From Ian:
When a Nazi comparison makes sense: The BDS movement against Israel
In a remarkable finding in their May report, intelligence officials of the German state of Baden Württemberg wrote that propaganda from the neo-Nazi party Der Dritte Weg (The Third Way) calling to boycott Israeli products “roughly recalls similar measures against German Jews by the National Socialists, for example, on April 1, 1933 (the slogan: ‘Germans! Defend yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews!’)”The historical significance of the parallel between contemporary calls to boycott Israeli products and the Hitler movement’s economic warfare against German Jewish businesses should not be ignored.
The Nazi efforts to strangle Jewish companies in order to isolate and dehumanize German Jews was a nascent phase of the Holocaust. Hence the boycott campaign against Israel is just another dangerous recurrence of history in a new form.
Fast forward to 2005: According to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s declaration targeting the Jewish state, a key demand is the return of all “Palestinian refugees” to Israel. The “return” of the alleged millions of Palestinians refugees—based on a bogus definition of refugee status—would spell dissolution of the Jewish state. Anti-Semitism at its core is about discrimination against Jews.
The proliferation of pro-BDS activities in Germany prompted Felix Klein, the German government commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, to write in the daily Die Welt in August that “the BDS movement is antisemitic in its methods and goals.” He added that BDS’s “Don’t buy!” stickers on products from the Jewish state are “methods from the Nazi period.”
Daily News Editorial Board: Thanks, Mr. President: A Queens Nazi is being deported thanks to the persistence of Donald Trump and Ambassador Ric Grenell
Thank you, President Trump, for doing what Democrats and Republicans before have failed to do for years: Deport a Nazi war criminal from Queens back to Europe. And thank you, Ric Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, for faithfully carrying out the President’s directive to get Jakiw Palij the hell out of this country.Palij, who turned 95 last Thursday, is not just an old man. He is an old Nazi death camp guard, a volunteer in the SS who aided the Holocaust in occupied Poland, where millions of Jews were killed, and then who lied about his SS service to gain entry to this country after the war.
Discovered by the Department of Justice, he was stripped of his ill-gotten U.S. citizenship in 2003 and ordered deported the next year.
But the Bush administration failed to get Germany to take him. So did the Obama administration, for all eight years. Berlin objected, and the U.S. State Department didn’t want to push too hard, and that was that. As former Department of Justice Nazi hunter Neal Sher wrote in these pages in April, cowardice carried the day.
But not Trump. In office only a few months and alerted by this newspaper to a Nazi living in his home borough in spring 2017, he told Grenell, his choice for envoy to Berlin, to get the Nazi out.
Grenell did it. From the time he took up his post this May, he made it a priority. Finally, after more than a decade of dilly-dallying, the Germans got the message.
Great credit must go to Rabbi Zev Friedman, head of Rambam Mesivta, a boys’ yeshiva high school on Long Island. He and his students for years protested Palij’s presence.
Democratic Assemblyman: Thank you, President Trump
New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind thanked US President Donald Trump for deporting Jakiw Palij, a former SS guard at the Nazis’ Trawnicki concentration camp in Poland.“You can talk, and talk is cheap,” Hikind said in an interview with Fox News. “Getting things done is what President Trump just did.”
He called on his fellow Democrats not to make a political issue out of the deportation of a Nazi.
“When the president does something huge like getting rid of the last Nazi from Queens, New York, say ‘thank you, Mr. President, for doing an amazing thing.”
President Trump noted the rare praise he received from a Democratic politician.
“Thank you to Democrat Assemblyman Dov Hikind of New York for your very gracious remarks on @foxandfriends for our deporting a longtime resident Nazi back to Germany! Others worked on this for decades,” Trump tweeted.
.@HikindDov: “When the president does something huge, like getting rid of the last Nazi from Queens, New York, say ‘thank you Mr. President.’” pic.twitter.com/NvbLD3um1l
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 22, 2018
14 years of promises from others… But was delighted to wake up to a call from DOJ with great news… Ambassador @RichardGrenell at the direction of President @RealDonaldTrump DELIVERED JUSTICE!
THANK YOU FOR MAKING AMERICA NAZI-FREE AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/56Dl2rxVgk
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 22, 2018
Holocaust survivors join together to thank @potus @realdonaldtrump for ridding America of its last Nazi. pic.twitter.com/JL38qXkeBR
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 22, 2018
JPost Editorial: Bubbling with pride
At Monday’s press conference announcing the deal, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta committed to keeping SodaStream’s Israel operation running for at least 15 years. “This company has demonstrated it is a very successful business,” he added. “Why would you derail a successful business?”That’s welcome news – for the hundreds of Bedouin, Palestinian and Jewish employees who count on the company for their livelihood, and for Israel.
