From Ian:
Dershowitz: What the US election tells us about the past, present and future
So Trump’s narrow victory doesn’t tell us much about the past or the present. Even if Trump had lost by a narrow margin, the fact that he got nearly 60 million votes would still be significant – as significant as his narrow victory – in telling us about the current mindset of the American people.
But the fact that Trump won tells us a great deal about the future, because a Trump presidency promises to be very different than a Clinton presidency would have been.
A Clinton presidency – coupled with a Republican Senate and House – would have been subject to the checks and balances of our constitutional system of separation of powers. A Trump presidency will not be subject to those constraints. There will be less gridlock, although the Senate filibuster may impose some constraints on President Trump’s expressed desire to pack the Supreme Court with “Scalias.”
Just as it was impossible to predict this election, it is impossible to predict the precise dimensions of the Trump presidency. If he is smart, he will reach across the aisle, as well as across genders, ethnicities and religions. A successful president must be different than a successful candidate. Only time will tell whether Trump acts on this historic truth.
In the meantime, the loyal opposition must remain both loyal and opposed to policies and appointments that are inconsistent with our values. We must cooperate when cooperation is warranted, but when it is not, we must use all available lawful options – political, judicial, media, academic and economic – to serve as checks and balances on a president who tries to exceed his authority. This is not the time for liberals or Democrats to become immobilized with despair, nor is it the time for violence or unlawful actions. It is a time to become energized and proactive.
Why US Election Coverage Is a Wake Up Call for Israel’s Supporters
Why This Matters for Israel’s Supporters
If you’re a long-time reader of HonestReporting, you won’t be surprised that the news industry is infected with groupthink, insularity, and is capable of skewing reality. It won’t shock you that reporters allowed themselves to become personally alienated and that the public discourse is now suffering for it.
You also know to be on the watch for the eight categories of media bias: misleading terminology, imbalanced reporting, opinions disguised as news, lack of context, selective omission, distortion of facts, lack of transparency and the use of true fact to reach false conclusions.
Noteworthy as mea culpas are, you’re also aware that the news industry doesn’t change overnight. It’s quite possible that, as Joshua Benton argues, “the forces that drove this election’s media failure are likely to get worse” (gulp!). We have to become more sophisticated news consumers. We must embrace the news literacy movement. (Learn more about it at the Poynter Institute, The News Literacy Project, and Stony Brook University’s Center for News Literacy.)
But it’s clear that there’s a bigger gap than we realized between the American public and nation’s leading papers. The Washington Post, for example, is now catching up on white, working class Americans who don’t live in big cities. These are people who are either indifferent to, or even mistrustful of the Post, the New York Times, or CNN. Does this mean Israel activists trying to reach “beyond the choir” should focus their efforts on local papers and web sites more trusted by red state small towns?
If none of this moves you, consider one last question.
With the news industry admitting it blew the biggest story of 2016, isn’t it just possible that journalists are just as capable of having botched other areas of coverage, be it Brexit, nuclear Iran, the Arab Spring, Russia’s rise, the war in Iraq, the economy, issues of race, gender, sexuality, or, of course, Israel and the Palestinians?
Headline Fail Over Israeli “Settlement Building Spree”
In the wake of Donald Trump’s US election victory, there have been many reactions concerning the consequences for Israeli policy. Israel’s science minister Ofir Akunis is quoted by Associated Press in many media outlets stating: “We need to think how we move forward now when the administration in Washington, the Trump administration and his advisers, are saying that there is no place for a Palestinian state.”
There has been no talk of any change in Israeli government policy. Yet, the comments by one minor Likud minister are taken by The Times of London to imply something far greater:
“Israel Plans Settlement Building Spree”
This is wholly disproportionate and a distortion of the facts. Instead of a headline attributing comments to a single political figure, The Times headline falsely states conjecture as fact even when the text of the story itself spends more time focused on a future Trump administration’s potential policies towards Israel.
HonestReporting has contacted The Times to ask for a headline change. Watch this space.
