From Ian:
Melanie Phillips: How western humbug gives antisemitism a free pass
Of course they don’t accept that calling Israel’s policies racist and criminal is an example of antisemitism. But it is. That’s because it singles out Israel for an obsessional campaign of double standards, demonisation and delegitimisation based solely on malevolent falsehoods, distortion and selective reporting – treatment afforded to no other country, people or cause.At the same time, such people ignore the true racism, prejudice and antisemitism displayed by Palestinians. They ignore the constant incitement to murder Jews, the relentless terror attacks against Israelis, the Nazi style deranged discourse demonising not just the State of Israel but also the Jewish people as a source of cosmic conspiracies and evil intent.
There was recently a graphic example of this egregious double standard. Jamil Tamimi was jailed for 18 years at Jerusalem district court for the murder of 21 year old British student Hannah Bladon whom he stabbed repeatedly with a seven-inch knife.
Her parents were outraged by what they as an unjustifiably lenient sentence. But the court had found that Tamimi was mentally ill, possibly trying to provoke the police into shooting him dead by stabbing someone. “This was not a terrorist incident,” the prosecutor told the court. “This was a terrible murder carried out by a mentally ill person.”
A few days later a Palestinian Arab, Issam Akel, did get a life sentence. He was convicted at Ramallah high court, in the Palestinian-run territories, of acting to broker the sale of a house in the Muslim quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to a Jewish organisation.
Palestinian law deems it treasonous to sell land to Jews, a crime for which the maximum penalty is execution. It was commuted here to a life sentence with hard labour, possibly because Akel also held American citizenship.
So Israel showed leniency to a Palestinian Arab convicted of murder – while the Palestinians imposed a far harsher sentence on a Palestinian convicted of selling land to a Jew.
The Israelis saw the killer as a person just like any other human being whose mental illness had diminished his moral agency; they treated him accordingly with a total absence of racism. The Palestinians jailed for life a Palestinian who had dared reject the racist law requiring him to discriminate against Jews. The Palestinians thus made not just the Jewish people a victim of their antisemitism but one of their own, too.
How Chaim Weizmann Crafted the First Arab-Zionist Alliance
“No true Arab can be suspicious or afraid of Jewish nationalism. . . . We are demanding Arab freedom and we would show ourselves unworthy of it if we did not now, as I do, say to the Jews—welcome back home.” These words were spoken by Faisal al-Hashemi—the future king of Iraq—at a banquet in honor of Chaim Weizmann on December 29, 1918. T.E. Lawrence (a/k/a “Lawrence of Arabia”) served as the translator. While many today see the Israeli-Arab conflict as both eternal and inevitable, the idea of an alliance between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East seemed perfectly natural to Weizmann and to Faisal, who were seen by the British empire as the representatives of their respective peoples. Rick Richman tells the story of this alliance:On January 3, 1919, a few weeks after World War I ended, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann met with Emir Faisal, the commander-in-chief of the Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire, at a London hotel. . . . At the meeting, Weizmann and Faisal signed an agreement, brokered over the preceding month by Lawrence, exchanging Arab acceptance of the Balfour Declaration for Zionist support of an Arab state in the rest of the Ottoman lands. In February, they traveled to the Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allies would remap Europe and the Middle East, and made complementary presentations about the future of the region. . . .
Faisal and his father, [King Hussein of the Hejaz], believed Zionism would bring financial resources and technical expertise to Palestine, transforming the economic circumstances of the Arabs in both Palestine and beyond. In January 1918, D.G. Hogarth, director of Britain’s Arab Bureau in Cairo, had traveled to Jedda to deliver to King Hussein a formal message regarding British policy: the Arabs would be given “full opportunity of once again forming a nation,” and “no obstacle should be put in the way” of the return of the Jews to Palestine. All holy sites would be protected, and the religious and political rights of all residents preserved. The message emphasized the importance of “the friendship of world Jewry” to the Arab cause.