SodaStream’s achievement was best expressed by Birnbaum, who at the beginning of the press conference defined the deal not as an exit, but as an “entrance.”
“We are talking here about… an investment of a giant international firm – the biggest food and drinks company in America and the second biggest in the world – that is planting a flag here and is showing trust in the economy of Israel.”
Then, as can only happen in Israel, he made an international $3.2 billion dollar business transaction into a totally personal moment by summarizing the story of the Exodus in 1947, which carried his father Ervin.
“Who would have believed, father, that after the Holocaust and all that you went through, after you lost 30 members of your family, you got to enjoy this moment… where the ashes of the Holocaust have been transformed into a moment of glory and pride?”
Sometimes, it turns out, the good guys do win.
What if Jeremy Corbyn became prime minister?
Rosh Hashanah, 2020.It’s just over two years since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Prime Minister, after Boris Johnson’s attempted coup against Theresa May went so horribly wrong.
Despite PM Corbyn’s repeated assurances that he was a strong ally of the Jewish community — he has “fought against racism and antisemitism [his] whole life”, he declared on the footsteps of 10 Downing Street — the community is still reeling.
In fact, the pressure started piling on immediately.
Although it fought on a platform of anti-austerity and greater equality, the new Labour government’s very first act in power was to declare that Britain no longer accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. Instead, it would use a more limited version of the definition — the same one adopted by Labour’s National Executive Committee back in 2018 — which allowed Jews to be accused of being more loyal to Israel than to their own country, and permitted claims that Israel is a “racist endeavour”.
This was swiftly followed by a bill declaring that Zionism is Racism, thus restricting political displays of support for the Jewish state. (h/t Dave4321)
A sea of hate. The scam of the Eighty four BAME organisations
Last week a letter about the IHRA definition of antisemitism appeared in the Independent. It was signed by 84 BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) organisations. Incredibly, the letter does not contain the word ‘Jewish’ and the letter deals with Jews the way most modern antisemites deal with Jews: Jews are white, privileged and definitely not part of the ‘BAME’ club.The argument inside the letter is simple. These groups oppose the adoption of the IHRA definition because they say it will ‘silence voices’ and prevent ‘criticism of Israel’. They suggest the IHRA prohibits public discussion of facts and then they paint Zionist groups (without using the word Zionist) as ‘UK-based fundamentalist groups aligned with the far-right in the US’. They also state these groups are ‘anti-Muslim’.
The entire letter is a divisive straw man. It is designed to turn BAME communities against British Jews. The IHRA does nothing to stop genuine and difficult discussions over Israel. What it does do is draw lines to help differentiate genuine criticism from antisemitism. For years, the Palestinian cause across the globe has fed on the ecstasy of western antisemitism, creating a symbiotic relationship where both gorge on each other. When you add to the mix Europeans who are seeking to shed their guilt by painting the Jews as Nazis, Palestinian story-tellers soon realised that whatever tale they told, there was an eager audience willing to swallow it. For decades the west has happily fed on a diet of false accusations against Israel.
So distorted is the image now, that anti-Israel activists need to continue to tell ever-expanding lies about the Jews just for their story to make any sense at all. Palestinian organisations either feed the hate or fail, which brings us to the first group of BAME organisations in the Independent:
UK Labour MP slammed for praising anti-Semitic pro-Assad conspiracist
A British Labour lawmaker has been slammed for expressing support for a conspiracist blogger who has claimed Zionists rule France, has shared platforms with Holocaust deniers, and vehemently supports Syrian President Bashar Assad’s bombing campaigns in civilian areas.MP Chris Williamson, a close associate of party leader Jeremy Corbyn, on Sunday posted a tweet saying it was a “privilege” to meet and listen to a talk by Vanessa Beeley, who in recent years has made numerous controversial and inflammatory allegations.
Williamson, the Labour leader’s loudest backbench cheerleader, has long claimed criticism of anti-Semitism in the party is a right-wing plot aimed at discrediting Corbyn and has called it “positively sinister.”
The former frontbencher, who has argued that such claims are a “dirty lowdown trick” being used for “political ends,” appeared in March at an event alongside Jackie Walker, who is suspended from the party over allegations of anti-Semitism. Williamson has called for the party to reinstate both Walker and former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who was similarly suspended and has since quit the party.