Ben-Dror Yemini: Political correctness insanity paved the way for Trump
The lie has become a norm. Professors in prestigious universities lie constantly. Tel Aviv, one of them wrote, is the only city in the West with no Muslims. The Labor Party and Benjamin Netanyahu, another one wrote, support the transfer of Arabs. And the list is long. They lie and they know they are lying. Political correctness makes it impossible to say anything to them. They will also be promoted, because of the lie. Trump took the same path. He lied and he won.
The same self-deception is rising and blooming in Israel. Last week, it was Amos Oz who delivered an enthusiastic speech in favor of Breaking the Silence. The main argument was that the organization’s activists “make every Israeli proud.” According to Oz, they make it clear that Israel is a free country. That is the politically correct thing to say. That is what Oz is saying.
The facts are slightly different. Avner Gvrayahu, one of the organization’s senior members, spoke at the United Nations and gave the impression that IDF soldiers are robbers. Yehuda Shaul, one of the organization’s founders, gave foreigners a testimony about poisoned wells in an entire Palestinian village. He lied. He inspired Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ libel at the UN General Assembly. And after the organization’s representatives were in Ireland, Parliament Member Richard Boyd Barrett said they had stated that everything Israel did was intentional murder. Oz, what a disgrace, thinks that is the way to make us proud.
As far as Obama is concerned, there is no Islamic terror. As far as Oz is concerned, there is no demonization. They are blind. Oz says a lot of sensible things. He warns Israel, and rightfully so, against heading to the disaster of a state that will not be bi-national but Arab. He succeeds, however, in shattering everything when he supports the activists of the demonization industry. It’s not just Oz, but growing parts of the Israeli Left, even the Zionist Left. And then they are surprised when Netanyahu or Trump win. It’s also because of you Amos Ozs. And until you understand that, they will keep winning.
In order to win an election or a referendum, there is no need to convince masses of people. All it takes is the transfer of a few percentage points from one side to the other. It’s not the ignorant people who hesitate, but actually the thinking people. They are not ardent fan of either Netanyahu or Trump, but the alternative on the left just seems much worse.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Despite Trump Victory, Racist Violence Still Technically Illegal In Most States (satire)
Post-election investigation has found that less than a week after the United States elected Donald Trump as its next president, violent acts against minorities or political opponents remain unlawful in most jurisdictions.
Staffers from news organizations based in New York and Los Angeles collaborated on a project to determine what impact Trump’s election is having on legislation or enforcement of crimes directed at members of specific identity groups in the wake of the contentious campaign characterized by charges of racism. The group found that at least in the states and cities they had checked, it is still punishable by law to engage in acts that target members of minorities – and in almost all cases, anyone else – for violence, intimidation, or other harassing behavior.
“We obviously have not looked at every jurisdiction, and there are a lot of them,” reported Dan Barry of the New York Times. “But the six of us – five from the Times and one from the LA Times – spent the better part of twenty minutes looking for towns, counties, cities, or other jurisdictions that have seized on Trump’s election as a pretext to engage in legalization of the wanton racist violence we know is just simmering beneath the surface, thanks to his campaign rhetoric. We found nothing as of this morning. So far we haven’t found anything has changed in terms of town ordinances or anything, but that’s clearly just a matter of time, given the uncontrolled violence we’ve come to associate with Trump supporters. We’re going to keep looking until there’s something to report. ”
Netanyahu: Palestinians won’t recognize a Jewish state within any borders
The Palestinian Authority rejected the idea of a Jewish state within any borders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, as he blamed Ramallah for the absence of a peace process.
“I want peace. My hand is extended for peace,” Netanyahu said at a memorial at Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem to mark the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, who led the Oslo process.
Netanyahu spoke of the Israeli willingness for peace in the shadow of a sudden flurry of initiatives to pave the way for the renewal of direct negotiations, which have been dormant since April 2014.(Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlines ‘5 Steps for Peace’. )
France wants to hold an international peace conference at the end of December and Russia wants Moscow to be a venue for a Netanyahu-Abbas parley.
The Obama Administration has not ruled out an initiative with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20. Trump himself has also stated that he wants to broker a peace-deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Trump aides said to warn Obama against 11th hour ‘new adventures’ on Palestinian issue
Aides to US president-elect Donald Trump are reportedly warning President Barack Obama not to “even think about” trying to make a new push for progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the final weeks of his administration.