In an article published in March 1918 in al-Qibla, the daily newspaper in Mecca, the king wrote that Palestine was “a sacred and beloved homeland” for “its original sons” [abna’ihi-l-asliyin], and the “return of these exiles [jaliya] to their homeland” would be beneficial to the region.
The year 1948, writes Yehudah Mirsky, saw the birth of the basic elements of what came to be known—perhaps misleadingly—as the “liberal international order.” These included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide Convention, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and the creation of Israel with the imprimatur of the United Nations. Mirsky argues that some of the failures of this order stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of those committed to defending it:[Many] thought human rights and nationalism were antithetical, and that promoting the former meant pushing back on the latter. The architects of the world of 1948 understood better. As the historian James Loeffler has shown in his remarkable new book, Rooted Cosmopolitans, so many key figures in the human-rights revolution of mid-century were not only Jews but Zionists. For them, an international regime of protecting individual human rights as well as nation-states for persecuted minorities were necessary to overcome the Holocaust’s ghastly trauma of statelessness. The deep structural suspicion of the idea of state sovereignty woven into the human-rights framework, it seems, has unwittingly fostered the legalistic abstraction and airy disregard for political realities that has made that framework such a supple tool in the hands of dictators who couldn’t care less. . . .
[Moreover, many] underestimated the role of religion not only in people’s lives but in human rights and liberalism’s own foundations. Religion is about the search for the absolute and how that ultimate truth shapes what it means fully to be human. Liberalism and human rights are understood by many people in different ways, but there is no denying they make serious claims about the ultimacy of human dignity, so ultimate that there are certain things that no state, or collective body of any kind, can do to harm human dignity.
Why the US Diaspora Misunderstands Israel
What does the Diaspora find alienating about Israel? Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, recently criticized the Israeli government for its treatment of the Palestinians, its attitude towards asylum-seekers, and the dominance of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel.But these concerns show a fundamental misunderstanding of Israel and of the conflict. Progressives (and not just in the United States) think that the two-state solution would fulfill Palestinian aspirations. In reality, the ultimate Palestinian objective is the “right of return” — overrunning Israel proper with Arab refugees. They believe that time is on their side.
The US Diaspora also misunderstands what makes Israelis tick. Israeli support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a response to rockets and terror tunnels. But many Israelis view the Palestinian jihad as just the latest chapter in a long story of Arab and Muslim antisemitism predating anti-Zionism. Anti-Jewish hatred goes to the very heart of the conflict.
More than 50 percent of Israeli Jews have their roots in Arab and Muslim states. The American Diaspora, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly Ashkenazi: Their background is European antisemitism and the Holocaust. They project a Eurocentric world view and their own Western values on the Arab and Muslim world.
Most Jews are in Israel because of the Arabs, not the Nazis (although Arabs and Nazis were allied during World War II). They vote for Netanyahu because of this legacy of bitterness and mistrust. Arabs will only respect a strong Israel, they believe. These Jews, their parents, and their grandparents left Arab countries due to pogroms, institutionalized inferiority, and state-sanctioned laws. Most left as destitute refugees with a single suitcase. Israel rescued them. Jews in the West may take their freedoms and rights for granted. Jews from the Middle East and North Africa do not.
Lara Kollab: A History Of Threatening To Abuse Her Position as Medical Student/Professional
So judging by the poll results and comments so far, hardly anyone is buying what Lara Kollab is selling in terms of an apology for her antisemitic tweets – including the one threatening to give Jews the wrong meds.Those who believe her apology is genuine include some who think her tweet about the meds was meant as a joke; a one-off bad error in judgment as it were.
But Canary Mission has trawled their archive of her old tweets and uncovered yet more highly disturbing ones relating to a possible abuse of her power as someone in the medical profession.
