 at the Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa).

The 53-year-old Brazilian visited Israel just two years ago in the special "El Clásico" match pitting soccer legends against Real Madrid. This time he will meet the two clubs that make up the Israeli "El Clásico", and as far as he is concerned the emotions are identical. "I am very happy and excited to come to Israel again," he tells us in an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom, "I am very fond of Israel and I genuinely appreciate the local fans' affection towards me. This is something that I have particularly enjoyed and I am really glad to come back."

Q: How were your previous visits here in Israel? What particularly sticks out in your mind?

"Apart from the game and the excitement at once again wearing the Barcelona shirt, I really enjoyed traveling and sightseeing in Israel, visiting all the historical locations. I find it very emotional and it is a great honor to experience this once again."

Q: This time you have come to play against Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv legends. Last time you played in your own personal El Clásico, this time it is these two clubs that will make up the Israeli El Clásico. Have you heard about this local version?

"Actually, yes, I have heard of it. It is a very big game, and I am delighted to play wearing the Barcelona strip, as I am a former Barcelona star, against legends who played for these two clubs. It will be a real pleasure to play against them."
Israel may have to move rare mosaic found in prison
An ancient Christian mosaic bearing an early reference to Jesus as God is at the center of a controversy that has riled archaeologists: Should the centuries-old decorated floor, which is near what's believed to be the site of the prophesied Armageddon, be uprooted and loaned to a U.S. museum that has been criticized for past acquisition practices? Israeli officials are considering just that. The proposed loan to the Museum of the Bible in Washington also underscores the deepening ties between Israel and evangelical Christians in the U.S, whom Israel has come to count on for political support, tourism dollars and other benefits.

The Megiddo Mosaic is from what is believed to be the world's earliest Christian prayer hall that was located in a Roman-era village in northern Israel. It was discovered by Israeli archaeologists in 2005 during a salvage excavation conducted as part of the planned expansion of an Israeli prison.

The prison sits at a historic crossroads a mile south of Tel Megiddo on the cusp of the wide, flat Jezreel Valley. The compound is ringed by a white steel fence topped with barbed wire and is used for the detention of Palestinian security inmates.

Across a field strewn with cow-dung and potsherds, the palm-crowned site of a Bronze and Iron Age city and ancient battles is where some Christians believe a conclusive battle between good and evil will transpire at the end of days: Armageddon. For some Christians, particularly evangelicals, this will be the backdrop of the long-anticipated climax at the Second Coming, when divine wrath will obliterate those who oppose God's kingdom; it serves as the focus of their hopes for ultimate justice. The Israel Antiquities Authority said that it will decide about the move in the coming weeks, following consultations with an advisory body.

"There's an entire process that academics and archaeologists are involved with," said IAA director Eli Eskozido. The organization said that moving the mosaic from its original location was the best way to protect it from upcoming construction at the prison. Jeffrey Kloha, the Museum of the Bible's chief curatorial officer, said a decision on the loan would be made solely by the IAA. The museum "of course would welcome the opportunity to educate our thousands of visitors on important pieces of history such as this mosaic," he told The Associated Press via email.

Several archaeologists and academics have voiced vociferous objections to the notion of removing the Megiddo Mosaic from where it was found — and all the more so to exhibit it at the Museum of the Bible.
The Armageddon Mosaic And What it Says About Israel’s Relationship With Evangelical Christians
An ancient Christian mosaic that bears one of the earliest references to Jesus as God is currently at the heart of a dispute involving archeologists, evangelical Christians and Israeli officials.

Discovered in 2005 by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) during rescue excavations at Israel’s Megiddo prison, the Megiddo Mosaic is part of what is thought to be the world’s earliest Christian prayer hall. Significantly, it is close to what believers say will be the site of a prophesized Armageddon.

A public spat erupted this week after several prominent archeologists and academics criticized the IAA over a proposal to loan the tiled treasure to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, which, according to the Associated Press, has been “criticized for past acquisition practices.”

And while critics have accused the museum of “promoting an evangelical Christian political agenda,” according to AP, several leading archeologists have disputed its characterization as right-wing evangelical, arguing the institute is a global scholarly educational institution with many international partnerships.

Coverage of the developing controversy has inevitably focused on the “deepening ties” between America’s evangelical Christian community and the Jewish state, with the AP observing that Israel has come to “count on [evangelicals] for political support, tourism dollars and other benefits.”

However, the context the wire service neglected to include is that the bond between Israel and Christians who consider themselves Zionists is not a new phenomenon.

In fact, Christian Zionism has its roots among the pietistic Protestants of the 16th century and the English Puritans of the 17th Century. Historical records show a man called Francis Kett was burned alive in 1587 for voicing his belief that the Bible had prophesized that the Jewish people would return to their land.

Known as the Restoration Movement by the 18th Century, Christian Zionism had grown in just a couple of hundred years to include leading writers, theologians and politicians.

The movement continued to gather steam throughout the 19th Century and by the 20th Century, was supported by some of the most distinguished individuals in society, including Conservative British politician Lord Arthur James Balfour.

In early November 1917, Balfour as foreign secretary of the United Kingdom set into motion the British commitment to work toward the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people” when he wrote the declaration of his government in a letter to the British Zionist Federation president Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild at his home in London.

In the United States, mainstream Christian Zionism can be mostly traced to William Hechler, who formed a committee of Christian Zionists that was behind a mission to move Russian Jewish refugees to the land that is now Israel after a series of pogroms.

In the 1880s, Hechler befriended Theodor Herzl, who is considered the founder of modern political Zionism, and who started the World Zionist Organization, which brought together leading Zionists to work towards the founding of a Jewish state in Israel. Hechler worked with Herzl over the years to drum up support for Zionism.

Today — 75 years after Israel was officially founded — the Christian Zionism movement contains tens of millions of believers, most of whom live in the United States.

While some Jews feel uncomfortable with Christian Zionist support for Israel, particularly over issues such as proselytizing and their belief that Jews will convert to Christianity during a predicted Armageddon, Christian Zionists remain an integral part of foreign support for the Jewish state.




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