Iran-Linked Facebook Groups Push Pro-Corbyn Propaganda
Facebook has removed more than 284 pages and accounts with apparent links to Iran across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Cyber security firm FireEye tipped Facebook off to the accounts it says are likely to be part of an Iranian state media network and are dedicated to pushing Iranian foreign policy aims. Among these appear to be the election of Jeremy Corbyn and Scottish independence.The pages, which had names like ‘Free Scotland 2014’ and ‘The British Left’ were followed by almost one million Facebook users. Before he became leader of the Labour Party, Corbyn took up to £20,000 in fees from the Iranian state broadcaster PressTV. Iran is Israel’s primary strategic enemy, no surprise they back Jeremy Corbyn…
#Antisemitism: J.K. Rowling calls out racist tweeters
J.K. Rowling, multimillionaire Harry Potter author, activist and philanthropist, is well known for her clever, snappy anti-discrimination tweets and statements.In a succession of tweets on Monday, Rowling called out several Twitter users expressing antisemitic accusations with the caption, “From the examples of antisemitic discourse in the IHRA’s definition of #antisemitism.”
‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.’
From the examples of antisemitic
discourse in the IHRA definition of #antisemitism pic.twitter.com/nTQWakLKDl— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 20, 2018
Rowling responded to a tweet attacking Netanyahu, the state of Israel and, by extension, the Jewish community following the criticism against British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Yisrael Medad: Thirteen Hasbara Essentials
Pro-Israel public diplomacy, or hasbara, has been the subject of several attacks recently seeking to highlight its failure to properly deal with Israel’s poor standing with several target audiences. Over the years, there has been bemoaning, hand-wringing, and downright temper tantrums.A sympathetic Andrew Silow-Carroll asks, “If Israel has such bad PR, why does it remain so popular?” and the nasty anti-Zionist Philip Weiss declares, “Hasbara is dead.” David Brinn writes of “Israel’s ‘Hasbara’ Plight,” and Irina Tsukerman thinks that “Israel’s Hasbara (PR) is Actually Spectacularly Successful.” The problem is that it fails in an effective division of labor.
Other weaknesses that are pointed out are a lack of essential financial investment, the ingrained media bias, the larger numbers of Arab states and organizations involved, as well as the normal lying, fabrication, and misrepresentation of what has actually happened, whether in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, or Jerusalem. There are those who do not accept Israel’s right to exist in any territorial configuration or are unwilling to view Zionism as anything other than a racist and colonialist ideology. Many others either have very little knowledge or an inability to correctly read and understand elements of the arguments made. And there are the antisemites who didn’t like Jews in ghettos or their neighborhoods — or even in their own country, for that matter.
While these are concerns that do impact significantly on Israel’s “explanation” problems, the core issue is that Israel’s officialdom is too hesitant in confronting its detractors and too shy to forthrightly put forward Israel’s just case, since that would entail asserting claims that would make target audiences cringe or stand aghast.
NPR’s ‘Here and Now’ Sets Up BDS as Moral Force
While Thompson tells listeners that “pro-Palestinian groups said [SodaStream] represented support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine,” echoing Young’s earlier statement that “Palestinians and their supporters see [the Israeli factory in the West Bank] as illegal Israeli occupation,” the pair never shares what Israelis and their supporters say and see. In their determination to find “moral questions” in the actions of the Israeli company, “Here and Now” not only overlooks the views of Israelis, but also those of Palestinians who lost their livelihood thanks to BDS’ concerted smear campaign of an Israeli company with practiced coexistence. As Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid opined:I’m opposed to the boycott because it only ends up harming the Palestinians themselves. Take, for example, the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumim that is now moving some of its operations to Be’er Sheva. I’ve met with Palestinians who worked at the factory and were fired because of the move. They told me they were earning an average of NIS 5,000 a month there, and that today they are being offered salaries of just NIS 1,400 in the PA.
People there are deep in debt because they have taken on long-term commitments based on the understanding that their work at the plant would continue; but reality has slapped them in the face because of the pressure created by BDS movement. Today, they are running between the courts and the bailiff offices and is anyone taking any notice of them? Do you think the boycott movement cares about them at all?