Exclusive: PayPal closes Nazi party account linked to Hezbollah, Assad, BDS
The US-based online payment service PayPal has shut the account of The Third Way, a neo-Nazi party, after a series of Jerusalem Post articles revealed the German group’s links to Hezbollah, Syrian President Bashar Assad and support for the anti-Israel boycott, sanctions and divestment movement.The PayPal donation section on Der Dritte Weg (the Third Way) website currently states: “This recipient is currently unable to receive money.”
In May 2017, the Post reported that the website of the Third Way published a report in April on a visit by its members to Lebanon to champion Hezbollah’s war against Israel.
Members of the extremist group can be viewed on their website visiting the Hezbollah propaganda museum called Where the Land Speaks to the Heavens in the village of Mleeta in southern Lebanon. Kai Zimmermann, a senior leader of Der Dritte Weg, posed next to a plaque reading, “No, Israel is not invincible.” The neo-Nazi group labeled Israel a “terror state” on its website.
The US, the Arab League, Canada, the Netherlands, and Israel classify Hezbollah’s entire organization a terrorist entity. The European Union, including Germany, merely proscribed Hezbollah’s so-called “military wing” as a terrorist group in 2013.
The Third Way, whose goal is the creation of “German socialism,” wrote on its website: “What every person can do against the Zionist genocide.” The neo-Nazi group supports the BDS movement against the Jewish state.
Aaron Klein: Past Time to Hold Arab Nations Accountable for Booting Hundreds of Thousands of Jews
For far too long, Arab nations and Iran have not been called to account for their role in forcing hundreds of thousands of Jews to flee their homes in Arab countries, mostly without enough time to take their possessions or sell their property, following the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.Out of the estimated 850,000 Jewish refugees who fled or were expelled from Arab countries and Iran, the majority were resettled in Israel at great expense to the Jewish state. The Arab nations and Iran did not offer any compensation or financial assistance to aid in the resettlement efforts, and those same nations unilaterally confiscated the Jews’ possessions.
Arab nations, meanwhile, have scandalously distorted the history of “Palestinian refugees” while entirely ignoring their own complicity in creating the so-called Palestinian “refugee” crisis by demanding that local Arabs vacate so invading armies could conquer the newly established State of Israel. This while the very real Jewish refugee crisis of the late 1940s and early 1950s, also created by the Arab states, remains largely forgotten.
Now Israel seems poised to finally hold the Arab world and Iran responsible for this historic injustice by demanding some $250 billion in restitution for the property and assets that the Jews left behind when they were forced to flee those countries.
After decades of letting the Arab nations and Iran off the hook, Israel’s expected move could not come soon enough and must be fully supported by the international community, including the Trump administration.
Yisrael Medad: Library of Congress Errs (UPDATED)
If you read the second half of my previous blog post, you will know that I drew attention to the probability that Rashida Tlaib is definitely not the first “Palestinian” to be elected to Congress.The first was a Jew, John H. Krebs.
Krebs moved to the Mandate of Palestine in 1933, was educated there and even served in the Hagana before emigrating to the United States to go to university.
In order to enter the United States, he would have had need of a passport. Since he was born in Germany, and being a Jew, his nationality would have been terminated (and had he remained there, he would have been exterminated).
Logic seems to indicate that he was issued a Palestinian passport.
The former ‘First Lady of ISIS’ now loves Reform Jews, plans to visit Jerusalem
Less than six years ago, the British-born Muslim Tania Joya was living in Syria with her husband, an American-born convert to Islam who was becoming an increasingly influential figure in the circles of Islamic State. Next week, she will be giving a talk about “countering the forces of violent extremism” at Temple Shalom, a Reform synagogue in Dallas, Texas.As far as Joya knows, her ex, the former Greek Orthodox Christian John Georgelas who for 17 years has gone under the name of Yahya al-Bahrumi, is still active in Syria with Islamic State, where he is said to head the jihadi terror group’s English-language propaganda operation and to be its most senior American recruit. For her part, Joya has renounced Islam, is becoming increasingly attracted to Jewish customs and rituals, took her sons to help decorate the sukka at Temple Shalom a few months ago, and says she intends to come to Jerusalem.