The outgoing president and his team “shouldn’t go seeking new adventures or pushing through policies that clearly don’t match Trump’s positions,” the Politico website reported an unnamed Trump “national security adviser” as insisting.
And that includes “efforts to bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians — even if those initiatives are symbolic at best,” Politico wrote, noting that Trump “has made it very clear he will support Israel and its preferences.”
The Thursday report, which was headlined “Trump team warns Obama not to make major moves on foreign policy,” quoted Obama administration officials wondering about how much influence they could have on the incoming president and his team. “We are asking ourselves: Are we going to be able to have some influence on the transition team or not? There is so much unknown. Nobody really knows these people,” a State Department official was quoted as saying. “I’m not sure I need to feel defensive about what we are working on, but I think it’s important to explain it, and explain options, and to be willing to explore alternatives.”
PA threatens revenge on US if embassy moves to Jerusalem
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations threatened to exact revenge on the US at the world body should President-elect Donald Trump make good on his promise to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Boasting that the Palestinians have a variety of tools at their disposal at the UN against the United States, Riyad Mansour said he could make the life of US diplomats “miserable” in retaliation for the move.
“If they try to attack us by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, which is a violation of Security Council resolutions and a violation of Resolution 181… it means they are showing belligerency against us,” Mansour said at an event sponsored by the Jerusalem Fund Foundation in the US capital Friday.
“Maybe I cannot have resolutions in the Security Council” — likely due to a US veto — “but I can make their lives miserable every day by precipitating a veto on my admission as a member state,” he said.
“Nobody should blame us for unleashing all of the weapons that we have in the UN to defend ourselves, and we have a lot of weapons in the UN,” Mansour added.
TEMPLE MOUNT-The true story
Making a factual film about Temple Mount is the best way to spread the Truth!
Filmmaker (War Crimes in Gaza) Pierre Rehov hopes to raise $45,000 in the next two months by crowdfunding. You can help.
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About Pierre Rehov
If you’re tired of the New York Times-NPR Slant on Israel and the Palestinians, here’s good news: documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov has been challenging prevailing myths since 2001. With seven films already to his credit and another on the way, this serious, never boring, and above all else courageous documentarian is starting to make some serious waves”
International Business Times Pulls a UNESCO on Temple Mount
In a headline and accompanying first paragraph, The International Business Times takes a page from UNESCO’s book on the Temple Mount, casting Judaism’s holiest site as Islamic only. “Israel Wants Jews To Pray at Muslim Mosque in Jerusalem: Temple Mount Tensions Grow in Middle East” is the grossly misleading headline about some Israeli lawmakers (not “Israel”) who seek Jewish prayer rights at Judaism’s holiest site.Likewise, the article’s first sentence depicts the site as Muslim only, ignoring the reason why Jews would want to pray there:
Some Israeli lawmakers want to allow Jews to pray at an Islamic holy site in Jerusalem, a contentious proposal that is opposed by Middle Eastern leaders and could stroke tensions between Jews and Muslims in the Israel. Israel Parliament speaker Yuli Edelstein joined three cabinet ministers and three lawmakers Monday to demand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “open the gates” to the religious complex and rescind a year-long ban on Israeli lawmakers from visiting the site, the Times of Israel reported.
Not until the end of the second paragraph does reporter John Walsh acknowledge: “The compound sits on tops of the Western Wall in Jerusalem and is considered to be Judaism’s holist [sic] site.” How many readers, however, will make it past the misleading headline and first paragraph to get to the key information that the Israeli lawmakers are seeking Jewish prayer rights at the site because it is Judaism’s holiest site?
Israel beats Albania 3-0 in World Cup match played under terror threat
Israel moved into third place with nine points in its soccer World Cup qualifying Group G by beating Albania 3-0 in Elbasan, near Tirana, on Saturday night.
The match was played under tight security measures after media reports alleged a group of 15 persons arrested in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, had planned an attack during the game.
Albania was down a man and a goal from the 18th minute, after Berat Djimsiti was sent off with a direct red card for fouling an Israel player with only the goalkeeper to beat.
