A diplomatic crisis between Israel and Poland appeared to be deepening on Sunday as Poland’s deputy chief of mission, Piotr Kozłowski, was summoned to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem over a law approved by the Polish parliament making it a criminal offence to mention Polish complicity in crimes committed during the Holocaust.

Polish lawmakers voted Friday for a bill that would fine or jail people who blame Poland or Poles for Nazi atrocities committed on its soil during World War II, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The law still needs final approval from the Polish Senate and the country’s president.

According to [Catholic] tradition God chose the Jewish people in the time of Abraham to serve as a preparatory stage for the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, His Son, and the establishment of the Catholic Church. Once Christ came, all that was valuable and effective for human salvation was transferred from Judaism to the new Church. The Ancient Alliance between God and Israel was voided and replaced by the New Alliance between the Church and God. The Jews, as the original Chosen People, should have been the first Christians, but they elected instead to repudiate Christ. They did not accept his doctrine; they opposed him during his lifetime; they instigated his arrest; they clamored for his execution; they acquiesced in his crucifixion. For these sins they were punished in three ways by God: they ceased to be the Chosen People; they were blinded so that they could not see the truth of Christianity; they were dispersed among the nations, never to be reunited until the end of time when Christ will return to this world to judge the living and the dead. At the end of time, they will be converted as a group, but until that day they will remain blinded, dispersed, and persecuted as a sign that God has entrusted salvation to the Church alone, and that He punishes obduracy.

Roman Catholic believers drew a whole range of practical conclusions from these premises. The Jews as a people—not only the Jews of Christ's time but Jews of all time—were guilty of having killed Christ, the God-man: theologically speaking, they were deicides. Second, because they were cursed by God to remain dispersed among the nations until the end of time, the very existence of a Jewish state must be against God's will, and Israel must therefore be doomed to extinction after a short while. Third, the sufferings of the Jews were to be understood as part of their punishment for the crime of having rejected Christ and their original destiny. Fourth, Judaism was a useless thing, an invalid ethic, an invalid way of life, an invalid method of worship, which had been rendered pointless by the advent of Christ. And in the long history of Jewish-Christian relations more phantasmagoric conclusions still were frequently drawn. The Jews were allied with the devil, they were always entering into conspiracies—with Freemasons, with Communists, with atheists, with secularists—for the sole purpose of destroying the Church and wiping Christianity off the face of the earth.

 Nostra Aetate was indeed a revolution, particularly with reference to Jews and Judaism. First of all, it moved from a theology of a dead, outdated and superseded Judaism to a theology of a living Judaism. Second, it rejected the idea that all forms of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism could, in any way, be founded on Christian or scriptural teaching. And, most important, the church came to understand that in the words of Paul the Apostle, God’s covenant with the Jewish people is irrevocable, and that Jews continue to be “the chosen people.”

The official excuse: Because Amnesty supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, “it would be inappropriate [for us] to host an event by those actively supporting” West Bank Jewish settlements.

By which AI specifically meant the watchdog group UN Watch — whose extremely effective executive director, Hillel Neuer, was to take part in the debate with a pro-UN advocate.

Worse, Amnesty suddenly claimed that allowing Neuer to appear at its building would put the work of its people “on the ground . . . at risk.”

By which it probably meant that some of its well-heeled supporters had raised objections. Or maybe the group simply got cold feet over the potential embarrassment of hosting a debate in which Neuer was sure to prevail.

None of this comes as any surprise: Amnesty International has a long record of opposing Israeli policies — but, worse still, of holding the Jewish state to an unfair double standard that would qualify AI for membership on that same Israel-bashing UN Human Rights Council.

Amnesty, like the rest of the left, has an obsessive and unbalanced interest in Israel. It routinely publishes reports denouncing Israeli actions while ignoring the Palestinian terror attacks — including missile fire — that provoke them.

It has demanded that Israel — but not Hamas — be prosecuted for war crimes. And its “people on the ground” have included at least one person who served as a “human shield” against Israeli troops.

Amnesty International has long failed to live up to its own media hype. Maybe its officials should reschedule that debate — and then stay to watch it.

The Palestinian Authority has reopened its verbal attacks on Palestinian Media Watch. This follows PMW's repeated exposure of incitement to violence on official PA radio, including the broadcast of a recent song calling for Martyrdom for Jerusalem.

A few days after PMW reported that The Voice of Palestine station had broadcast a song encouraging Palestinians to "redeem" Jerusalem "with your life and blood", the station's Director-General Bassam Daghlas, accused PMW of "waging an incitement campaign" against the station.

"Director-General of [the official PA radio station] The Voice of Palestine Bassam Daghlas said that 'The incitement campaign that the Israeli center Palestinian Media Watch is waging against The Voice of Palestine radio station is not the first case, as it has been subject to similar attacks in the past.' ...
He also emphasized that 'Our media message is clear and will not change, and if they consider playing national songs incitement, they can think what they want."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 25, 2018]

The PA Ministry of Information also attacked PMW, claiming PMW is waging a "wild incitement campaign" against The Voice of Palestine, and that PMW reports are "part of the deceptive Zionist discourse":

"The [PA] Ministry of Information believes that the wild incitement campaign that the Israeli center called Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) is waging against [the official PA] radio station The Voice of Palestine projects on the other... what happens within its own entity [Israel], and that it [PMW] already waged other attacks against the Palestinian, Arab, and international media... The ministry said that the repeated claims of the Israeli center [PMW] are part of the deceptive Zionist discourse - that is full of incitement and that is the sole sponsor of terror and the ugly racism."
[PA Ministry of Information website, Jan, 24, 2018, emphasis added]

The PA has attacked PMW for exposing PA incitement to hate and terror numerous times. Last year, PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi counted PMW among the "toxic organizations," accusing PMW of just waiting "to attack":

Thirteen years ago, the United Nations General Assembly designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an occasion for its member nations to commemorate Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others. The UN also urged nations to use the occasion to educate their citizens about the horrors of the Holocaust to help prevent future acts of genocide.

Yet in the intervening years, across Europe and worldwide, we have seen the rise of extremist politics, from the National Front Party in France to extremist electoral gains in Austria, Greece, Hungary and the Netherlands, much of it fueled by anti-immigration rhetoric and intolerance, but also by neo-Nazism and the very same anti-Semitic language and tropes that gave rise to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

During the French elections last year, for example, National Front leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen denied France was responsible for the infamous 1942 roundup and deportation of 13,000 French Jews, reopening old wounds. In Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, who is increasingly allying with Iran, said that “Israel doesn’t kill in error, it kills in horror.”

Meanwhile, the European Forum on Anti-Semitism, a watchdog group founded in 2008, reported 767 anti-Semitic incidents across the continent in the first half of 2017, a 30% rise from the previous year and the highest number it has since recorded . In Caracas, Venezuela, Foreign Policy magazine reported increasing instances of graffiti with phrases like “be patriotic: kill a Jew.”

Many have raised their voices about this threat — but not the UN. The organization I founded 35 years ago, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has seen first-hand the impact of a resurgence in anti-Semitism.

I was born in Jaffa 10 years after the end of the war to a family from Sofia, Bulgaria. My family, like many in the Balkans, was originally from Spain.

When I was young, Jews from southeast Europe weren't mentioned in a single text about the Holocaust. We didn't know that our parents, too, were survivors, and possibly heroes.

When I asked my mother what had happened there during the war, she tended to brush me off by saying, "We were deported to Ruse (a town at the border of Bulgaria) and I was always hungry, but we weren't in camps." In other words, there is a hierarchy of suffering and Holocaust stories.

The response of my mother, who was a girl during the war, is an expression of the trauma of the Israeli perception of the 1950s and 60s – anyone who wasn't in Auschwitz wasn't considered a survivor. The Holocaust was identified as Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Treblinka.

Who knew names like Transnistria (Romania), Logor Jasenovac (Croatia), Dakovo (Croatia, designated for women and children), Sajmiste and Banjica (Belgrade), Rab (Yugoslavia), Drancy and Gurs (France), Westerbork, Amersfoort, Vught (the Netherlands), Mauthausen (Austria), or Somovit in Bulgaria?

We spent our childhood among the mythic, inconceivable number "6 million," the terms Sabra [native-born Israeli] and "the first generation of the redemption." We looked ahead to the founding of the Jewish state and the development of the ethos of Israeli heroism. So places from which no witnesses were left were forgotten.

Israel has zero tolerance for “distorting the truth, rewriting history or denying the Holocaust,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at Sunday's cabinet meeting, addressing the controversy over the draft bill that passed the lower house of Poland's parliament on Friday making it illegal to attribute complicity in the Holocaust to the “Polish nation” or to use terms such as “Polish death camps.”

Netanyahu said that Israel's ambassador to Poland, Anna Azaria, made Israel's firm position known to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at a memorial ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day at Auschwitz on Saturday night.

During the coming week, he said, she will hold additional meetings about the matter with Morawiecki, as well as the country's president and the Polish senate. The president and senate still have to sign off on the legislation before it becomes law.

"Every day, and especially on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember three things,” Netanyahu said. “First, the six million of our brothers and sisters who were annihilated in the Nazi inferno; Second, the price humanity paid for failing to stand up on time and with the proper strength against a murderous ideology; And thirdly, the constant need to continue and nurture the strength of the State of Israel vis-à-vis the regimes of modern fanaticism.”

Poland has a long history of anti-Semitism, as long as the history of Jews in Poland itself. Anti-Semitism is still widespread there today. Poland is still not confronting its past and current anti-Semitism appropriately. It was a long time before it starting compensating Holocaust survivors and their descendants for their stolen property. Poland had and still has a problem with Jews.

But Poland wasn't responsible for the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a German crime. Yes, plenty of Europeans helped the Germans try to wipe out European Jewry. But the Holocaust was conceived, planned, and executed by the Germans. So the intense Polish sensitivity to attempts to transfer responsibility for the industrial extermination camps from Germany to Poland is understandable. There were plenty of reasons why the Nazi regime elected to set up the biggest death camps in Poland: the large Jewish communities there, plans to repopulate that required "mass evacuation" as well as the German assessment that the Polish hatred for Jews would allow the killing to proceed without any interference from the locals. Many Poles were murdered by the Germans as a result of the insane Nazi race doctrine. More importantly, there were more "righteous gentiles" (gentiles who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Holocaust) in Poland than in any other Nazi-occupied country, and they also outnumbered the Poles who cooperated with the Nazis to carry out the Final Solution.

The evil Polish anti-Semitism, as expressed in the pogroms perpetrated against the few remaining Jewish refugees after the Holocaust and under communist rule – as well as in the attempt over the course of many years to cast the people murdered in concentration camps as Poles rather than Jews – should not distract us from the fact that Germany was and will always bear the sole responsibility for the camps' existence in Poland in the first place. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

I first heard about this ridiculous and demented law around a year and a half after the current Polish regime ascended to power. With or without the law, they cannot shed responsibility for their crimes – Poland actively, willingly collaborated with the Germans. People tend to associate Auschwitz with Germany because it was a Nazi concentration camp, but it was on Polish soil.

Today, as a living witness who tells his story to students, I often travel to Poland and feel the anti-Semitism. I know their language, I look like one of them, and they don't know I am Jewish. I hear their anti-Semitic undertones. To this day I can still hear the mother admonishing her son who doesn't want to eat: "I'll sell you to the Jews or the Gypsies." But I go back there, time and again, because giving testimony is important.

Despite their best efforts to bury their Nazi past – they cannot outrun history. Just last month I was at Yad Vashem speaking to Polish army colonels; I told them, in their own language, my life story and how we suffered from the anti-Semitism their country, about the wrongs done to us. They admitted it was all true. They bowed their heads. So now what, will these colonels be arrested? I delivered a similar speech in Poland in front of the mayor of Lodz. Will those who listened to me in humiliated silence now be arrested as well? It is absurd.