The rapid transformation of Joya’s life — from a self-styled former “hard-core” jihadi and dutiful spouse of an Islamic extremist, to a declared de-radicalization activist — is so stark and improbable as to leave doubts, she acknowledges, in many people’s minds. In a British television appearance a year ago, her hosts cut short her interview after she said, when asked if she still loved her ex-husband, “I don’t love him like I’m in love with him; I love him because he gave me four beautiful, lovely children… If he’s caught, he needs to go to prison, of course… I love him like I love people… Everybody has a good side; everybody has a bad side.” Said her interviewer, Piers Morgan, caustically: “ISIS terrorists don’t have a good side, and so I’m afraid we’re going to end the interview right there.”
Joya says that much-watched short excerpt of the interview is unfair; elsewhere in the conversation she had tried to explain how and why she had been drawn to Islamic extremism, and also called the Quran “a terrible book” that advocates jihad and war.
How Israel should react to France’s ongoing anti-Israeli arrogance
Opinions of French Jews about the Jewish situation in their country were, on many issues, the most negative in Europe. In France, almost all respondents saw anti-Semitism as a “very big” or “fairly big” problem. A somewhat smaller percentage saw racism in France similarly. Almost all French respondents said that anti-Semitism had increased during the past five years.The survey specifically asked about anti-Semitic graffiti, desecration of Jewish cemeteries, vandalism of Jewish buildings or institutions, expressions of hostility toward Jews as well as in the media and political life, and on the internet (including social media). In France, the majority of respondents rate almost all these manifestations of anti-Semitism as a big problem.
Virtually all French respondents considered the expressions of hostility toward Jews in the street and other public places a big problem. The majority of French respondents — a higher percentage than elsewhere — worried about being confronted with anti-Semitic verbal insults and physical attacks in the coming twelve months. An even higher percentage of those polled were concerned that family members or close friends might become victims of anti-Semitic insults and harassments in the next twelve months. Again this percentage was higher than in any other country surveyed.
France was also the country where the percentage of respondents who said that they never wear or display items which could identify them as Jewish such as a skullcap or a Star of David was highest. Muslims were considered among the country’s three top categories of anti-Semitic perpetrators.
The situation for Jews in France is so severe that in 2018, a manifesto against Muslim anti-Semitism was signed by 250 Jewish and non-Jewish high profile individuals. This document sums up the main elements of violence and incitement against Jews emanating from parts of this immigrant community.
IsraellyCool: Latest Palestinian Propaganda Children’s Book Puts the Lion Into Lying
Remember P Is for Palestine, the palestinian propaganda children’s book that glorifies terror and violence against Israel? As I posted a while back, there is a sequel on the way.Now there’s yet another palestinian propaganda children’s book, this time from a different author; introducing Laith The Lion Goes to Palestine!
This is all we know about the book:
Join Laith the Lion as he takes a magical journey to Palestine!
Little lions of any age can join Laith in his flying crib and make new friends in sunny Palestine. Inspired by the author’s son, Laith the Lion encapsulates the spirit and connection many Palestinians feel towards their culture, ancestry and homeland. It’s a journey of discovery, pride, and warmth that your child will want to experience over and over againEven though there is not much to go on, I strongly suspect this book is not going to be promoting tolerance and coexistence. For a start, there’s the “Fun Facts About Palestine” on the website, which clearly refers to the entirety of Israel, yet manages to avoid mentioning the Jooooooos:
The majority of the population is Muslim, although there is also a large population of Christians as well.There’s also this bit of merch from the website store: the Laith keffiyeh!