Eran Zahavi converted the penalty for Israel, which got a second goal from Dan Einbinder and a third from Eliran Atar late.
Third place would not be good enough to qualify for the tournament itself, however. Only the group winner automatically secures a spot for the World Cup in Russia. The second-place team must go through a playoff to make it to the 2018 tournament.
Israel’s next game is in Spain on March 24.
Palestinian leadership tensions flare amid Arafat death anniversary
Days after the 12th anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leaders descended into new recriminations over who may have been involved in the demise of the former president.
Coming two weeks before a meeting that is expected to overhaul the leadership of Fatah, the party of Arafat and President Mahmoud Abbas, the accusations underscore a growing animosity that threatens the movement’s stability.
Speaking at a memorial on Thursday in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas said he knew who was behind Arafat’s death and that an investigating panel would soon reveal its findings.
PA TV repeats libel: Israel murdered Arafat with poison, implies Abbas is next
Song: “O bullets, let us hear the sound of joy, Fatah of the revolution will not die,
and the Fatah member will repeat loudly with us: ’’Long live Fatah!’’’
Narrator: “The Fatah knight, creator of Al-Asifa (i.e., Fatah military unit), the engineer (i.e., Yasser Arafat). He stretched out his body as a bridge that we crossed towards victories that came one after the other… Pistol, rifle, and military uniform, with which the Palestinian revolution moved from place to place… With peace, politics, and resistance, with both the olive branch and the rifle, we entered the occupied land.”
Pictures from the signing of the Oslo Accords, 1993
Narrator: “A new battle began: The peace process. Discussions and agreements that the occupation backed out of, protected by the cover of injustice…”
Pictures from the siege of the PA’s presidential headquarters in Ramallah
Narrator: “A new chapter in the story: The scheme. Israel and its allies found Arafat to be an insurmountable obstacle to their occupation aspirations and plans, and therefore they [laid] the siege and [committed] the murder by poison… The knight [Arafat] got off his horse, and on the back of the revolution rose another man: Mahmoud Abbas. He tried again, out of a belief in a just peace, but the same cover of injustice remained…”
Captions:
“[Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor] Liberman: We must get rid of the PA and it is essential that Abbas go away”
“Liberman: ‘Israel’ must get rid of Abbas”
“A new Israeli attack on President Abbas”
“Wikileaks: [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu wants to get rid of Abbas.”
Saudi Paper Claims Israeli Falafel Stands Replace Turkish Shawarma in Moscow
An all-out war between Israeli falafel and the Turkish shawarma has taken to the streets of Moscow, the London-based Saudi newspaper Al Hayat reported.
City authorities have clamped down on shawarma stands across the city, citing a regulation demanding “a minimum” space for selling food, which the stands, often no more than holes in the wall, do not meet.
The paper said Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s policy was meant to ensure sanitary conditions and not target Turkish shawarma specifically, but some believe sour relations between Russia and Turkey, following the interception of a fighter jet by the Turkish air force last year, is behind the move.
According to the Saudi paper, the disappearing shawarma stands have been replaced by stands selling falafel, which is “largely perceived as an Israeli dish even though Arab merchants served falafel to the Russians long before the Israelis did.”
The paper said that on Russian search engines, falafel is portrayed as an Israeli dish, with dozens of businesses selling falafel cropping up in Moscow “where hummus, tabbouleh and other salads are also served, all under an Israeli banner.”
Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes has been branded ‘sick’ by the manager of the Bataclan concert hall who turned him away when he arrived at the venue on Saturday night.
Hughes’s band were playing during the ISIS attack at the Paris venue on November 13, 2015, but he caused fury earlier this year when he suggested that Muslim staff at the Bataclan were involved in the gun and suicide bomb massacre. He later apologised.
Hughes and another band member were reportedly turned away when they tried to enter the venue for Sting’s gig as the hall reopened to mark the anniversary of the massacre which killed 90 innocent music fans.
Director Jules Frutos said: ‘They came, I threw them out – there are things you can’t forgive.’
Mr Frutos said Hughes and his manager were turned away at the door. He told the Press Association: ‘They tried to enter the venue and they are persona non grata. They are not welcome after what he said about the security.’