Because they won't ever be able to erase the horrors they perpetrated, not while Holocaust survivors are still alive, and not as long there are Jews in the world who can tell the story.

The Polish president on Sunday vowed to review a new bill that would outlaw blaming Poles for crimes of the Holocaust committed in the country, after the measure sparked a diplomatic row with Israel.

Poland’s right-wing-controlled parliament on Friday adopted legislation that sets fines or a maximum three-year jail term for anyone who ascribes “responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich — or other crimes against humanity, peace and war crimes.”

The measure, intended to apply to both Poles and foreigners, must still pass the Senate before being signed by the president.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said in a statement on Sunday that he would present his “final evaluation of procedural legal provisions after the completion of parliament’s work and a careful analysis of the final shape of the act.”

MK Haneen Zoabi (Joint List) has condemned the Polish parliament's passage of a law banning references to Polish involvement in the Holocaust. But the controversial Balad party MK added that Israelis "should not be surprised" by the Polish move since, in her view, they deny responsibility for crimes against Palestinians.

Zoabi said in a press statement Sunday that the Polish law, which passed the lower house Friday and is expected to be approved by the upper house, is a "Polish version" of Israel's Nakba law, which authorizes the finance minister to cut state funding to an institution if it commemorates independence day as a day of mourning.

"He who denies his responsibility for war crimes that he himself perpetrates against the Palestinians should not be surprised by others," Zoabi said.

In a move aimed at building trust with world Jewry, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a statement honoring the “dozens of Jews who tragically lost their lives.”

“We must never forget that the horrors of Nazi rule robbed nearly 100 Jewish individuals of their lives,” the statement read. “While this tragedy does not reach the level of the Rwandan genocide or Clay Aiken’s loss in the 2003 American Idol series, it is a tragedy nonetheless.”

The touching statement marked a departure for Abbas, whose PhD thesis argued that Jews collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust and that the number of Jewish deaths has been inflated.

“Though many of the Jews killed were Nazi collaborators intent on colonizing Palestinians lands and drinking the blood of children, this does not change the fact that they died and that this is bad,” Abbas’s statement continued.

The president’s statement won accolades from across media and diplomatic circles.

“If only Prime Minister Netanyahu could make a similar statement about Rachael Ray’s tweets about hummus,” Arab American Institute President James Zogby said, “then we may finally have peace.”

Had the Obama-Farrakhan photo been released, it would have added context to other problematic Obama connections, like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. It also might have given even greater pressure for the L.A. Times to release a tape of Obama attending a speech by anti-Israel extremist Rashid Khalidi (that tape has never been released).

The very first post at Legal Insurrection was on October 12, 2008, Obama is “Door No. 2” in which I suggested the public Obama may not be the real Obama:

As in Let’s Make a Deal, choosing Door No. 2 carries great risks. So does choosing Obama.

Obama may be a post-racial healer, or he may be someone who carefully uses race and false accusations of racism to advance his political career. Obama may not have known about Jeremiah Wright’s political race-baiting, or he may have known but not cared. Obama may be someone who views this country as inherently good, or he may secretly share the views of his political enabler, William Ayers, that this country is inherently bad. We may know Obama better than Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers know Obama, or we may not know Obama at all.

Obama may be everything good, or the promise Obama embodies may just be a figment of our own imagination.

Obama is the perfect vehicle for imagining hope, because he has almost no record. Obama is a blank canvas upon which we can paint our imagined hope. Obama has avoided almost every hard issue that has confronted him in his political career, choosing to vote “present” (literally or figuratively) hundreds of times.

Just about the only thing we know about Obama is what he has told us about himself. To inquire deeper invites accusations that one is a “smear merchant” and using “racially tinged subtexts.”

Barack Obama said his administration refrained from vetoing a 2016 United Nations Security Council resolution critical of Israeli settlements because the pace of their construction had “skyrocketed.”

“The pace of settlement skyrocketed and accelerated. If you look at a map (of the West Bank), it starts becoming a Swiss cheese map, where it becomes almost impossible to create any kind of functioning Palestinian state,” Obama said, speaking earlier this week at New York’s Temple Emanu-El.

“Voting against the resolution would have damaged our credibility on affirming human rights only when it’s convenient, not when it has to do with ourselves and our friends,” said the former president, who has rarely spoken about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since leaving office.

To be “a true friend of Israel, it is important to be honest about it, and the politics of this country sometimes do not allow for it,” Obama also said.

The former president said that he and his staff would often joke that he was “basically a liberal Jew,” according to the British Daily Mail.

At a meeting with Likud members of his cabinet on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of preventing a renewal of peace negotiations, the Hebrew news site Walla reported.

“The Palestinians claim [US President Donald] Trump is biased toward Israel, so therefore they’re not willing to have the US serve as a mediator,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “But we never said that [ex-President Barack] Obama couldn’t serve as a honest broker, even though he was biased toward the Palestinians. This is just another excuse of the Palestinians.”

Following Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed any future leading role for the US in the peace process.

“We will not accept anything the United States may try to impose on us and we will not accept its mediation following that crime,” Abbas said.

Replacing Abbas will not solve the PLO’s dilemma. Abbas’s speech to the PLO Central Council was frequently interrupted by loud applause from the entire PLO leadership gathered in Ramallah.

Trump ominously remarked that Israel would have to pay for Jerusalem being taken off the table as the toughest issue requiring resolution in any negotiations.

Israeli concessions can be more easily negotiated if Jordan – not the PLO - is Israel’s negotiating partner – because:

· Amman is Jordan’s long-established capital

· Jordan also enjoys negotiating rights on Jerusalem’s future under article 9 (2) of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty:
“In this regard [freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance] in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Israel-Jordan negotiations indeed represent the best opportunity to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.
The PLO has seemingly done its dash – and hundreds of millions in cash – in defiantly taking on Trump.

Leaders of Jewish and Christian communities in the US and Latin America met with Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales over the weekend in a show of support for his decision to move the Guatemalan Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

According to pro-Israel NGO Fuente Latina, the meeting was part of a “mission of gratitude and solidarity with Guatemala” comprised of 70 people: representatives of international organizations, religious and community leaders, businessmen and citizens from the USA, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Argentina and the Dominican Republic.

The delegation arrived in Guatemala on Thursday, and was received at the National Palace of Culture for a dinner with Morales, Vice President Jafeth Cabrera, Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel, Guatemalan Ambassador to Washington Manuel Espina, Israeli Ambassador in Guatemala Matanya Cohen, and government secretaries, members of the Jewish community in Guatemala and Christian associations.

After dinner, several individual meetings were held during which representatives of the mission expressed their gratitude and support for Guatemala and its president.

Morales’s announcement last month that he would move the embassy made Guatemala the first country to follow in the footsteps of US President Donald Trump.

In the final days of campaigning Drahos underscored his concerns about possible Russian meddling in the campaign, saying that “for [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s regime, NATO is the biggest enemy and we are part of NATO.”

Petr Vasicek, a Prague artist, told AFP that he chose the “educated and intelligent” Drahos over Zeman who is “pro-Russian and pro-Chinese, which I don’t like at all.”

Zeman has repeatedly called on the EU to lift its sanctions on Russia over its 2014 takeover of Crimea from Ukraine.

He was also one of the few European leaders to endorse Donald Trump’s bid for the White House.

Zeman, who is known as a supporter of Israel, also has voiced support for Trump’s plan to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

He later accused EU states of being “cowards” in their response to Trump recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

In keeping with the holiday of Tu-B'shvat, on Friday morning February 2, at 10 am, 20 families will gather on the newly constructed Gush Etzion 'boys promenade' to plant trees in memory of Gil-ad Shaer, who along with two other Israeli teens was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists three years ago.

The event is being hosted by The Gush Etzion Foundation and the Shaer family, who invited particular Israeli families to participate, bonded by the fact that they all named a child born in the last three years 'Gil-ad' in their son's memory.

The promenade itself, stretching from the community of Rosh Tzurim to the Alon Shvut Junction where the boys were kidnapped, was built in their memory with a lookout point dedicated to the late Ezra Schwartz, the Boston teen murdered in a Gush shooting terror attack two years ago. The promenade was constructed as part of a partnership between the Gush Etzion Foundation, JNF-USA, and private donors.

Israeli poet and songwriter Yehonatan Geffen apologized for a poem he wrote comparing a teenage Palestinian activist to Holocaust victim Anne Frank, saying that his sole intention was to raise awareness of the Israeli occupation.

At a small concert on Saturday night, Geffen told the audience, “It was a mistake and I apologize for it, especially to anyone who was personally offended.”

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman had sought to ban Geffen from Army Radio for the comparison between Frank and Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi, whose family is known for public protests against the IDF presence in the West Bank. Both men drew criticism for their actions: Liberman for trying to interfere with the programming of a national radio station and Geffen for the comparison.

After media reported Geffen’s apology, Liberman tweeted, “The one who confesses [their sins] and renounces them finds mercy” — a quote from the biblical book of Proverbs.

Police blocked dozens of women from attending a soccer game on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, in what activists said they hoped would have been the first such permission under Hamas’s rule.

Authorities in the Palestinian enclave run by Islamist Hamas told the women they had orders not to allow them into the stadium at Nuseirat refugee camp south of Gaza City.

Some of the women instead watched the match between Al-Nuseirat and Al-Jalaa by standing outside the fence, an AFP journalist reported.

“We came here to encourage the team and youths in Nuseirat and watch the game, but we were surprised by the presence of Hamas security guards who closed the gates in our faces and did not allow us to go inside to cheer,” Ayat Othman, one of the women who tried to attend, told AFP.

Female relatives of players have previously been allowed to attend games in Gaza, but Sunday’s match would have marked the first time under Hamas women could have attended on a large-scale basis, according to organizers.

Confusion reigned in the subterranean passages that snake through and out of the Gaza Strip today after a terrorist killed in a collapsing section remained unaware of his situation because his immediate post-death experience of being drawn toward an inviting light at the end of a tunnel differed in no way from his situation a moment before.

Faqhin al-Aghal, 22, met his demise (today) Wednesday afternoon when a portion of the concrete ceiling in the tunnel in which he was training failed, resulting in several tons of rocky debris crushing him to death. The speed of the collapse and fatality was such that al-Aghal had no chance to notice it happening. Owing to the similarity between his environment and what the consciousness sees in the moments following death, the Khan Yunis refugee camp native did not realize he had perished, and his consciousness continued to move along the remaining section of tunnel toward an illuminated target.

“It might take him a few more moments for reality to hit him,” predicted one observer. “Soon he’ll notice the sense of detachment, perhaps even bliss, that often accompanies this experience, and that will give him pause. He will stop, look around, and realize he’s not embodied. He might even notice the presence of ancestors, deceased loved ones, or others clearly out of place in a tunnel intended for use in combat against Israel, and then it will hit him, so to speak.”

“Of course there’s also the chance that the realization will involve anxiety and fear, rather than bliss,” remarked another. “Up to one fifth of dead or dying people experience that. There’s no telling until it happens.”

An Iranian dictator is in control of the Lebanese people's future, IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis warned Sunday in an article published on opposition-affiliated media in Lebanon in what has been described as a highly unusual move.

Recalling a Lebanon-Israel border tour that Iran's regional proxy, Hezbollah, gave journalists in April, Manelis wrote, "Those unique images unmask the reality of Iran's growing control in Lebanon. It is clear that this unique phenomenon of 'terror tourism' is a concrete expression of the threat to the future of the Cedar State [Lebanon] and the entire region, which is in danger of being overrun by Tehran's henchmen.