The BDS Fight Boils Over on Campus and Elsewhere
In December, the BDS movement continued to be a prominent political and campus issue, fully integrated into larger questions of antisemitism, free speech, and the nature of the university.At Temple University, faculty member Marc Lamont Hill was fired from a job as a CNN commentator after protests regarding his appearance at the United Nations, where he endorsed Palestinian violence against Israelis and called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”
After the CNN move, Temple University trustees stated they were examining whether Hill’s statements were cause for dismissal from his academic position. This produced an enormous outcry from BDS supporters and others, including neo-Nazi David Duke, and a petition in support of Hill signed by almost 3,000 people. Most observers noted that Hill’s statements were protected speech, but a few commented that a private company would be within its rights to dismiss him for hate speech. The chair of Temple’s board of trustees commented that Hill had caused “immeasurable harm” to the institution.
Hill later commented that he supported a one-state solution, but, more implausibly, that his call for a Palestine “from the river to the sea” did not call for the destruction of Israel. He then attacked those who criticized his support for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, saying, “Why is only one set of people untouchable? … And why does every black leader have to ritually denounce Farrakhan in order to sustain a position? That doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Hill went on to blame Israel for police violence in the US, saying, “The New York City police, they’re killing us, but they’re being trained by Israeli security forces. … They’re being trained — New York City police and in other cities as well. So here’s a connection between the two. I can’t stop one without the other, there’s a relationship.”
WATCH: Women’s March Leader Took Part In Anti-Israel Demonstration In Nazareth
Years before Carmen Perez became a nationally-known co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington, she was part of a delegation of black liberation activists who promoted a Palestinian-led drive targeting the State of Israel.In January 2015, the group went on a ten-day trip to the region, including the West Bank.
While in Nazareth, commonly known as “the Arab capital of Israel,” Perez participated in a solidarity demonstration calling for the boycott, divestment and sanctions against that country. A video documenting the flash mob-style spectacle shows her performing the dabke – a traditional Palestinian folk dance – along with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and other allies which Perez described as “my revolutionary freedom fighters.”
The ceremony began with participants being smudged with sage to rid the space of negative energy followed by a monologue from Marc Lamont Hill – a former CNN pundit who was let go by the network in November after making controversial comments about Israel.
“We came here to Palestine to stand in love and revolutionary struggle with our brothers and sisters,” Hill said in the video. “We come to a land that has been stolen by greed and destroyed by hate. We come here, and we learn laws that have been co-signed in ink but written in the blood of the innocent, and we stand next to people who continue to courageously struggle and resist the occupation.”
After the dance, participants broke into chants of “Black Lives Matter” and “They know that we will win” before concluding with a group hug.
It is laughable for you to falsely accuse Manny’s of gentrifying Valencia Street – where have you been the past 30 years, as expensive restaurants and high fashion clothing stores have moved in. Manny’s food is provided by the nonprofit Farming Hope, which provides transitional work in its gardens and training in the culinary industry to people experiencing homelessness and poverty. They feature local beers. Black Lives Matter founder Alicia Garza, Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, and Jason Collins, an openly gay former Basketball player have spoken at Manny’s. Talks focused on criminal justice reform and LGBTQ rights are coming up next month. Local treasure Dog Eared Books will provide reading material. This place should be celebrated and supported.Fess up: The only thing you care about is that the owner is Jewish and does not advocate for the destruction of Israel. You don’t care that his father is an Afghani Jew. You don’t care that Manny is openly gay. You don’t care that his motivation for opening Manny’s is to create a welcoming place for people to gather, to meet, discuss, and become civically engaged. You can’t look past his being Jewish. Shame on you.
Even in the shadowy Facepage pages where the Israel-haters congregate, the attacks on Manny’s are viewed quizzically. David , who describes Palestine as his “main political focus” considers the boycott “FOS”
Wish we weren’t here? Pink Floyd cover band plays Israel…but not Waters’ songs
A Pink Floyd cover band ultimately defied pressure from the frontman of the original band, Roger Waters, to boycott the Jewish state, playing to a packed crowd in Tel Aviv on Saturday night… but didn’t hit all the right notes.The on-again, off-again UK Pink Floyd Experience concert took place following an intense campaign by the notorious anti-Israel activist against the group. In the end, the tribute band went ahead with the gig, but appeared without its usual singer, drummer and saxophone player, and performed without actually playing any of the Pink Floyd tunes written by Waters.