Referring to Hughes, Mr Frutos said: ‘I mean, this man is just sick. That’s all.’
IsraellyCool: Students for Justice in Palestine Call For Intifada – In the US!
As you know, I have been appalled by the incitement and violence at anti -Trump protests in the US.
And yes, I am aware it is not everyone on the left participating.
One such group participating is Students for Justice in Palestine, who broadcast live this disturbing call for violence.
And clearly expect altercations with the police.
We see time and again such groups trying to exploit the people’s frustrations to push their Israel hating agenda, not to mention incite violence. They did it at Ferguson and they are doing it again now with the backlash against the Trump election victory.
American Express is still sponsoring pre-sale tickets to British rockstar Roger Waters’ upcoming tour, despite reports that the credit card company declined involvement, due to the musician’s anti-Israel views, the New York Post’s Page Six reported on Wednesday.
Tickets for the former Pink Floyd bassist’s Québec City performance, part of his “US + Them” North American 2017 tour, went on sale last week, with a “Front of the Line by American Express” option allowing AmEx members early access to seats.
According to the report, a music insider noted, “AmEx said they are out of bed with [Waters], but they were still clearly shilling his tickets.”
Commenting on the pre-sale offer, a rep for the credit card giant told Page Six, “We have many pre-sales in market [sic] with a broad array of artists, and they vary market to market. As we said previously, for the Roger Waters tour in the US, we were never in specific talks to sponsor this tour.”
The publication previously cited a source at AmEx who said the company was asked to sponsor Waters’ “US + Them” tour at a cost of $4 million, but had “pulled out because it did not want to be part of his anti-Israel rhetoric.”
PreOccupiedTerritory: Israeli Scientists Now Just Trolling BDS With Breakthroughs (satire)
A representative of Israeli research institutions and personalities admitted that the main factor behind a string of recent scientific and technological advances emanating from those entities has been less a drive for the improvement of human life and civilization, and more a deep-seated desire to mock and provoke advocates of divestment from, and boycotts of, Israeli institutions.
Addressing a scientific conference at the Weizmann Institute of Science today, Professor Doron Lancet of the Molecular Genetics Department at the institute explained to assembled colleagues that recent achievements in the sciences by Israeli researchers and commercial enterprises stemmed almost entirely from wanting to troll the BDS movement, and only incidentally from an effort to cure illnesses or ease people’s lives.
Lancet specifically cited recent breakthroughs in AIDS research, cancer treatment, and Alzheimer prevention or slowdown, but referred less directly to advances in rehabilitative care, mobile apps, and agriculture as manifestations of the emerging phenomenon. “Our conversations within the walls of Weizmann and beyond point to a clear trend,” he explained. “The driving force behind our research and development has become, over the last few years, more and more explicitly a visceral need to stick it to BDS proponents and demonstrate the ludicrous, self-destructive assumptions behind their movement.”
‘The city is desecrating Jewish graves it seeks to commemorate’
City workers in a Ukraine city suspended their digging at a former Jewish cemetery amid controversy over the unearthing of human remains at the site.
Pieces of skull and limbs were among the bones discovered last week at the Old Jewish Cemetery of Lviv, in western Ukraine, where diggers with heavy machinery excavated a 40-foot trench despite previous objections to the work by some local Jews.
Officials said the dig, which went through without permission from local rabbinical authorities, was necessary to reinforce a damaged exterior wall. But Meylakh Sheykhet, Ukraine’s director of the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, disputed the claim.
Sheykhet, who complained to police about the dig, said he believed the work was part of a multi-phase commemoration project that he has fought in court, saying it would damage heritage sites and desecrate burial places needlessly in violation of the principles of halachah, Jewish religious law.
“This dig is as illegal as it is cynical; the city is desecrating Jewish graves it says it wants to commemorate,” said Sheykhet, who has collected pieces of bone throughout this week from the heaps of cemetery earth left exposed by the diggers at the site, which is adjacent to what used to be the Jewish hospital in Lviv.