"The past year, like the 11 years that followed the conclusion of the Second Lebanon War, has been characterized by relative stability on the Lebanese front. This calm benefits residents on both sides [of the border]. The fact that sixth-graders in northern Israel and southern Lebanon have never heard an air raid siren is the best proof of the stability of Israeli deterrence and the fact that the Lebanese people remember the magnitude of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah's previous mistake."

The Israeli military, he said, "used the past year to significantly improve its war readiness on the northern front. The IDF has held several drills, most notably the Northern Corps exercise, held for the first time in 20 years, which included practicing the IDF's operational contingencies on the ground in the northern sector.

"Our intelligence gathering efforts are also ongoing and, as the chief of staff and head of the Military Intelligence have said, if our enemies knew how much we know about them they would remain deterred for years to come. We do not seek war," he stressed, noting, "We ended [2017] better equipped and better prepared for any scenario in the northern sector."

Israel’s Navy should anticipate Hezbollah using suicide ships in the next war with the terror group, Rear Admiral (Ret.) Professor Shaul Chorev told The Jerusalem Post.

“Hezbollah will not need to equip themselves with ships like Israel, but we must assume they will use asymmetric warfare to challenge Israeli technology like land-to-sea missiles or suicide ships like you see in Yemen,” Chorev, a former deputy chief of naval operations, said following a special geostrategy conference jointly organized by Haifa University's Research Center for Maritime Policy & Strategy (HMS) and the Chaikin Chair for Geostrategy.

Iran and Hezbollah advisors have been aiding Yemen’s Houthi rebels in their fight against the Saudi-led coalition, and in January of last year, two Saudi sailors were killed when Houthi rebels rammed the side of Saudi frigate off the coast of Yemen with a small boat before a suicide bomber detonated the vessel.

According to Chorev, while it is not in Hezbollah’s interest to start a war with the Jewish State, “when you look at their strategy, it is clear that they will target Israeli strategic assets.”

“The next war with Hezbollah could see a focus on the sea,” he warned.

Israel is highly dependent on the sea, with over 90% of Israel’s imports arriving via the sea, but according to Chorev, there is a major lack of awareness about the maritime domain, both among government leaders and the public.

Recently, I’ve been nursing some concerns about the way the Israeli government is handling its response to the BDS campaign against the Jewish state, and with it the wider challenges of anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the Western world.

Some of my concerns have already been expressed with enviable clarity by two other commentators — my JNS colleague Jonathan Tobin, and The Times of Israel’s Haviv Rettig Gur. Following Israel’s decision this month to ban 20 BDS-related organizations from entering the country, Tobin made the broader point in his column that the material impact of the BDS campaign upon Israel has been gratifyingly minimal. The true danger of this campaign, he continued, lies in its persistent targeting of Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

Meanwhile, Rettig Gur’s critique of the official Israeli response to BDS included a wryly amusing account of how Israel has generated a handful of boutique-sized government ministries during the last decade. These ministries have no clear mandate, but are staffed by bureaucracies whose “primal” goal is survival. This drive, Rettig-Gur argued, explains to significant degree why the Israeli government’s own campaign to counter BDS is escalating.

I want to amplify some of these concerns, and then offer a few of my own. As a general rule, governments engaging in campaigns to defend their own records, or to project a certain image of their country, is rarely a good idea, especially if the ultimate goal is to win over skeptics and adversaries — or at least persuade them to consider a given situation from more than one point of view. That is particularly true, I think, when the bone of contention is not the record of the elected government in power, but the deeper reputation and legitimacy of the nation that government represents.

In 2016, Hen Mazzig, an openly gay IDF soldier of Iraqi and Tunisian descent, spoke at UCL in a talk sponsored by CAMERA on Campus, only to be harassed and threatened by violent protesters who assaulted Jewish students attending the talk. His speech prompted an investigation into antisemitism at the university and Hen was ultimately invited back to speak this week to speak at UCL. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) brought him back to UCL to speak yet once again, anti-Israel protesters showed their true colors, calling for Israel's destruction and protesting outside the event. In response, dozens of Jewish students countered protested bravely singing Hatikvah in the face of anti-Israel haters who were screaming for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Ahed Tamimi is turning 17. Local Israel haters are marking the event with a protest and a birthday celebration for the young woman who has called for "stabbings and martyrdom operations" against the Israeli people.

Northern California Friends of Sabeel, Jewish Voice for Peace, SFSU GUPS, Palestinian Youth Movement, and the Arab Resource Organizing Center (AROC)- all organizations dedicated to the destruction of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people are co-sponsoring the event.

Wednesday, January 31, the pre-celebration protest will take place at the Oakland Federal Building at 4:30

Reem's Cafe in Oakland, also known for its open support of terror will be hosting the after protest celebration.

South Africa’s Sports and Recreation Minister Thulas Nxesi has decided to boycott the Davis Cup (the World Cup of tennis) tie between Israel and South Africa in Pretoria over Friday and Saturday.

In an open letter, Nxesi said he “would actually have loved to attend the Davis Cup but given the concerns that activists and fellow South Africans are raising regarding the presence of an Israeli team I believe that it would not be proper for me to attend.”

Nxesi was responding to a letter sent to him by anti-Israel groups that include BDS South Africa and SA Jews for a Free Palestine.

The groups, in their letter to the minister, appealed to him not to attend and allegedly suggested that the tie be called off.

“International solidarity and the boycott against Apartheid South Africa played a big role in our liberation,” the sports minister wrote. “Indeed, one of the most well-known slogans came out of that context – ‘no normal sport with an abnormal regime!’”

He said that “South Africa’s own Human Sciences Research Council, in 2009, produced a report documenting how Israel is practicing apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

Last week, Campaign Against Antisemitism was in direct contact with Christine Shawcroft, Momentum’s newly-appointed chair of the Party’s National Executive Committee’s Disputes Panel, requesting that she clarify her position with regard to the case of Tony Greenstein, a notorious antisemite previously expelled from Labour for antisemitism, inexplicably re-admitted, and now re-suspended for antisemitism once more. As chair of the Disputes Panel, Ms Shawcroft has the casting vote in disciplinary matters, such as whether to refer a member of the Party to the National Constitution Committee (NCC) for expulsion from the Party.

In her initial reply to us, Ms Shawcroft confirmed to us that she had indeed elected to be Mr Greenstein’s “silent friend” at his recent disciplinary hearing, and that as such there was a “potential conflict” in her continuing to act in that role. However, she failed, after two requests, to confirm whether or not she would be recusing herself from any future case in which Mr Greenstein was involved, in which she would hold the casting vote.

The Disputes Panel’s behaviour last week in merely issuing a warning to former council candidates Mike Sivier and Billy J Wells, instead of referring their cases to the NCC for potential expulsion, has already brought condemnation. What is more, Mr Sivier’s refusal to countenance taking the antisemitism education the Disputes Panel sent him for has made a laughing stock of National Executive Committee (NEC) member Darren Williams, who interceded on his behalf.

Dear Editor,

What happens when a journalist exclusively engages with a narrow selection of civil society in a foreign country? Roger Cohen’s column about Israeli policy in Hebron (“Holy City of Sterile Streets,” January 20, 2018) exemplifies the problems. Cohen provides the single perspective of an openly political group, “Breaking the Silence.”

Breaking the Silence is perhaps the most controversial civil society organization in Israel precisely because it distorts complex human rights and security issues in service of its political agenda. This organization represents a marginal swath of Israel’s diverse discourse on the difficult questions of Hebron and Israeli-Palestinian relations.

NGO Monitor, the Jerusalem-based research institution I work for, encourages decision makers and influencers to experience the diversity of Israeli society, to better understand the situation and improve their policy making and reporting. Last year, both EU Ambassador Emanuelle Giafret and Canadian Ambassador Deborah Lyons saw fit to balance their Breaking the Silence tours with meetings with groups that provide alternative perspectives. We hope that journalists will follow suit.

Two weeks ago we noted that the BBC’s report on a long speech given by Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting of the PLO’s Central Council made no mention whatsoever of the assorted distortions of history, anti-Israel smears and renewed commitment to rewarding terrorism that made up a significant proportion of the Palestinian president’s address.

A member of the public who wrote to the BBC to complain about those omissions received the following reply:
“Thank you for getting in touch about our report on Mahmoud Abbas’s comments following the announcement of US plans for an embassy in Jerusalem.

He gave a two-hour speech and we have selected what we believe to be the relevant sections as far as the topic in hand is concerned.

We don’t believe the rest of Mr Abbas’s comments are relevant, or reveal anything that was not previously known – our report contains a section entitled “Did he say anything new?”.

Out of his full speech, you have made a selection of comments that you felt were of note – we believe we have carried the most newsworthy and there will be many more from such a long presentation that will not get reported.”

Apparently we can therefore conclude that the BBC does not consider it relevant that the Palestinian leader it frequently touts as a ‘moderate’ denied the Jewish people’s historical and religious links to the region and portrayed modern Israel as a Western colonialist endeavour.

In addition, the first paragraph of Bisharat's (spelled "Bisheret" in the print edition and Bisharat in Haaretz's digital edition) analysis repeats the falsehood: "in just 10 seconds, “our forces” had overpowered “the enemy” and the Knesset was cleared of Arabs and their Jewish supporters."

Not all Israeli Arab Knesset members violated Knesset rules and participated in the Joint List's disruption of Pence's speech. Israeli Arab Knesset members who did not disrupt the speech, were not removed. For instance, CAMERA reached the offices of MK Issawi Frej (Meretz) and MK Zouhrair Bahloul (Zionist Union), and both confirmed that they stayed until the end of the vice president's speech.

In addition, Druze Knesset members MK Salah Saad (Zionist Union), MK Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beiteinu), MK Akram Hasson (Kulanu), and MK Ayoub Kara (Likud) all remained throughout Pence's speech.

Haaretz has been informed of the falsehood. As of this writing, there has been no correction.

CAMERA's Israel office last week prompted correction of a United Press International article which incorrectly stated: "The establishment of an embassy in Jerusalem will be the first by a foreign government in Israel."

CAMERA contacted UPI, noting that numerous embassies have previously existed in Jerusalem. As Haaretz reported:
But there was a period in Israels [sic] short history when at least 16 states had their ambassadors stationed in the city.

Three of them were African nations – Ivory Coast, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Kenya; 11 were from Latin America – Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela, opening embassies as early as the 1950s; as well as the Netherlands and Haiti.

Although these embassies all closed by 1980, Costa Rica and El Salvador reopened their embassies in West Jerusalem, where they remained from 1984 to 2006.

In response to communication from CAMERA, UPI commendably amended the text, which now accurately states: "The establishment of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem will be the first by any foreign government there in over a decade." (It also links to the detailed Haaretz source that CAMERA provided.)

A California man who is suspected of murdering Jewish college student Blaze Bernstein earlier this month was reportedly a devoted member of a militant neo-Nazi group.

Samuel Woodward, 20, is accused of stabbing his former high school classmate over 20 times before burying his body in a shallow grave in an Orange County park, where it was discovered over a week later.

California state prosecutors are increasing looking into whether Woodward murdered Bernstein, who was Jewish and openly gay, in a homophobic or white supremacist-motivated hate crime.

On Friday, the ProPublica news site reported that three of Woodward’s friends had come forward to shed light on his history of extremist activities, confirming that he was an active member in the Atomwaffen Division, an armed neo-Nazi group.

This paper in Middle Eastern Studies by Avi Picard shows that, in Israel's early years, prime minister Ben Gurion was consistent in preferring a selective aliya policy prioritising young and healthy immigrants to build the country, rather than rescue endangered Diaspora Jews. (He did not discriminate on ethnic lines. When Jews from Poland came flooding in during the mid-1950s, including some very sick immigrants, he said, 'I would rather a healthy Jew from Persia than a sick one from Poland.') However, Avi Picard shows that he was prepared to revise his preferences when he perceived communities were genuinely at risk.