Thus, Thompson’s identification of those who opposed SodaStream’s West Bank presence as “pro-Palestinian” excludes those who prioritize Palestinian quality of life over anti-Israel ideology. “The BDS movement, which claims to be our friend,” said Eid, writing as a Palestinian, “is determined to blame Israel for all our problems, and refuses to acknowledge the true issues. Instead, they are engaged in a self-serving narrative aimed at making them look like heroes who are supposedly helping the Palestinians.”
NPR’s Robin Young and Derek Thompson have picked their heroes and drawn their moral lines. For them, the Israelis who employed Palestinians across the Green Line, close to their homes, under favorable, non-discriminatory conditions were doing bad for the world. For the journalists-cum-moralists, the BDS activists who battled the Israeli company which they say “represented support for the Israeli occupation” are the heroic do-gooders, Palestinian employment be damned.
Lutheran Peacemakers Use Passive Voice to Give Hamas a Pass, Demonize Israel
For one reason or another, mainline Protestant peacemakers find it difficult, if not impossible, to speak openly and directly about Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians. In particular, they can’t say the word “Hamas,” the name of an antisemitic terrorist organization that seeks Israel’s destruction and which has launched thousands of rockets into Israel.Hamas, the group that mainliners cannot name, does a lot of really bad things and causes a lot of suffering. It hides its rockets in schools and hospitals, teaches children to hate Jews, and has encouraged Palestinians to gather at Gaza’s boundary with Israel to give cover for armed terrorists seeking to penetrate the security barrier. It recruits people to serve as human shields, steals food and fuel from rank-and-file Palestinians to give to its leaders, and takes cement allowed into Gaza to rebuild peoples’ homes and uses it to build attack tunnels into Israel. But because mainliners can’t — or won’t — say the word “Hamas,” mainliners have a tough time confronting the bad things it does.
Because of the mainline refusal to speak about Hamas’s bad acts, the peacemaking narrative offered by mainline activists and the churches that support them is profoundly distorted. In the mainline narrative about violence in the Holy Land, anti-Jewish violence is mostly unremarkable, while Israel’s efforts to protect Jewish lives and welfare is inherently blameworthy. Hamas terrorists get a pass for terrorizing Israelis and Israelis are condemned for fighting back.
The overall effect of Christian peacemaking rhetoric is to give license to Palestinian violence while blunting Israel’s ability to protect the lives of its citizens.
A long-established tendency among US mainline Protestant denominations to “blindly accept and repeat the Palestinian narrative” is ultimately responsible for the fabricated claims of Israeli human rights abuse made by a Massachusetts Episcopalian bishop that resulted in her apologizing over the weekend, a veteran US Jewish leader said on Tuesday.“Over more than a decade, we’ve seen attempts by mainline groups to adopt BDS resolutions and other one-sided resolutions,” Daniel Mariaschin — the Washington, DC-based CEO of B’nai B’rith International — told The Algemeiner in an interview.
These efforts, said Mariaschin, “have wound up, frankly, at the point where Bishop Harris said what she said.”
Bishop Gayle Harris, who serves as a suffragan (assisting) bishop in the Massachusetts diocese, falsely told the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops in a July 3 speech that Israeli troops had carried out a gruesome execution of a Palestinian teenage boy.
Without citing a location or a date, Harris claimed that after an argument with Israeli troops, the boy had fled in panic. “They shot him in the back four times,” Harris asserted. “He fell on the ground and they shot him again another six.”
Mustafa the BDS Activist
Mustafa the BDS activist has been very busy lately: Mustafa is a Belgian BDS activist working with “Samidoun.” But as it turns out, Samidoun is a PFLP front, and Mustafa has been busy delivering money to terrorists and training with Hezbollah. This year, he was arrested by Israel trying to enter the West Bank from Jordan.
___About “humanitarian” organization Samidoun?
“Samidoun-Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network” (Samidoun) is an organization that operates in the U.S., as well as in the Middle East, Europe and Canada. While Samidoun claims to be a human rights group advocating for political prisoners, but actually operates as a proxy of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated foreign terror organization.Samidoun intentionally masks its relationship to the PFLP, withholding key information about its staff members and publishing content in English that belies its real agenda as expressed in Arabic. For instance, Samidoun’s coordinator, Khaled Barakat, is a senior PFLP member and the head of PFLP’s Foreign Operations Department. He and his wife Charlotte Kates, also a Samidoun coordinator, utilize Samidoun as a platform to promote the PFLP’s agenda, ideas and content abroad. Other leaders of Samidoun are also PFLP members, and the large majority of Samidoun’s activities are organized in support of the PFLP and its jailed terrorists. Particularly notable is the ongoing “Campaign to Free Ahmad Saadat”, PFLP’s Secretary-General imprisoned in Israel. In addition, two of Samidoun’s leaders have connections to high-ranking Hamas officials.