Since Waters’ songs are central to the Pink Floyd canon, they enlisted an Israeli Pink Floyd tribute band, “Echoes,” that played all the Waters’ songs — 10 of the 19 tracks performed at the concert.
While the crowd realized fairly quickly that something was off-key as the visiting band opened with relatively obscure, pre-Waters Pink Floyd tunes, some reviewers said the addition of “Echoes” actually wound up improving the concert, with one critic describing the local group as “fresher.”
“To the delight of the crowd they were even better than the English group,” said a review by Gal Uchovsky on the Mako entertainment site.
Year 17 of the racist and bigoted BDS campaign has closed. So, hows that boycott going for you?Lets look at the numbers:
Israeli exports hit a record high of $110 billion in 2018, up 8% from 2017, buffered by a 56% increase in exports to China, and a 50% increase to Japan. Exports to India and Lation America have grown by 27%.
Over 4 million tourists visited Israel in 2018, a 14% increase from the previous year. This is the second year of record-breaking tourism to Israel. That number is certain to increase next year, as Israel hosts the 2019 Eurovision Music Contest.
Performers visiting Israel this year included Ozzy Osbourne, Alanis Morrisette, Ringo Star, Julio Iglesias, Carlos Vives, Enrique Iglesias, The Chainsmokers , CleanBandit and FloRida.
I’m chalking 2018 up as another year of BDS fail.
BDS is anti-Semitic, aids terrorists, says Arizona attorney general
In an important victory against the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a brief in late December stating that the BDS campaign was motivated by anti-Semitism and aids terrorist groups such as Hamas.He also noted the PLO and its practice of “paying cash stipends to the families of terrorists.”
According to a lawyer familiar with the case, it possibly marked the first time a U.S. government body has formally taken the stance acknowledging that the BDS campaign aids actors that engage in or reward terrorism.
Brnovich told the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that a state law enacted in 2016 “prohibits all state contractors, who receive taxpayer money, from discriminating on the basis of national origin” and that the BDS was not protected under freedom of expression.
The law was blocked by a federal court in September following a lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations, with the judge ruling in favor of plaintiff Mikkel Jordahl, a state contractor who said his ability to boycott Israel in a professional capacity was being unconstitutionally limited.
Brnovich, however, argued in his appeal that BDS specifically aims to inflict “economic pain” on those with an Israeli background, disproportionately impacts Jews, and often has “anti-Semitic motivations.” Legislation banning similar discrimination has been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court in the face of First Amendment challenges, he added.
Malaysia Blocks Entry to Israeli Swimmers for World Championship
Malaysia has denied Israel’s Paralympics swimming team from entering the country to partake in the World Para Swimming Championships in July.The event, to be held in the Malaysian city of Kuching, is crucial as the outcome will affect the competition of the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo, which will host more than 600 swimmers from 70 nations.
Israel and Malaysia currently have no diplomatic relations. The latter’s leader, Mahathir Mohamad, labeled Jews as “hook-nosed” last October and condemned Israel for creating chaos in the Middle East.
“For some time now, we have been trying to guarantee our participation in the world championships,” Israeli Olympic Committee chairman Nisim Sasportas told Ynet.
“In principle, everyone says that it will work out, but we have still not received an invitation or visas. We are continuing to apply pressure,” he continued. “We have letters of support from the International Paralympics Committee, the European Paralympics Committee and the Olympic Athletes Committee, and hope that they allow the athletes and their security entourage to participate.”
Daniel Pomerantz and Dana Shalom on Michal Tsafir (Israel Channel 10)
Daniel Pomerantz, HonestReporting Executive Director, and Dana Shalom talk on Israeli TV, channel 10, about their new project “Shagririm BeAsakim” (Business Ambassadors) that aims to teach Israelis going abroad for business on how to talk about Israel and how to approach those whose main information source about Israel is the International Media.