Three events in October and November 1955 sharpened the conflict between rescue and building. In early October, it was news of the arms deal between Egypt and Czechoslovakia,which altered the balance of armaments in the region and inspired great fear in Israel. On 3 November, a new Government was installed in Israel, with Ben-Gurion returning to the prime minister’s office. On 16 November, the exiled Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Yusef (later King Mohammed V) returned to Morocco and the country’s march to independence gained momentum.

The country’s faster-than-expected progress towards independence added a new concern: no longer just the safety of Morocco’s Jews during a revolt against the colonial authorities, but now their very ability to leave an independent Morocco. If the fear for their safety was abstract, the fear that they might be trapped in the country was all too concrete.

Drinking water is generally tested at source, but before it reaches our glasses it passes through miles of old pipes — so, in effect, we have no control over the water we imbibe.

“We want to try to give you a tool to change the equation,” said Netanel Raisch, the CEO and co-founder of Lishtot Detection Ltd., in a phone interview.

Lishtot is the Hebrew word for “to drink”

The Jerusalem-based company, which was founded in 2015, has developed the TestDrop, a key chain-like device that the company says detects contaminants in water such as E. coli, lead, arsenic, mercury, copper and chlorine in just two seconds. All users need to do is point the device at a plastic glass filled with water and bingo: if the device lights up in blue, you have the all-clear to drink. But if the light is red, then stop because something is wrong.

“We can also tell if someone has spit in your water, which is always good to know,” offered Raisch.

Another co-founder, Alan Bauer, developed the technology after discovering that the electric fields in water change when contamination is present, explained Raisch.

The study and model used to score and rank countries were developed by Y&R's BAV Group and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, specifically professor David J. Reibstein, in consultation with U.S. News & World Report.
A set of 65 country attributes – terms that can be used to describe a country and that are also relevant to the success of a modern nation – were identified. Attributes by nation were presented in a survey of more than 21,000 people from across the globe. Participants assessed how closely they associated an attribute with a nation.

Each country was scored on each of the 65 country attributes based on a collection of individual survey responses. The more a country was perceived to exemplify a certain characteristic in relation to the average, the higher that country's attribute score and vice versa. These scores were normalized to account for outliers and transformed into a scale that could be compared across the board.

BILL MAHER, HBO: Okay, while we're near the Middle East let me ask about a big story that happened while we were off in December. Donald Trump: 'Today we finally acknowledge the obvious that Jerusalem is Israel's capital.' He said that Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like any other sovereign nation to determine its own capital.

I hate to agree with Donald Trump, but it doesn't happen often, but I do. I don't know why Israel -- it has been their capital since 1949, it is where their government is. They've won all the wars thrown against them. I don't understand why they don't get to have their capital where they want.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG, NEW YORK TIMES: Really, you don't understand that?

MAHER: I understand there are repercussions.

GOLDBERG: First of all, when you win a war you don't get to take the other side's land.

RICK WILSON: Actually, you do.

MAHER: Actually, you do.

GOLDBERG: Under international law, you can't.

MAHER: Especially because they were attacked.

GOLDBERG: You're a rich person, you should go see what life in the West Bank is like. Go to Hebron. Like, no, go see it.
MAHER: First of all, you don't have to go to understand this. I'm not a moron.
GOLDBERG: No, but you do. I feel like it's hard to really get your head around how bad it is unless you see it with your own eyes.

Hebron82

Bank of Palestine in Hebron83

Hebron Plaza Shopping Center84

The City Center complex in Hebron85

Manara Square in Hebron86

Hussain Ben Ali Stadium, Hebron87

Near Sakha Square in Hebron88

Hebron University entrance89

Palestinian-American groups have pulled out of Saturday's Women's March Los Angeles over the inclusion of actress Scarlett Johansson as a guest speaker, in protest of what they call Johansson's support of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"The Women's March mission says, 'We believe that women's rights are human rights and human rights are women's rights. Apparently that does not extend to Palestinian human rights, during the WMLA" said Sana Ibrahim, past president of the Palestinian American Women's Association.

PAWA responded to an online petition issued Wednesday night by Women for Palestine L.A., which similarly criticized Johansson's role in the Los Angeles event.

Other groups endorsing the petition included Jewish Voice for Peace LA, and Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

NUSEIRAT, Palestinian Territories: Police blocked dozens of women from attending a football match Sunday in the Gaza Strip, in what activists said they hoped would have been the first such permission under Hamas’s rule.
Authorities in the Palestinian enclave run by the Hamas movement told the women they had orders not to allow them into the stadium at Nuseirat refugee camp south of Gaza City.
Some of the women instead watched the match between Al-Nuseirat and Al-Jalaa by standing outside the fence, an AFP journalist reported.
“We came here to encourage the team and youths in Nuseirat and watch the game, but we were surprised by the presence of Hamas security guards who closed the gates in our faces and did not allow us to go inside to cheer,” Ayat Othman, one of the women who tried to attend, told AFP.
They were to be seated separately from men in the stadium.

Private sector institutions in the Gaza Strip have decided to stop coordinating the entry of all types of goods into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing on Tuesday, February 6.
Maher al-Tabaa, director of public relations and information at the Chamber of Commerce, told Ma'an that the decision was due to the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip and that Gaza was in a state of clinical death, pointing out that the decision came in the wake of private sector meetings.
He pointed out that there are many steps that will be taken, including trade strikes, sit-ins and many events and press conferences.
He explained that all these steps come under the slogan "we want to live" and that Gaza has the right to live in dignity.
The private sector announced a one-day trade strike on Monday to warn against the deterioration of living conditions and the difficulty of continuing its work.

According to the UN's own definition, the status of "refugee" cannot be passed from generation to generation -- as it conveniently has been for the Palestinians. A Palestinian with a European, American or Jordanian passport has no reason to be considered a refugee. Except by UNRWA.

"Since the UN took them over, the Palestinians started burying their dead at night, without declaring them, in order to share their rations. As a result, for nearly 20 years, the official death rate in the camps was close to zero. In addition, there was a lot of movement between the camps. But these displacements were rarely recorded, so that a Palestinian could appear in several camps at the same time..."— Said Aburish, Palestinian Refugee and biographer of the late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat.

UNRWA is not just a humanitarian agency. Its political stance is evident at all levels of the organization. A report from the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, says that the 2016-2017 curriculum for elementary schools in PA, partly funded by UNRWA, "teaches students to be martyrs, to demonize and deny the existence of Israel, and to focus on a 'return' to an exclusively Palestinian country."

During President Obama's second term in office, Secretary of State John Kerry, like his boss and other members of the same peapod (Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, etc.), liked to warn Israel about such things as its isolation and alienation if it did not agree to Arab demands to return to its pre-'67 war, '49 armistice lines (they were never borders) which made it an over-sized ghetto, 9-15 miles wide at its waist, where most of its population and infrastructure are located.

President George W. Bush commented that Texas had driveways larger than that. I don't know about driveways, but I also don't doubt the size of some Lone Star ranches. And I'm pretty sure Mrs. Obama had to travel farther than that for shopping trips to Target.

Others, like President Jimmy Carter, supposedly worried/worry (and even wrote books) about Israel's soul and looming "apartheid nature" if it insists on the more secure, defensible, real borders that UNSC Resolution 242 promised in the wake of the '67 fighting--a war Israel was forced to fight after being blockaded by Egypt (a casus belli), shelled by Jordan, abandoned by the UN Emergency Force placed in Sinai after the '56 war (largely fought over another blockade and acts of terror), and other hostile acts and constant threats of annihilation.

All of 242's architects (Lord Caradon, Eugene Rostow, etc.)--and Presidents Johnson, Reagan, and others (including George W. Bush in his letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon)--agreed that Israel would never return to those pre-'67 Auschwitz lines.

That, dear readers, is what the "settlement" issue is mostly all about...besides Jews having both modern, religious, and historical connections to Judea and Samaria (only since the 20th century, called the "West Bank") for over three thousand years.

The Jerusalem District Court on Sunday ordered the dissolution of a nongovernmental organization based in east Jerusalem that was used as a front by a Palestinian terrorist group.

The illicit activities of Lajnat al-Amal al-Zarai, or the Committee of Agricultural Work, were first exposed by Israel Hayom in October 2016.

The group allegedly funneled millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Registrar of Associations in Israel initiated the NGO's liquidation process in the court, which ruled that the evidence presented supports the allegation that the organization was involved in donor fraud and terror financing.

The alleged donor fraud was uncovered by the International Legal Forum, a local advocacy group, in 2016. It found that the commmittee had defrauded foreign entities and individuals into thinking they were donating funds for humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, but instead the funds were diverted to terrorist activities.

In a post on Facebook, the Fatah Movement and its Deputy Chairman Mahmoud Al-Aloul praised one of the planners of the Munich massacre in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israelis at the Olympics in 1972.

The Fatah Movement and Abbas' deputy Al-Aloul called terrorist Ali Hassan Salameh a "heroic commander" and specifically mentioned the Munich attack as one his achievements:
Posted text: "#Video
Today is the anniversary of the death as a Martyr (Shahid) of heroic commander Martyr Ali Hassan Salameh (i.e., a commander of the Black September terror organization), who was called 'the Red Prince.'
He commanded special operations against the Zionist intelligence throughout the world, and the sending of explosive packages from Amsterdam to many agents of the Mossad (i.e., Israeli Secret Intelligence Service) in European capitals. His name was linked to the famous operation in Munich (i.e., terror attack, 11 murdered). [Former Israeli Prime Minister] Golda Meir was attributed with the statement: 'Find this animal and kill him (sic., PMW could find no record of such a quote).'" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 22, 2018; Facebook page of Mahmoud Al-Aloul, Jan. 22, 2018]

The video, which was produced by the Fatah Commission for Mobilization and Organization, features pictures of terrorist Hassan Ali Salameh and text similar to the post.

Palestinian Media Watch has documented numerous statements by PA and Fatah leaders honoring the terrorists from the Black September terror organization and praising the Munich murders as "an excellent operation."

On Saturday, January 27, 2018, a group of Palestinian activists, among them official representatives of the Fatah movement, held a public mock trial of U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, protesting the U.S. freeze on its aid to UNRWA. After the reading of the "verdict," nooses were placed around the necks of Trump and Pence effigies, which were hoisted in the air and then torched. Footage shows one demonstrator beating the Trump effigy with a shoe.

The head of Fatah's branch at the refugee camp, Muhammed Lutfi, gave a speech at the protest, saying that the movement calls on all peoples of the world to stand with the Palestinian people and protect its rights from the American government, which brutally tramples all agreements. A representative of the Popular Resistance Committees, Mazen Al-'Azza, said that "the message is that the Palestinian people will pay with its blood for the right of return and the right to establish an independent state of Palestine." Activists carried signs and posters proclaiming that Israel and the U.S. "represent the real terrorism."[1] One sign read: "Zionism = Nazism = fascism. USA = ISIS = Terror."

Fatah's official social media accounts reported the event and posted photographs of the "execution." It should be mentioned that this is not the first time that Fatah circulates violent incitement against Trump, including images of his hanging in effigy.[2]

The five journalists were arrested shortly after Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas signed the controversial cyber-crime law in June 2017. Critics say the new law is aimed at silencing and intimidating journalists and political opponents of the PA and its president.

Ammar Dweik, head of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, said the new law is "one of the worst" since the PA was established in 1994.