Northern Irish Soccer Authority Decisively Rejects Calls to Cancel Friendly Match With Israel
The top soccer authority in Northern Ireland has roundly rejected calls from supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign to nix a friendly match between Northern Ireland and Israel next month.The Irish Football Association — soccer’s governing body in the six counties that comprise Northern Ireland — said in a statement on Monday that it had “no intention of canceling Northern Ireland’s international challenge match against Israel on 11 September.”
In purely soccer terms, friendly matches are not regarded as major competitive events so much as opportunities for coaches to experiment with new players and different tactics. Both Northern Ireland — 27 in the FIFA world rankings — and Israel — 93 in the FIFA world rankings — are shaping up to try to qualify for the next FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022. The two sides last faced off in Tel Aviv in 2013, in a contest that ended in a 1-1 tie.
But for the republican nationalist Sinn Fein party — which enthusiastically backs BDS and has historical links with the PLO and other Palestinian groups — the match is an important platform to promote the boycott campaign more broadly.
Honest Reporting: Lessons Learned on South African Limmud Tour
With over 80 groups across the world in 42 countries, Limmud is a global phenomenon of cross-communal Jewish learning, giving participants access to the most dynamic Jewish educators, performers and teachers, working in a variety of educational styles – lectures, workshops, text-study sessions, film, meditation, discussions, exhibits and performance.It was an honor to be invited by Limmud South Africa to be one of its group of international presenters at events in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town during August.
This was a wonderful opportunity to lecture about media bias and the work of HonestReporting to hundreds of Limmud attendees from a relatively small yet strongly pro-Israel and committed Jewish community that has contributed so much to post-apartheid South Africa.
Indeed, this was also a learning experience for myself. While those of us who live in Israel are acutely aware of just how inaccurate and defamatory the Israel apartheid libel is, it is enlightening to witness what real apartheid actually was. A visit to Johannesburg’s Apartheid Museum and a tour of the notorious former prison at Constitution Hill with a former prisoner who outlined his experiences there helped to place things in proper perspective.
German Jewish Leader Slams “Antisemitic Stereotypes” in School Textbooks
The head of Germany’s leading Jewish organisation criticized the use of “antisemitic stereotypes” in the school textbooks.Josef Schuster, president of The Central Council of Jews in Germany, slammed the Germany’s schools and textbook publishers for doing too little to root out the problem. Many textbook illustrations in German textbooks resemble the anti-Semitic depictions from the Nazi-era newspaper “Der Stürmer,” while at the same time failing to provide the appropriate historical context to the imagery, Schuster said.
Criticism aired by Schuster is based on a detailed study published by Germany’s Georg Eckert Institute. The study evaluated history textbooks being used in schools across the country. German weekly Der Spiegel reported the details:
“There are too many illustrations [in the textbooks] which have been shaped by antisemitic stereotypes and thus reminiscent of Der Stürmer, [and] don’t offer an objective representation,” Schuster said. Der Stürmer was an antisemitic Nazi propaganda newspaper.
“We have too many textbook that treat Judaism in a very rudimentary way,” criticized Schuster. “Judaism was not restricted to the period between 1933 an 1945. “There was Jewish life in Germany many centuries before that and fortunately we have it today. One, however, don’t see that in the textbooks.”
The content regarding the case in point deals with the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi era and the Holocaust. School textbooks often show antisemitic imagery, confirmed Dirk Sadowski, researcher at the Georg-Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. (…)
Sadowski and his colleagues took three years to examining 84 history books of various grades and from several states and were surprised to find how simplistically the Jewish life has been depicted.
Countering Intersectionality’s Anti-Zionist Hypocrisy by Empowering the Next Generation
Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist Shaun King said that basketball star Draymond Green “got played” by visiting Israel on a “Friends of the IDF”-sponsored trip.A year after ejecting marchers who carried queer pride flags with the Jewish Star of David, the Chicago Dyke March allowed Palestinian flags to be prominently featured.
And Women’s March leader Tamika Mallory, who embraced virulently antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, still refuses to denounce him.
What do these episodes have in common? They are disturbing manifestations of a philosophy called intersectionality. Intersectionality is rooted in the idea that all forms of social oppression are linked the world over.