Sweden neo-Nazis pummeled by fireworks, snowballs at rally
Swedish police said 10 people were detained as a Swedish right-wing extremist group marched through central Stockholm while counter-demonstrators threw snowballs and fireworks at them.
Police spokesman Lars Bystrom said those detained were taken when counter-demonstrators briefly clashed with officers in the capital’s picturesque old city as they tried to reach the rally by the Nordic Resistance Movement.
A few hundred people, some with the movement’s green and white flags, walked in crisp, freezing weather.
Up to six times as many people staged a counter-demonstration nearby and some eventually broke out to try to block the right-wing group from crossing a bridge on their route. Large police forces, including mounted officers, kept the sides apart.
Two people were injured in the clashes between police and the anti-fascists.
2breathe sleep inducer wins 2017 CES Innovation Award
2breathe Technologies, a pioneer of digital therapeutic devices, has been selected as an Innovation Award Honoree in the CES Fitness, Sports and Biotech product category at CES Unveiled.
CES Unveiled offers a sneak peak of year’s most advanced and revolutionary technologies just before the CES annual conference in January 2017.
“We are excited and incredibly honored to be selected for this prestigious award,” said Erez Gavish, 2breathe Technologies’ co-founder and CEO. “Recognition by the Consumer Technology Association also further validates the importance of addressing sleeplessness as part the next biotech and fitness frontier.”
2breathe, one of ISRAEL21c’s top seven Israeli devices to help you get a good night’s sleep, induces sleep via guided breathing using a full-pattern Bluetooth respiration sensor and patented real-time coaching technology. Guiding tones composed from the user’s breathing prolong exhalation to reduce neural sympathetic activity and induce sleep. A detailed session report shows users the number of breaths taken, how well they followed the tones and when they fell asleep.
IDF Technological Cadets Create Smart Bracelet That Will Save Lives
What can you do in three weeks? Start learning a language? Write a book? How about building a new piece of technology that can save countless lives. In just three weeks, that’s exactly what IDF soldiers did.
Solving the problem
As part of the final stage of the IDF Technological Officers Training Course, cadets are expected to find an issue in the IDF that can be solved with an innovative technological approach, and then, in a rapid prototyping process, build a working product. The cadets developed a smart bracelet that will keep track of life saving data when soldiers are injured on the battlefield.
Here’s how it works: When a soldier is injured, the field medic will attach a smart bracelet powered by an arduino chip to their arm. The bracelet will instantly start tracking their pulse, blood pressure, and body temperature using its multiple sensors. Using an NFC chip, the bracelet will track who is providing care, the medications and dosages he receives, and any procedures that the wounded soldier undergoes. When the wounded soldier is evacuated and brought to a hospital to receive more advanced care, all that data will travel with him.
While wearable tech hasn’t taken off as quickly as expected in the civilian sector, what sets this smart bracelet apart is that it fills a vital need. It solves a long-standing challenge of the IDF Medical Corps – ensuring accurate transfer of information as wounded soldiers are moved from the battlefield to field triage centers, and then, ultimately, to civilian hospitals.
Legendary British punk rock band The Stranglers refuse to be intimidated by BDS
You first played in Israel in 2008 on a double bill with Blondie. What were your impressions then, and have you been pressured at all by any pro-Palestinian activists to reconsider coming?
First of all, we had a great time back then.
Tel Aviv is such a rocking city and the Israeli people are so open and fun to be with. I don’t think the outside world realizes how cool it really is there.
But as you know, people are generally ignorant of the situation in Israel and they just read the headlines. They don’t realize that Israel is a democracy in a sea of f***ed up countries. A true democracy with the Left and Right able to express themselves.
Obviously, there’s the big dispute about the territories and the Palestinians, but I know for myself that if someone was threatening to throw me back in the sea and that someone is my neighbors, then I would predispose myself in a certain way and safeguard myself.
There’s an awful lot of animosity toward Israel, but there’s also a lot of respect. So yeah, we’ve been criticized for coming to Israel, but f*** ’em.
My thinking is, if someone invited to perform professionally, I weigh the offer and decide to accept it or not. I accepted the offer to play in Israel. Full stop.