The Palestinian Authority claims it does not tolerate "incitement." The "incitement" it is referring to, however, is criticism of Abbas and his cronies. In fact, the PA tolerates incitement quite well, and has spent decades driving such incitement -- when it is directed against Israel and the US. Indeed, Palestinians are free to incite against Israel and the US day and night.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, telling him that the lesson of the Nazis was that murderous ideologies must be stopped before they can flourish — an apparent reference to the current situation with Iran.

Ahead of their meeting, which was expected to focus on Israel’s concerns over the Iranian nuclear deal and attempts by Tehran to set up a military presence in Syria, the two leaders visited the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, where they viewed an exhibit dedicated to the 1943 uprising at the Nazi death camp Sobibor, in occupied Poland, that was led by Jewish inmate and Red Army officer, Alexandr Pechersky.

“I very much appreciate this invitation and your personal attendance in this place on this day, that reflects our common struggle against the greatest evil that humanity has known,” Netanyahu said.

“We see here a very moving exhibition of documents from the Sobibor revolt, in which a Jewish officer from the Red Army, against all odds, led the successful breakout, the breakout to freedom.”

“I think that main lesson learned from the rise of the Nazis and afterwards the defeat of the Nazis, is the need to powerfully stand up to murderous ideology in time,” Netanyahu said at the museum. “That is our mission also today, that is what I want to talk to you about: our joint efforts to advance security and stability in our regions, and of course on the mutual cooperation between us, between Russia and Israel.”

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday affirmed his support for establishing a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, highlighting his differences with the Trump administration in the U.S. on a central issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The king spoke at the start of a meeting in Amman with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who also expressed concern about President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

"I think there are very good reasons to question the theory that unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would contribute to the consolidation of peace in the Middle East," Steinmeier was quoted as telling the Jordanian daily Al-Ghad.

One of the pillars of Germany's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "is the need to preserve the status of holy sites and to negotiate the final status of Jerusalem within the framework of the two-state solution," Steinmeier said.

Jordan's monarch serves as custodian of Al-Aqsa mosque, a major Muslim shrine in east Jerusalem, and the kingdom's Hashemite dynasty derives much of its political legitimacy from its special role in Jerusalem. Jordan is also home to a large Palestinian population.

The United Nations General Assembly recently approved a two-year budget of $5.397 billion. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley lauded this outcome, which was $285 million less than the previous budget—a 5 percent cut.

The fact is, however, that Amb. Haley has a lot more work to do.

In dollar terms, the budget cut she secured, if maintained, will save U.S. taxpayers over $31 million in 2018 and again in 2019-- but the U.S. will still pay $594 million each year.

That sounds like a lot and it is. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

American taxpayers provide billions of dollars each year to over 100 international organizations. All told, according to the U.N.’s top-level Chief Executives Board, the U.S. contributed over $9.7 billion to the U.N. system in 2016 alone.

The next largest contributor, Germany, paid a third of that amount. Meanwhile, some of the least assessed countries pay a pittance – less than a million dollars per year to the entire U.N. system.

Looking just at the U.N. regular budget, where the U.S. pays 22 percent of the total, we find that a number of countries will pay less than $27,000 each. All told, the U.S. will pay more than 178 other countries combined.

The controversial Polish bill that would outlaw the use of the term "Polish death camps" and other terms that imply the Polish authorities took part in genocide has outraged Holocaust survivors in Israel.

Three survivors agreed to write open letters in Israel Hayom to Polish President Andrzej Duda, telling him he must not allow the legislation to pass because the truth must not be suppressed.

From Shoshana Breyer of Jerusalem:

The murders would not have occurred in a country that likes Jews

Mr. President,
The bill that absolves Poland of any responsibility for the Holocaust is a historical injustice. Thousands of Poles carried out atrocities against the Jews during the Holocaust. This was because of anti-Semitism and pure evil.

My family and I had to hide in basements, and the situation was dire: We lived in subhuman conditions and were severely deprived of food. My brother was ill and had to stay at an orphanage, and even though the Nazis promised not to hurt orphans, he was sent to Auschwitz.

Warsaw on Monday said that the talks it had agreed to hold with Israel amid outrage over a controversial bill that would criminalize blaming Poles for Nazi crimes would not interfere with the Polish parliament’s “sovereign decisions,” indicating that the country could be unwilling to substantially change its position.

On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, held talks and “agreed to immediately open a dialogue between staffs of the two countries, in order to try and reach an understanding over the legislation,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office read.

Netanyahu has pilloried the legislation, which prescribes prison time for referring to “Polish death camps” and criminalizes the mention of Polish complicity in Nazi crimes, as “distortion of the truth, the rewriting of history and the denial of the Holocaust.”

But two hours after the Prime Minister’s Office issued its statement, Polish government spokesperson Joanna Kopcińska tweeted: “Prime Minister @MorawieckiM talked today with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the current Polish-Israeli relations and historical conditions. It was agreed that there will be a dialogue between the teams of both countries. However the conversation will not concern sovereign decisions of the Polish parliament.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry downplayed her tweet, saying her view does not represent the government.

Pope Francis said countries have a responsibility to fight anti-Semitism and the “virus of indifference” threatening to erase the memory of the Holocaust.

Francis’s comments to an international conference Monday came as the largely Roman Catholic Poland considers legislation that would outlaw the mention of Polish complicity in the crimes of the Holocaust as well use of the term “Polish death camps.”

The proposed legislation has sparked an outcry in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking by phone with his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Sunday night to protest the move.

Netanyahu has pilloried the law as “distortion of the truth, the rewriting of history and the denial of the Holocaust.”

Francis didn’t mention the dispute, but he spoke of his 2016 visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp site in modern-day Poland, saying he remembered “the roar of the deafening silence” that left room for only tears, prayer and requests for forgiveness.

On September 1, 1940, a year after Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the German-appointed governor of Warsaw District renamed Pilsudski Square as “Adolf Hitler Platz.”

Eleven-year-old Julian Kulski wrote in his diary about that day: “A great wooden frame now covers the statue of Prince Poniatowski. No patriotic Pole attended the ceremony.” Poniatowski had been a famous Polish leader and close ally of Napoleon. Covering up his image and renaming the square was an attempt by Germany to erase Poland.

Today, Poland and Israel are involved in an angry controversy over a law that could punish those who claim Poland was responsible for Nazi crimes. “I strongly oppose it, one cannot change history and the Holocaust cannot be denied,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. President Reuven Rivlin, Yair Lapid and others have harshly condemned the law.

However, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pointed out that “Auschwitz-Birkenau is not a Polish name and Arbeit Macht Frei is not a Polish phrase,” referencing the German phrase that “Work makes freedom” written above the entrance to the death camp.

The two sides seem to be talking past each other. Poland is not denying the Holocaust through a law designed to punish those who describe the death camps as Polish. The proposed law may be misguided and a bad way to go about dealing with history, but Poland is right: It is not responsible for the Holocaust and the Polish people resisted Nazism valiantly, more so than many other countries that ran to collaborate.

The World Jewish Congress on Sunday sharply criticized a Polish bill that would make it illegal to blame Poles for crimes carried out during the Holocaust, calling the draft legislation “an act of historical obfuscation and an attack on democracy.”

The bill, which also outlaws the term “Polish death camps,” has been roundly condemned by Israeli leaders and Jewish groups since it was approved by the Polish parliament Friday.

The measure, intended to apply to both Poles and foreigners, must still pass the Senate before being signed by the president.

In a statement, the CEO and executive vice president of the WJC said that, while Poles are “understandably sensitive” about Nazi extermination and concentration camps in occupied Poland being called Polish, “it is a serious mistake for Poland to seek to criminalize those who do not adhere to this practice.”

“Having spent decades in the field of education, I deeply believe that this must be changed through a campaign of education, not criminalization,” said Robert Singer. “Poland’s new law is especially objectionable as it stifles any real confrontation with the most chilling aspect of the country’s wartime history — the extent to which local Poles were complicit in the destruction of their Jewish neighbors.”

Israeli tour guides have expressed concern that a new Polish bill barring citizens and foreign nationals alike from discussing Polish involvement in the Holocaust, or referring to Nazi concentration camps built in Poland as "Polish" could land them in jail.

The proposed bill, which has already passed the Polish legislature's lower house, would apply both in and out of Poland, and would sentence those mentioning Polish complicity in the Holocaust or use of the phrase "Polish death camps" to three years in prison.

Proponents of the bill note that the concentration camps built in Poland were constructed and run by the Nazi German regime after they conquered the country in 1939, while omitting the cooperation of Poles, a string of pogroms during and just after the Holocaust, and the looting of Jewish possessions in Poland.

The new legislation caused consternation among Israeli tour guides who specialize in Holocaust education. According to Haaretz, Gil Paran, who represents a group of tour guides, penned a letter to Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) inquiring whether the group he represents are exposed to criminal proceedings when bringing groups to Polish Holocaust sites such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor extermination camps.

"We want to know whether mentioning the role of the Polish people in Holocaust is a violation of the law and whether an Israeli guide is exposed to legal action," Paran wrote and mentioned that the tour guides he represents frequently invoke Poland's role in operating the death camps.

Sources within the Prime Minister’s Office reported today that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will deliver an address to the Polish legislature later this week consisting entirely of the phrase “Polish death camps” repeated again and again.

The Israeli premier will deliver remarks to the Zgromadzenie Narodowe, or National Assembly, this coming Thursday, as part of worldwide observances around International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date of the observance coincides with the anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945, the deadliest of many Nazi-run facilities on Polish soil for the extermination of Europe’s Jews and other “undesirables.”

The lower house of Poland’s parliament passed a measure last week outlawing mention of any role Polish government entities may have had in the Holocaust, riding a wave of nationalist sentiment and insecurity over the country’s history as both a victim of Nazi brutality and the host of the majority of the Holocaust’s labor and extermination camps focused on destroying the Jewish population. The law specifically outlaws the phrase “Polish death camps,” a locution that many Poles feel implies an unjust focus on a Polish role in the atrocities, when in fact the camps were a German project, just as “Spanish flu,” “German measles,” “African sleeping sickness,” and “Swedish meatballs” unjustly make the listener or reader assign collective responsibility to the locales invoked. Employing his diplomatic immunity, Netanyahu will repeat the taboo phrase for the duration of his speech.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Liberman) at a party meeting Monday expressed optimism that the Knesset will agree to grant retroactive recognition to the outpost community of Havat Gilad in Samaria.

Havat Gilad (Gilad's farm) was founded 15 years ago, on land legally purchased and privately owned by Moshe Zar, and named for his son Gilad, killed by terrorists, but did not obtain official Interior Ministry recognition as a Judea and Samaria community and therefore the government does not invest in its infrastructure.

Havat Gilad resident Rabbi Raziel Shevach, 32, was murdered on January 9 in a terror attack near his hometown. He is survived by his wife and six children, the youngest of whom is ten months old.

"I hope that [next] Sunday, the Israeli government will approve Havat Gilad, and we will be able to continue the legal process required to make it a legal and recognized town," Liberman said.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said that that the delay in raising the issue of Havat Gilad is the result of "tactical reasons," and that the issue will be brought up at next week’s meeting, in conjunction Defense Minister Liberman, who has formulated a proposal to normalize the community.

Liberman rebuffed criticism regarding the delays to legislation intended to legalize Havat Gilad, adding that the issue will addressed next week.

The "Strava" athletic activity application, which allows users to share possible running routes, exposed the locations of various IDF bases, as well as the activities of soldiers' patrols and the locations of training sessions.

The app monitors the soldiers' activities, as well as their patrol routes, displaying both as possible running routes.

Natan Roser, a 20-year-old Australian university student, told Channel 2, "I looked at it and immediately understood how bad this is. I understood that the best way to deal with it is to expose the problem, so that it can be fixed. Somebody would have realized it at some point, and I happened to be the one to make the connection."