An Anglican priest apologised after he compared the offshore processing of asylum-seekers to the Holocaust.At the end of December Father Rod Bower erected a sign outside of Gosford Anglican Church which read ‘Manus is how the Holocaust started’.
With it, Father Rod wrote a lengthy post on Facebook where he explained that a photo of men behind a wire fence on Manus island ‘evoked for him a remembrance of photos he’d seen of the Holocaust’.
‘The first step on the way to the Holocaust was labelling the Jews as ”vermin” to be eradicated. In Rwanda they used the term ”cockroaches” we have used the label ”illegals”,’ Father Rod wrote.
‘The second step is to ensure these ”labelled” inhabit a different civic universe and do not qualify for the same ‘rights’ as we do. The third step is to lock them up.
‘We have taken these three steps with refugees in Australia and while they do not inevitably result in catastrophic events like the Holocaust, they are the necessary first three steps on the path to that living Hell on Earth.’
Both the sign and post drew attention from both moderate and conservative Jewish groups.
Father Rod said he was exploring ‘something of the sociological phenomenon of ‘otherising’ and dehumanisation’, but offended members of the Jewish Community in doing so.
Former O.J. Simpson Lawyer Blames Holocaust Victims for ‘Suppressing’ Free Press
A lawyer who once represented notorious former football player O.J. Simpson implied in a recent interview that Jewish influence led the press to censor favorable coverage of the athlete after his famous murder trial in 1994, the New York Post reported on Sunday.“Some of the people who claim that most of their lives they’ve been subjected to horrible kinds of prejudice and extermination during World War II are now behaving in exactly the same totalitarian spirit by suppressing the one thing this country has to be proud of when all is said and done, and that’s an unfettered free press,” claimed former criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey on an episode of the “Morano Whenever” podcast. Bailey was a part of O.J. Simpson’s defense team when he was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. He was acquitted of double murder in 1995.
Bailey was disbarred years later after he refused to hand over assets that a subsequent client of his had agreed to forfeit to the government. Bailey declined to comment on his recent remarks, the Post said.
Israeli-Palestinian vlogger Nas Daily completes 1,000-day global trek
Yassin, a Harvard graduate, was living and working in New York in 2016 when he decided to quit his job and travel the globe for 1,000 days. The self-identified Israeli-Palestinian has visited almost every corner of the globe, from China to Japan, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Canada, Iceland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Kenya, Rwanda and many more countries.But sprinkled among his 1,000 videos have also been many missives relating to his home country, and to the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
In October 2017 he slammed the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as “pure politics,” and said it harms people like him who are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.
“If you want to boycott Israel because of Palestine, I don’t think you actually care,” he said, “because you’re also boycotting two million Muslim Palestinian Israelis.”
He organized many meet-ups around the globe, including one in Jerusalem in July 2017, designed to bring together Israelis and Palestinians for dialogue.
“It’s just a tiny little gathering of people that are in the middle, that want both peoples to succeed,” Yassin told The Jerusalem Post at the time. “It’s going to be a place where east Jerusalem and west Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are going to be in the same room together – which doesn’t happen very often.”
Comedian Bill Burr heading to Tel Aviv
Stand-up comedian Bill Burr will be performing in Israel for his first time this May.The comic, who has released five Netflix stand-up specials and guest starred in Breaking Bad, will perform at the Shlomo Group Arena (Drive-In Arena) on May 6.
In addition to his extensive stand-up career, Burr has appeared in films like The Heat, Daddy’s Home and Black or White.
Burr will be arriving in Israel shortly after shows in the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and more. In November, he appeared in Madison Square Garden and was a regular on the late-night show Conan. Burr is known in part for his decidedly un-politically correct humor, which has gained him more than 1 million followers on Twitter and a host of dedicated fans. He is also the creator and star of the Netflix animated special F is for Family.