There is a problem with how many activists have interpreted intersectionality. Many proponents believe that “oppression” can only be determined by those who are “oppressed” — and all too often, the “oppressed” are manipulated by anti-Israel activists into uniting around fighting the “oppressor” Israel. Anti-Israel extremists and their allies pervert justice by using the genuine issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation as recruiting tools for expanding the anti-Zionist movement, broadening their coalitions through propaganda.
By injecting Israel into the public discourse on issues for which it has no relevance, intersectionality undermines the pursuits of equality and fairness for women, African-Americans, the LGBTQ community, and other sectors. For instance, by publishing a platform that describes Israel as an “apartheid state” and urges divestment from Israel, BLM distracts from its actual mission and makes an analogy that cheapens the experiences of those who suffered the racial injustices of apartheid-era South Africa.
South African Politician Tony Ehrenreich at BDS March Calls to Expel Israeli Ambassador, Investigate SA Jewish Board of Deputies, Supporters of Israel Have No Place in South Africa pic.twitter.com/QK1zY9OgCj
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 22, 2018
Student Group Claims Tufts’s Anti-Israel Class Violates Administrative Policy
A fall course at Tufts University violates guidelines by the school’s president, according to a statement issued by Tufts Friends of Israel, a pro-Israel student group on the college campus.Titled “Colonizing Palestine,” the course proposes to “explore the history and culture of modern Palestine and the centrality of colonialism in the making of this contested and symbolically potent territory,” according to the class description.
JNS reported that the class focuses on writers and activists in the anti-Israel movement. Several Jewish organizations have condemned the course as political propaganda masquerading as an academic class.
Tufts Friends of Israel say that the course breaches a statement by the Office of the President, which reads: “While members of our community vigorously debate international politics, Tufts University does not adopt institutional positions with respect to specific geo-political issues.”
“By blindly condoning this course under the guise of the ‘free exchange of ideas,’ Tufts is explicitly endorsing a parochial narrative that rejects Jewish indigeneity to the land of their origin,” the student group states.
Tufts University now faces two options, according to the student group. Either the university must “admit to taking a geopolitical stance” by offering a course premised on a “biased narrative” that distorts Jewish history. Or the school must “take measures to greatly reform or retract this course and work towards the university’s stated principles and ‘bridging differences’ initiative.”
Israel’s Rafael equips Australia with SPIKE LR2 for combat vehicles
Defense giant Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. has been selected to provide several weapons systems to the Australian Defense Force, including the Spike LR2 fifth-generation anti-tank guided weapon and Trophy Active Protection System.The announcement was made Wednesday in Canberra by Australia’s Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne at the official launch ceremony of VRA Systems, a joint venture between Rafael and engineering company the Varley Group.
According to VRA’s inaugural CEO Jacob Blitman, the company will employ up to 70 Australians in local facilities with the potential to hire hundreds more.
“VRA aims to maximize the proportion of Spike LR2 componentry produced in Australia and deliver through life in service support, making use of our reach-back to Rafael’s research and development network in Israel,” he said.
Jeff Phillips, Managing Director of the Varley Group, said, “the 5th Generation Spike LR2 is the first of what we hope will be many opportunities for VRA to deliver Australian sovereign capabilities, drive innovation and jobs, and create export opportunities.”
The Spike LR2, which will be delivered to the Australian Defence Force by VRA Systems for their new Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles, is an advanced, multipurpose missile which incorporates improvements in lethality and immunity.
IDF Blog: The IDF’s Humanitarian Aid Through the Years
The IDF values human life and helps those in need, regardless of their location. No matter the disaster, time and time again these humanitarian missions have been carried out quickly and effectively, saving thousands of lives. Over the years, the IDF sent 27 humanitarian missions around the world.1953: Ionian Islands, Greece
The first humanitarian operation that the IDF carried out was in 1953, when Israel was just five years old. That August, an earthquake hit Greece, taking over 1,000 lives. Israeli Navy ships, which were participating in an exercise in the area, helped the survivors and gave them necessary medical treatment. These sailors paved the way for future IDF humanitarian aid missions.1975: Cambodia
In 1975, the war between Vietnam and Cambodia created many refugees. An IDF team was sent to the scene, where they stayed for over a month and provided medical care to the displaced persons living in temporary refugee camps on the Cambodian-Thai border.1985: Mexico City, Mexico
In September 1985, four earthquakes hit Mexico City, the most severe measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale, and took more than 10,000 lives. The IDF sent a delegation of medical and search and rescue teams, consisting of 350 reservists who were called up within three days of the disaster.
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