An IDF spokesperson responded, "Lately, the IDF has used smart watches. Soldiers have been instructed not to allow the watches or similar applications, as well as social media, to detect their location, and they have been instructed on how to safely use these items in a way which does not endanger the IDF or their personal safety."

U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt toured Israeli communities along the Gaza border on Sunday, accompanied by Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.

During the tour, Greenblatt was shown a number of recently discovered terror tunnels that cross from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory.

Following the tour, Greenblatt posted on Facebook to criticize the Hamas terrorist organization that rules Gaza.

"Instead of helping the residents of Gaza, Hamas wastes its resources on missiles and tunnels," he wrote.

Mordechai also posted on Facebook after the tour, writing, "The difficult situation in Gaza is the result of Hamas' policies."

A pair of Palestinians dressed in army uniforms tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank on Sunday, the IDF said.

One of the suspects, who was detained by the troops near Itamar, had a pair of binoculars, but no weapons.

Troops were interrogating the suspect who was caught in order to determine whether the pair had been attempting to carry out a terror attack or had criminal motive, Hadashot TV news reported.

Soldiers were scouring the area between the settlement and the Palestinian village of Beit Furik for the second suspect, the army said.

Molotov cocktails found near the West Bank settlement of Itamar, December 29, 2018. (IDF spokesperson)

Soldiers combing the area where two Palestinians apparently tried to sneak into an Israeli settlement found six Molotov cocktails, the army said Monday.

The incendiaries were discovered near the settlement of Itamar in the northern West Bank.

On Sunday night, the army said it had foiled an attempt by two Palestinians dressed in Israeli army uniforms to enter the community.

One of the suspects was detained Sunday night and the other fled toward the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Furik.

The firebombs were found near the area where the two Palestinians were spotted, the army said. It said searches were ongoing.

Every Israeli slight against Christians, whether real or perceived, becomes the topic of international headlines.

Take for instance the occasions of anti-Christian graffiti scrawled on churches in Jerusalem by a handful of radical Jewish youth. As upsetting as those incidents were, no real harm was done, and both the authorities and local Jewish community were quick to stand with the wronged churches.

And yet, Israel was falsely lambasted in the mainstream media as a place unwelcoming to and even hostile toward Christians.

So, it's more than a little curious that a far more severe trial being faced by Christian nuns in nearby Bethlehem is being all but ignored.

Middle East Concern, one of the few organizations willing to expose the plight of Christians living under the Palestinian Authority, reports that portions of the St. Mary's Coptic Convent in Bethlehem have been unlawfully taken over by a local Muslim family, and the nuns living there exposed to routine physical abuse.

Sisters Maria and Esther have filed official complaints against the Mahatna family, but Palestinian Authority courts have failed to take any real action.

Palestinian Security Forces spokesman Gen. Adnan Dumairi said that he harbors no hostility toward the fighters of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and the other military wings operating in Gaza. "They are our blood brothers. We are brothers who share the same history, the same weapons. Brothers in everything," he said. The interview with Dumairi aired on the Palestinian Authority's Maan TV channel on November 11.

Hamas has announced a new “martyr.” And by new, I mean pretty old.

Autotranslation:
Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas”, one of its heroes Mujahideen, who died after suffering from a terminal illness.

The Qassam Brigades the military statement on Sunday: “The Mujahid Qassam Ahmed Hassan Salem Awaidah (70 years) from city Rafah southern Gaza Strip died of incurable disease.

She added “to leave our world what is not or rather not weakness or failure, but dedicated himself God ”

Thousands of employees at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees protested Monday in Gaza against US President Donald Trump’s suspension of tens of millions of dollars in aid.

The United States suspended $65 million to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) earlier this month, as well as a separate $45 million in food aid.

Thousands of teachers, medical professionals and other staff gathered in Gaza City to protest the cuts that UNRWA officials have warned could threaten the education of more than half a million children.

The agency provides support for more than three million Palestinians across the Middle East, descendants of Palestinians who left their lands in the State of Israel during and after the 1948 War of Independence.

A hospital in the northern Gaza Strip suspended its services on Monday due to a lack of fuel, the hospital and a spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry said.

“All health services provided at Beit Hanoun hospital were suspended due to power cuts and the lack of fuel for the hospital’s backup generators,” the hospital wrote in a statement posted to its official Facebook page.

Ashraf al-Qidre, a spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, said that many patients in the Beit Hanoun hospital were transferred to other hospitals that are still working.

The Palestinian Authority recently agreed to end cuts on electricity payments for Gaza, with the Strip now supposed to get six hours of power at a time, followed by 12 hours without.

The Palestinian Authority has announced it will launch a GoFundMe page, after the U.S. State Department’s $80 million aid reduction and further threats from Donald Trump to cut all aid.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas decried the cuts. “After decades of brutal and humiliating occupation, this is a slap in the face of the Palestinian nation and will be devastating to its people. Our reduced circumstances will mean my new $13 million-dollar Presidential Palace will only have only one helicopter pad and no runway for my new $50 million private jet. Unacceptable!”

“Therefore, I have announced we will crowd-fund the remainder through our new GoFundMe page: This Land is Not Your Land, This Land is Our Land fundraising campaign. The money will be used to finance the second helicopter pad and a chocolate fountain that will represent the glory of the Palestinian people.”

“I mean how else am I supposed to fight for Palestinian independence without looking like an absolute baller? It’s not like I could pay for any of it myself.”

Israel’s top military spokesman accused Iran of turning Lebanon into “one big missile factory,” in a rare Arabic op-ed published Sunday on Lebanese news outlets.

In the piece, Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis said Iran’s extensive support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group had turned the country into a “branch” of the Islamic Republic.

“Lebanon is becoming, by default and by the failure of the Lebanese authorities, one big missile factory,” wrote Manelis, according to a Hebrew translation from the Israel Defense Forces.

“It is no longer the just transfer of weapons, money and advice. Iran has de facto opened a new branch — ‘the Lebanon Branch.’ Iran is here,” he added.

Over the past year, Israel has warned against Iranian efforts to set up weapons production facilities in Lebanon, with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman telling United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres during an August visit to Israel that Iran is “working to set up factories to manufacture accurate weapons within Lebanon itself.”

A Hezbollah lawmaker on Monday struck back against a rare op-ed published in Lebanese media by an Israeli army spokesperson, saying his warnings of Iran manufacturing rockets in the country were “provocative nonsense” and that Hezbollah was now in a position to destroy the Israeli army.

Israel’s top military spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis accused Hezbollah of morphing Lebanon into a branch of Iran, and of turning Lebanon into “one big missile factory,” in a piece published Sunday in Arabic in several Lebanese news outlets.

In response, Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad, writing in Al-Hewar Al-Motamaden, one of the Lebanese blog sites Manelis published in, said, “Israel should not be unmindful and engage itself in a war that would destroy it… Hezbollah has become today stronger and has what it takes to destroy the Israeli army,” he wrote.

“Israel has become isolated internationally and regionally. Its media spins are a cover for its inability to shows itself as strong,” he added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he would press Russian President Vladimir Putin on keeping Iran from extending its footprint in the Middle East, including efforts to manufacture missiles in Lebanon.

Netanyahu left in the morning for a lightning trip to Moscow, where Iran is expected to be high on the agenda during his meeting with Putin.

“I will discuss with President Putin Iran’s relentless efforts to establish a military presence in Syria, which we strongly oppose and are also taking action against,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

“We will also discuss Iran’s effort to turn Lebanon into one giant missile site, a site for precision missiles against the State of Israel, which we will not tolerate,” the prime minister said.

Netanyahu is accompanied on the trip, his latest in a series of jaunts to Moscow, by National Security Council head Meir Ben Shabbat and Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, among other officials.

Saturday, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The UN resolution that established the commemoration urges all countries “to develop educational programs to instill the memory of the tragedy in future generations to prevent genocide from occurring again.” To its credit, Saudi Arabia has taken an important first step toward fulfilling that charge.

Saudi Arabia? Land of religious purity, whose king (Faisal) once celebrated the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact, whose UN representative (Jamil Baroody, 1976) once denounced Anne Frank’s diary as a forgery and claimed the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis was fiction? The country that not only counted among its countrymen 15 of 19 perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks but whose religious hierarchy exported bigotry and intolerance to mosques and madrasas around the world for decades, fueling the hate on which Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas and all Islamist extremist movements thrived?

Yes, that Saudi Arabia. Here’s the background.

In early December, I led a delegation of lay leaders of the foreign policy think tank I direct on a visit to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Among the high-ranking officials we met during our three-day visit was Dr. Mohammed Al Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League.

This is the organization that has long been cited as the key facilitator of Saudi Arabia’s global effort to export a radical, hate-filled, anti-West, anti-Semitic version of Islam. Just last year, a prominent British research institute labeled Saudi Arabia the main source of Islamic extremism in the United Kingdom and cited the MWL as a critical linchpin in that project.

In practice, the change inside MWL appears to have begun with the August 2016 appointment of Al Issa, a former Saudi justice minister. Taking his lead from Muhammad bin Salman, the current crown prince who has vowed to cleanse his country of extremism and return it to “moderate Islam,” Al Issa seems to have a specific mandate to transform the MWL from an organization synonymous with extremism to one that preaches tolerance.

WATCH: The #Palestinian Authority "executed" President @realDonaldTrump  and @VP Pence.

And then they complain that they are not getting money from the U.S. pic.twitter.com/i5dhM3j0R5

— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) January 28, 2018

Although Gazans tend to blame Israel for their situation, it is actually the Jewish state that seems to be trying to encourage improved economic conditions.

The Palestinian Authority recently decided to renew the electricity supply to Gaza by resuming payments for power generated by Israel (now providing power to homes for six hours, followed by 12 hours of darkness).

But the decision to renew the power supply was not due to a sudden stroke of generosity by the PA. According to sources, it was the result of an ultimatum by Israel: The Jewish state warned the PA that if it didn’t renew payments for the Gaza power bill, the Israeli government would cover the costs with PA tax money it collects. Ramallah understood the message and made a public show of renewing electricity payments.

The term anti-Semitism was created in the age of Enlightenment, when the pseudo-science of eugenics laid the seeds of Nazism. The unsubtle racism of neo-Nazis remains a lightning rod for mainstream outrage today, however religious and political hostilities against Jews are often unacknowledged for what they are.

The anti-Judaism of Islamic extremists both in the Middle East and migrant communities is a rising concern, as are the creeping tendencies in some European nations to restrict the rights of their remaining Jewish citizens.

However, it is the increasing acceptance and elevation of anti-Zionists across the world that is cause for particular concern. Those who deny the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people, the right to live in freedom and security in their homeland are routinely paraded as the picture of progressive politics.

When nations like Iran arm their bigotry with ballistic missile programs and powerful proxies like Hezbollah, they can expect acquiescence and appeasement from much of the world.

The inalienable right to self-determination is the one guarantee that Jews can never become victims to genocidal regimes again. Anti-Zionism is an ideology which perpetuates the political oppression of Jews, and by doing so legitimizes and encourages violence in Israel and the Diaspora.

It can be verboten in some circles to call out these activists or dictatorial regimes for their beliefs. Nevertheless, those who seek the political oppression of Jews must not be held to a lower standard of bigotry than their religious or racially motivated counterparts.

Fake News is old news to Jews. Today’s anti-Israel agenda, hailed from college classrooms to the voting chambers of the United Nations, regularly tells of a world in which Solomon’s Temple never stood, Jews were not in Israel and the Middle East for thousands of years, and that Zionists were complicit in the Holocaust.

The numbers are telling, he said. There are now about 170,000 Jews in Russia, according to Mark Tolts, a Hebrew University demographer. That’s a tenth of the community’s size in 1989, as counted in the last Soviet census. Factors like an aging population, low birthrate and increased immigration to Israel make Shrayer wonder what the country will look like in 50 years.