Amid obesity, Israeli startup develops Endozip device to stitch up stomach bulge
In 2016 more than 650 million adults worldwide were classified as obese with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, according to the World Health Organization, and a 2017 study found that in Israel as well, one in six women and one in four men were obese.The existing surgical solutions to reduce stomach volume and curb obesity — including gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy, in which a large portion of the stomach is removed — are available for people with a BMI of 40 of higher (or 35 with additional diseases), but are generally inadvisable or not covered by insurance for class one (BMI of 30-35) or class two (BMI of 35-40) obesity patients. In addition, bariatric surgery, as these procedures are called, can be risky and irreversible while offering only temporary improvements.
An Israeli company, Nitinotes, is developing a solution to provide these two groups of patients with a minimally invasive and fully automated gastrointestinal suturing system, CEO Raz Bar-On told The Times of Israel in a phone interview.
The device, called Endozip, will be inserted into and removed from the stomach through the mouth and esophagus with no scalpel needed. The treatment is intended to take around 30 minutes; patients will require minimal anesthesia and be released home the same day.
Israeli company leads flying car ‘buzz’ ahead of major tech show
Will flying cars take off at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show?Well, sort of.
The prototypes won’t be soaring over the Las Vegas Strip during the technology extravaganza which runs from January 8-11.
But a number of flying car designs will be on display, portending what many see as an inevitable airborne future for short-range transport with vertical takeoff and landing, or VTOL.
NFT Inc. co-founders Maki and Guy Kaplinsky, a couple developing a flying vehicle in Israel and California, will have their vision on display at show, with a media session on Sunday.
“We believe we have a winning design that will enable us to make the Model T of flying cars — a low-cost production model,” Guy Kaplinsky told AFP in a Silicon Valley office park where a prototype model was being assembled.
A doorway to the rear of the NFT office in Mountain View opened onto large blue tarps hung from the ceiling to hide the workshop.
A team of veteran aviation engineers is focused on research at the startup’s facility in Israel, and the founders plan to expand the staff of 15 people.
The startup is designing hardware and software, while enlisting original equipment manufacturers to crank out products at scale.
No greater patriot: Moshe Arens, dead at 93
Moshe Arens, a prominent Likud member who served in various ministerial positions and as Israel’s ambassador the United States, died early Monday morning at 93.Arens was born in Lithuania in 1925 and moved to the United States in 1939. After serving in the U.S. Army, he moved to the Jewish state shortly after its founding in the late 1940s.
Entering the Knesset in 1974, he quickly became a prominent Likud lawmaker and served in various high-profile positions in Israeli politics.
Arens’ ally early in his career was fellow Likud MK Yitzhak Shamir (who would go on to serve four terms as prime minister). Both shared a hawkish ideological view and opposition to the peace treaty Egypt in 1979. A year later, when then Prime Minister Menachem Begin offered Arens the defense portfolio, he refused, saying he didn’t want to be in charge of dismantling Jewish settlements in the Sinai Peninsula as part of the peace treaty.
In 1982, he was tapped for the position of ambassador to the United States, and in 1983 he became defense minister after Ariel Sharon had to step down over his conduct in Operation Peace for the Galilee. Arens is credited for revamping the Israel Defense Forces by creating a joint command for the ground forces.
As defense minister, he also pushed forward the IAI Lavi project, which would have allowed Israel to manufacture its own fighter jet. Although the project was ultimately terminated before completion, it helped Israel obtain important technological know-how.
He would go on to serve as a minister without portfolio (in charge of minority affairs) and then foreign minister before returning to the Defense Ministry in 1990. As defense minister during the first Gulf War in 1991, he pushed for more active Israeli involvement, with the goal of stopping Iraq’s missile attacks on Israeli territory.
Today, we are launching the 2019 #WeRemember campaign for International Holocaust Remembrance Day is to make sure the victims will never be forgotten.
Write “We Remember” on a paper, take a picture and post it on social media with #WeRemember.
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— Sacha Rojtman Dratwa (@SachaDratwa) January 6, 2019
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