IsraellyCool: Aerosmith Likely To Play In Israel, But Have Already Made Israelis Happy
In news that will send BDS-holes in to a tailspin, it has been widely reported that Aerosmith will likely be performing in Israel in May, their second performance here following their 1994 tour.
The show has not been confirmed yet, and Roger Waters and company will no doubt implore the band to boycott Israel. So allow me to put them out of their misery (or rather put them into their misery) and remind them what Aerosemith frontman Steve Tyler did over 10 years ago.
Steven Tyler, lead singer of the rock band Aerosmith, dedicated the group’s hit song “Dream On” to abducted soldier Ehud Goldwasser at the request of Golwasser’s wife Karnit during a New York concert this week.
Hezbollah fighters kidnapped Goldwasser along with fellow Israel Defense Forces reserve soldier Eldad Regev on July 12. The abduction triggered a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah.
UN ranks IDF emergency medical team as ‘No. 1 in the world’
The United Nation’s World Health Organization recognized the Israeli army’s field hospital, which is regularly sent abroad to provide aid at natural disaster sites, as “the number one in the world” in a ceremony last week, classifying it as its first and only “Type 3” field hospital, according to its commander, Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Ofer Merin.
As reported in The Times of Israel last month, the WHO and the Israel Defense Forces had been in talks to determine if the army unit met the demands of a “Type 3” medical team, a status no medical team had ever reached before.
Last Wednesday, the IDF’s field hospital team received the “Type 3” designation, along with some additional “specialized care” recognitions, which technically made it a “Type 3 plus,” though the army kept the information quiet until Sunday.
“We’re going to recommend the director-general verifies [Israel’s team] as a Type 1, Type 2, and also Type 3 and multiple different types of specialty cells,” Dr. Ian Norton, the lead author of the classification system and head of the WHO delegation, said Wednesday at the ceremony in the Medical Corps’ base in Ramat Gan, outside Tel Aviv.
Refuseniks book scores PM’s award
Australia: A BOOK chronicling the landmark campaign by Australia, and notably the Jewish community, to help free Jews from the Soviet Union so they could emigrate to Israel and other destinations, has won a major literary prize.
Co-authored by Sam Lipski and Professor Suzanne Rutland, Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and the Soviet Jews 1959-89, launched last year, has been jointly awarded the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award in Australian History.
The book shares the PM’s award in the Australian History category with historian Geoffrey Blainey’s The Story of Australia’s People.
Judges stated Lipski and Rutland “have produced a path-breaking book about the struggles of the Soviet ‘refuseniks’. Replete with new information, [it] draws on a vast array of primary and secondary sources. These include ASIO files, Rutland’s painstaking research on Australia and Soviet Jewry, as well as unfettered access to the massive archive about the campaign for Soviet Jewry of Lipski’s friend Isi Leibler,” who is a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and activist for Soviet Jews.
Lipski, chief executive of the Pratt Foundation and a former -editor-in-chief of The AJN, described news of the award as “an overwhelming moment – to hear that I and co-author Suzanne Rutland had shared the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History with Geoffrey Blainey, the doyen of Australian historians”.
Leonard Cohen: Artist, mensch and ‘kohen gadol’
Leonard Cohen was many things – novelist, poet, singer- songwriter – but he was also a proud Jew, a true mensch and a lover of Zion.
Not many foreign pop stars could be eulogized by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as someone who “loved the people of Israel and the State of Israel.”
But as a Jew and friend of Israel, the Canadian-born singer- songwriter conducted himself, as in most things, in his own singular way. Nowhere was this more evident than in his 2009 concert at National Stadium in Ramat Gan.
Cohen came under heavy pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement to cancel his appearance. Instead, he tried to organize a second concert in Ramallah, with all the proceeds going to Amnesty International.
More BDS pressure succeeded in scuttling the Ramallah show, and even intimidated Amnesty to back away from its willingness to accept Cohen’s philanthropy.
Having already performed several times in Israel, including his famous 1973 appearance for Israeli soldiers in Sinai during the Yom Kippur War, Cohen was not so easily cowed. He found another worthy beneficiary for his largesse in the Parents Circle, a group of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost children in the conflict and now work together for peace and coexistence.
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