“Jewish faces and Jewish names are starting to vanish from the Russian mainstream — from literature, the arts and the entertainment industry, but also from the achievement rolls of science, medicine and the humanities,” he writes.

Has Shrayer overcome his sense of divide with Jews who stay in Russia? As a result of his research, he is both more emotionally connected, but also, paradoxically, more disconnected.

“There’s a feeling of not quite mourning but certainly a feeling of deep sadness. It’s coming from a place that is somewhere deep inside,” he reflected.

It brings Shrayer back to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, whose galleries and exhibits shed light on the story of Jews in Russia.

“It’s a great museum,” he said. But in part, it’s a museum of those who stayed, for those who stayed – and for their countrymen. Among the museum’s exhibits, pictured on the jacket of his book, are life-size plaster casts of Jews in period garb — all as white as ghosts.

Shrayer learned recently that the audio recording on the No. 19 tram, as well as the sign on its stop, have been changed and riders now hear and see the full name of the museum. He’s not claiming it’s his doing — that would be extremely chutzpahdik, Shrayer said.

Nonetheless, he added, the correction suggests to him that the story of Russia’s Jews resists closure.

What this film shows, more than anything, is that the people in power on both sides of this long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict were able to come together to reach an agreement despite many obstacles. When the initial documents are signed, protests erupt, and it becomes clear that the battle is not between Israelis and Palestinians but rather between those who want peace and those who don’t, regardless of their national or religious identity. Watching Palestinians place olive branches on Israeli tanks to indicate their desire for peace is inspiring. Learning of the organization of a protest for peace is reminiscent of much of what we see today in American society: people marching for rights rather than against them. In his final interview for the film, Shimon Peres puts its best: “No war is ever finished unless it’s being replaced by peace.”

This film, sadly, is far from the end of the story. Watching Yitzhak Rabin sing the words to “Shir LaShalom” — “Song for Peace”— along with Peres just moments before he was assassinated is especially heartbreaking. Knowing that these events took place more than two decades ago and little has changed is disheartening, and this film serves more as a chronicle of history than any call to action since those involved know that there is no easy solution.

The Oslo Diaries is certainly less controversial than the last documentary filmmakers Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan brought to Sundance. Censored Voices featured recorded testimonies of Israeli soldiers lamenting their misdeeds during the Six Day War, something that, while seemingly true, was seen as easy fodder for critics of Israel to use to denounce it is an imperialist state with an illegal military. Loushy and Sivan seem determined to continue presenting stories that might not always be warmly received, like Sivan’s recent editing of the disturbing documentary Death in the Terminal, which explores the beating and killing of an innocent Eritrean refugee mistaken for a terrorist after an explosion at a bus station. Extensively featuring Bibi Netanyahu in archive footage in The Oslo Diaries railing against Rabin and then being elected prime minister after his death is far from a subtle message that they believe his government isn’t helping the peace process.

There are many stories to tell about Israel and the conflict in which it remains eternally engulfed, and this spotlight on an unlikely early step forward is an optimistic and detailed one, presented as a meeting of two sides in a middle that for so long couldn’t have existed. It’s informative, affirming, and positive while things are going well, and a reminder that there is a way to see the other side.

Martin Kramer: "You remember the filmmakers Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan, whose last production was “Censored Voices” (2015)? That was predicated on a lie: an allegation of Israeli military censorship. I exposed the manipulation in an internet article entitled “Who Censored the Six-Day War?” (now available, with notes, in my book “The War on Error,” pp. 225-42). Their new film, “The Oslo Diaries,” has now premiered at Sundance, and HBO just bought it. (I guess they needed something to fill the gap left by their last Israel project, a nixed film by Ari Shavit.) I haven’t seen the new offering, but the reviews make me suspect it’s something other than history. I’ll be watching." (h/t Elder of Lobby)

The Shoah was one of the gravest tragedies in history, yet many countries were apathetic and indifferent at the time. It took quite a while for the United States to take action. The United Kingdom was aware of what was happening, nevertheless, it initially followed a policy that emboldened Hitler. Today, even though in Western countries the Holocaust has acquired its status and is affirmed in the legislation of many, things are quite different in the Muslim world.

One-sided propaganda and a lack of information on how the Jews were massacred and the horrors of the gas chambers, the concentration and exterminations camps, leave many Muslims totally indifferent to the inhumane brutality of the Nazis and their collaborators. Thus, it is incumbent on Muslims to put the facts of history straight by examining this horrendous crime against humanity.

The Holocaust did not occur in a vacuum. It was based on antisemitic beliefs, the ancient hatred of the Jews. Hitler used his ideological propaganda to reawaken this dormant sentiment among millions. He used the power of his oratory and persuaded millions into believing that the Jews, who represented less than 1% of the entire German population, had to be eradicated ruthlessly.

The Nazis began by targeting the Jews with ideological propaganda to indoctrinate the German people with hatred and hostility against the Jews. “Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people,” Adolf Hitler wrote in his book Mein Kampf in 1926. He advocated the use of propaganda to spread hatred against Jews and other minority groups. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, headed by Joseph Goebbels. The aim of this “black propaganda” machine was to spread throughout Germany enmity against the Jews and other minority groups that were targeted, the “undesirables,” as they were coined.

The Nazis also initiated a boycott aimed at Jewish shops and businesses, a similar antisemitic strategy to what we see in today’s BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. Throughout Germany posters were hung, portraying the Jews as ugly monsters and carrying slogans like “Don’t buy Jewish goods.” In 1940, the antisemitic film The Eternal Jew was screened in cinemas all over Germany. In schools, teachers warned their students of the so-called “Jewish menace,” and during lessons Jews were wickedly insulted and maligned.

On January 20, 1942, at the Wansee Conference, senior Nazi officials decided up on a “Final Solution to the Jewish problem.” This meant the systematic extermination of all Jews: men, women and children, even babies, not leaving one Jew alive. This barbarity would take place in all the territories occupied and controlled by the Nazis. In accordance with this decision, the extermination camps were established. In these camps, under horrendous conditions, the Nazis murdered some 11 million people, of whom nearly six million were Jews. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Ronen Bergman’s “Rise and Kill First,” a 630-page chronicle of “targeted assassinations” by Israel, pre-state and in the 70 years of statehood, is filled with frequently staggering revelations and claims. The author, who said he carried out 1,000 interviews, gained access and pored through innumerable crates of previously unpublished documents, and worked on the book for eight years, highlighted some of the most dramatic disclosures in a two-hour interview with The Times of Israel.

Some of his discoveries shed new light on familiar episodes. Others venture into hitherto entirely unfamiliar territory.

Mossad had Mengele in its sights in 1962, but ‘chose to leave it’

On July 23, 1962, Mossad operatives Rafi Eitan and Zvi Aharoni observed Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele leaving his farm in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with some bodyguards. They anticipated kidnapping him and bringing him back to Israel for trial, Eichmann-style. But their sighting coincided with the test-firing by Egypt’s President Nasser of the missiles he’d been secretly developing, Bergman said, “and they were called back to the Middle East.”

A year later, Mossad chief Isser Harel left the service, and from then on, until 1977, Bergman said, “all Mossad chiefs and all Israeli prime ministers made Nazi war criminals the lowest priority.” So the notion that the Mossad, in those crucial years, went looking for Nazi war criminals, is plain false, Bergman said, and documentedly so. “Generally speaking, Israeli intelligence did not hunt Nazi war criminals.”

There was one exception – Herberts Cukurs — a Latvian war criminal who was killed in Paraguay, he said, “but this was an exception for some personal reasons: he had killed members of the family of (IDF military intelligence chief) Aharon Yariv, and (Harel’s successor) Meir Amit was a close friend of Yariv’s… Cukurs had burned much of his family, so this was sort of, you know, doing something for a friend.”

Indeed, Bergman said, Mossad chiefs actually called home an agent who had traced Mengele again, in 1968, “because they were afraid that he was going to carry out a rogue operation.”

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone appeared on Iranian state television to discuss the topic “Has the Holocaust been exploited to oppress others,” repeating his claims that his claim that Hitler worked with the Zionist movement.

Livingstone appeared on the Press TV show on Saturday, which was observed as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The show, which was aired on Press TV’s YouTube channel, invited callers to offer their opinions. Several callers to the show repeated anti-Semitic rhetoric and praised Hitler. One caller asserted that Hitler was “fantastic” for Israel, since “if it wasn’t for Hitler there would be no Israel.”

At the same time, host Roshan Muhammed Salih talked about how the Holocaust has become an “industry.” He also said “I don’t know if 6 million died or four million or two million died…no point arguing over figures, is there, Ken?” Livingstone responded that there is “no credible alternative” to the six million figure.

During the broadcast, Livingstone repeated his claim that Hitler worked with the Zionist movement to convince Jews to move to Israel. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

To recap, this was your message:

* You called the Islamic Centre of England “a wonderful centre” and said it was a “great honour” to be there.

* You then hailed Iran, which has driven so many Iranian Jews and Ahwazi Arabs into exile, for its “tolerance”. Yes, you really did.
The Jewish community has always been present in Tehran; the Zoroastrians have always been there, as have people of many other faiths. There is much to be very proud of in the history of Iran and in the tolerance of ordinary people in Iran towards those of different faiths.

* To make it worse, in this instance you were referring to an earlier speech by the Centre’s director, which was an ode to Khomeini.

* Then came “it’s our fault”, your lifelong dirge:
The problems of today stem from the history of relations and the history of European relations with all the countries in the region.

* In fact, a real problem, you noted, was the “demonisation” of Iran.

* You also praised Iran for being helpful in the Syrian conflict. Yes, the murderous regime backing Assad. That Iran.

* You did mention human rights. There is nothing to worry about, really, you implied in the briefest and most perfunctory of words:
I also recognise that Iran is a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which I also attend, and Iran, like every other country, must undergo its universal periodic review. Every country has to undergo it. And I raised these questions with the foreign minister during our visit [to Iran] and the assurance was given that the full response will be given at the UN Human Rights Council in June, as is required.

* You were certainly in your stride towards the end, offering warm words:
The message I got from my visit was that Iran is a country that is strong, a country with the most amazing history.
…
I respect Iran’s history. I respect what brought about the revolution in 1979.

I am glad we could clear this up for you.

This week we observe another sad anniversary of displacement and dispossession in Historic Palestine: The Zionist Land-Grab masquerading as Environmentalism known as “Tu B’Shevat“. This so-called “Birthday of the Trees” is sadly little more than another attempt by the Zionists to create “Facts on the Ground“, or more specifically “In the Ground“. While some Zionists attempt to portray the scheme as a sort of Poor Man’s Earth Day, it is rather little more than a Naqba with a green facade. Additionally, Israeli school children are encouraged to plant trees, once again contributing to the gradual marginalization of the Palestinian people from their land, tree by planted tree.

Furthermore, On Tu B’Shevat it is customary to have a “Seder“, where the Israelis commit mass amounts of cultural appropriation by displaying and then eating various indigenous Palestinian fruit and nuts. To add insult to injury, the debacle gains a festive air as attendees consume four glasses of wine.

But all is not lost. The outspoken Palestinian activists known as “Hamas“, whom I count among my friends, have their own ecological beliefs. Something about helpful trees and rocks that talk. And in this parable, perhaps we can strive to find a solution to the current impasse. A Solution that is indeed rather Final, if you will. Quite Fascinating, to tell the truth. Quite Fascinating.

The United States government's restrictions (or "ban") on the admission of travelers from six Muslim-majority countries (which were chosen by former President Obama) -- unless, as President Donald J. Trump has said, there can be vetting -- triggered the anger of the Western academic community. Their distress seems to center around the exclusion from the United States of researchers and scholars from Islamic countries sanctioned by the American administration. Harvard, Yale and Stanford sued the White House. 171 scientific societies and academic organizations protested what they wrongly titled Trump's "Muslim ban". "Among those affected by the Order are academics and students who are unable to participate in conferences and the free communication of ideas", says an appeal signed by 6,000 scientists, academics and researchers around the world.

What is more "progressive" than a Western academic community struggling to keep the scientific gates open? Sadly, however, many of those who have promoted these appeals have been instrumental in spreading other, racist, appeals to boycott their Israeli colleagues. It is, in the same universities, the "Israel Ban". The discrimination is not directed at scientists from Yemen or Somalia, but only at those with a passport from the Jewish State.

Nadine el Enany, for instance, the first signatory of the appeal against the United States "Muslim ban", is one of the signers of the appeal to boycott her Israeli academic colleagues. The same double standards apply to Sarah Keenan and Bill Bowring, and to Italian professor Paola Bacchetta, who teaches "gender studies" at Berkeley. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, a professor of literature at SOAS University in London, announced that, to protest Trump's supposed "xenophobia", he will cancel a U.S. tour for his book. What about protesting his own xenophobia? A progressive "conscience" did not prevent Adib-Moghaddam from also signing an appeal to boycott Israeli researchers and professors.

Every day in the main stream media we hear antisemites 'people opposed to the Israeli government' spew hatred and lies against Israel and say "it is not antisemitic to point these things out".

In Britain - if any response at all is offered - it is usually in the form of an apologetic 'Jewish spokesperson' who, instead of challenging the lies about Israel, says meekly: "It is antisemitic to blame British Jews for the actions of the Israeli government".

This short video explains what the response should be.

Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series of posts documenting BDS fails.
Political BDS Fails

New Orleans City Council rescinds controversial human rights resolution
Amid dueling cries of “anti-Semitism” and “Islamophobia,” the New Orleans City Council voted 7-0 Thursday to rescind a human rights resolution it passed on a 5-0 vote just two weeks ago.

The Jan. 11 resolution, which calls for a review of contracts and investments to make sure city money doesn’t go to support human rights violations but mentions no specific groups or violators, was quickly hailed as a victory for an international movement to boycott Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.…

…Williams previously told WWL-TV he felt duped by the New Orleans Palestinian Solidarity Committee that had pushed the original resolution.

Norway said set to cut funding for pro-BDS Palestinian NGOs
Dec 25, 2017 – “We will continue to work consistently to expose European funding for Palestinian organizations that delegitimize [Israel].” Norway’s decision comes just days after fellow Scandinavian country Denmark said it will revoke funding from several Palestinian NGOs and tighten aid criteria for others after they were found to be tied to anti-Israel activities.

Switzerland stops funds to Palestinian NGO due to terrorism …
Aug 22, 2017 – “In halting payment to WATC [Women Affairs Technical Committee], the Swiss follow similar moves by Denmark and Holland. The radical Palestinian NGO is one of many funded by these countries through the Ramallah-based Human Rights Secretariat, with an annual budget of $4 million,” he added.

As has often been noted here, for years the BBC has reported stories relating to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) without adequately clarifying to its audiences that what that campaign ultimately seeks to achieve is the end of Israel as the Jewish state. Moreover, in August 2015, we learned that the BBC considers the provision of such crucial background information “not our role“.

So did BBC audiences see any improvement in 2017?

In February BBC One’s “moral, ethical and religious” debate programme ‘The Big Questions’ aired a discussion billed “should we trade with Israel now settlements are recognised?” which included contributors from controversial organisations that support the BDS anti-Israel campaign – without audiences being informed of that fact.

In March the BBC News website reported a story about a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign denied entry to Israel but – despite the obvious relevance to the story – failed to inform audiences what the BDS campaign aspires to achieve.

In April BBC Two audiences were given an airbrushed account of the aim of the BDS campaign and visitors to the BBC News website were told that it is “a human rights organisation”.

Some 30 protesters gathered outside of an Arab-style bakery and restaurant in Oakland, California, to protest a life-size mural in the shop featuring convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh.

Sunday’s vigil also protested a book reading and signing by Sunaina Maira, an Asian-American studies professor at the University of California, Davis, whose new book is about boycotting Israeli academic institutions, the East Bay Times reported.

The vigil is part of a series of protests against the mural by a group called Oakland United Against Hate, the newspaper reported.

“In Oakland, a community devastated by violence, this kind of glorification of terror and violence is just inappropriate, so we’re here to express our dissatisfaction,” protester Faith Meltzer told the East Bay Times. “This is about hate in our community, the normalization of violence in our community — and that’s why we’re here.”

About 15 people from local social-justice groups, including the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, who support the eatery, monitored the protest. Several months ago, owner Reem Assil filed a restraining order against at least one of protesters.

Those who vehemently oppose Israel paint themselves as human rights defenders, compassionate people who care about humanity and the rights of all to live their lives in dignity.

And from my experience, this is true in some cases. They are just ignorant about what is going on, either because they have been brainwashed to believe the other side’s narrative, or just refuse to dig deeper beyond the headlines and news photos that mislead.

However, I find that in a majority of cases, prejudice against Jews and outright antisemitism are at work, like my regular anti-Zionist-not-antisemite series illustrates. And if it was not at all abundantly clear already from their dehumanization of Jewish people, these haters really do not care about human rights at all.

In the latest example of this, anti-Zionist-not-antisemite Jordina Salabert aka Jil Love recently posted this about (the incredible) Nikki Haley.

Earlier today, CAMERA's Snapshots blog posted about headlines in Quartz (a digital business media outlet) and Haaretz which falsely stated that Israel is paying civilians $9000 to capture or deport African asylum seekers. Haaretz commendably corrected its erroneous Jan. 12 headline (seen below) yesterday, and Quartz has yet to correct. Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post has also corrected.

What's the real story? As Haaretz's corrected headline (below) makes clear, as does the accompanying article, Israel's Population and Immigration Authority launched a recruitment drive to attract new inspectors, offering bonuses of up to $9000.

A member of the public who submitted a complaint to the BBC concerning Tweets sent by its Washington correspondent Kim Ghattas criticising a ‘Newsweek’ headline to a story about Ahed Tamimi received the following reply from BBC Complaints.

“Thanks for contacting us with your comments regarding a tweet by Middle East [sic] correspondent Kim Ghattas. Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying.

Kim was making the point that the newspaper concerned had not placed enough context in its headline. That’s made clear in the follow up tweets.

She is making a point about there being two sides to the issue. Her tweets were not about the incident itself but the need for more sophisticated reporting from Newsweek. She was pointing out the other perspective on the issue which was not reflected in the Newsweek headline.

We hope this is helpful, and thank you again for your feedback.”

Leaving aside the obviously highly relevant question of whether it is in fact a BBC journalist’s job to call out “the need for more sophisticated reporting” at another media organisation, let’s take another look at those Tweets which the BBC claims “were not about the incident itself”.

CAMERA's Israel office today prompted improved Times of Israel wording regarding the number of living Palestinian refugees. The Jan. 27 article, "TV report: Israel now wants Trump to reject Palestinian 'right of return,'" had been unclear about the number of living Palestinian refugee, stating: "The Palestinians demand this right not only for those of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who are still alive but also for their descendants, who number in the millions." Readers could easily misunderstand from this language that there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees still alive.

The number of Palestinian refugees still alive today numbers in the low tens of thousands. As Times of Israel previously noted

If the normal UN definition had been applied to the estimated 650,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what became Israel in the late 1940s, the Palestinian refugee problem today would extend to the relatively few survivors among those 650,000 — a number estimated in the low tens of thousands.

In addition, Times of Israel previously published this 2012 AP story, which reported:

The U.N. agency counted 860,000 individuals in 1951. Those registered refugees and their descendants now total 5 million living in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank. Those who favor a distinction between the two argue that more than a half-century later, there are only 30,000 original refugees left.

Last month, Israel took significant steps to solve humanitarian problems in Africa, and we drew attention to the fact that this was completely ignored by the UK media. This month, the pattern has continued, this time regarding Israel’s burgeoning ties with India.

With a population of 1.2 billion, India is the world’s second most populous country, and its highly rural population faces some of the largest humanitarian issues in the world. The numbers are staggering: 240 million Indians are not connected to electricity, 63 million Indians do not have access to clean water, and in 2016, 330 million Indians were affected by drought.

Raising living standards in India is one of the great social challenges of our time and, naturally, these issues have received much coverage in the UK press (see the links above, as well as here, here, here.)

Last week, six months after Prime Minister Modi’s historic trip to Jerusalem, Prime Minister Netanyahu became the second Israeli Prime Minister to visit India.

During his six-day trip, Netanyahu witnessed existing Israeli projects in India, and he and his delegation signed deals and announced new projects.

Obviously the amount of military aid the US chooses to give to Israel has nothing whatsoever to do with either of these stories.

Moreover, despite having introduced the topic, in none of those three articles did BBC journalists bother to clarify that Israel is a longstanding US ally or that currently some 74% (set to rise to 100% in 2019) of that military assistance is conditioned on it being spent on purchases from American companies: an arrangement described in the Washington Post as follows:

“In other words, U.S. foreign military financing is essentially a way of subsidizing its domestic defense industry while strengthening the military capabilities of its strategic allies.”

The promotion of a false comparison between the level of US donations to the PA and UNRWA and the amount of US military aid to Israel obviously contributes nothing to audience understanding of the stories the BBC purports to tell in these three articles. And yet, BBC journalists continue to repeatedly shoehorn that irrelevant information into reports supposedly about US donations to a UN agency and to the Palestinian Authority.

As readers may be aware, the BBC sometimes appends a footnote to relevant articles concerning its use of the term migrant.

“A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.”

That editorial policy was also the subject of an article published on the BBC News website in August 2015.

However, listeners to the January 2nd edition of the BBC World Service radio podcast “Africa Today” heard presenter Bola Mosuro repeatedly use terminology that does not conform to that editorial policy.

Mosuro:”Coming up: Israel gives over thirty thousand refugees and asylum seekers just three months to leave the country voluntarily. If not, they will face indefinite jail terms or be forcibly repatriated.”

In addition to her use of partial language to describe migrants, Mosuro’s claims that they “face indefinite jail terms” or being “forcibly repatriated” are inaccurate. Repatriated of course means being sent back to one’s own country but that is not what the programme entails.

Muslim clerics are threatening the lives of Jews from the pulpits of American mosques, and they are doing it with virtual impunity, say former US law-enforcement officials who worry that the rhetoric could lead to violent attacks.

Over the past six months, at least five prominent US imams have been caught on tape preaching violence against Jews in sermons at mosques across America.

Yet these radical preachers inciting anti-Semitic violence aren’t prosecuted or even permanently banished by the leadership of their mosques.

“It’s outrageous they aren’t immediately removed and investigated for what may be solicitation [to commit a crime of violence],” was the view of veteran FBI Special Agent John Guandolo, who now runs a counterterrorism consulting firm, Understanding the Threat LLC.

Jewish people already are disproportionately targeted for hate crimes in America, but recent sermons could fan the flames of anti-Semitism. In November, the FBI released new data showing there were more Jewish victims of anti-religious hate crimes in 2016 (the last reported year) than victims of all other religious groups combined.

Canadian Imam Munir Elkassem: MEMRI Cuts and Pastes My Sermons; Jihad is a Very Noble Principle Where We Exert Energy to Effect Goodness pic.twitter.com/79mWgn4YnM

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 29, 2018

Some 13,500 attendees, 120 companies, 90 startups and 67 multinational delegations are expected at Cybertech Israel conference and expo, January 29-31 at the Tel Aviv Convention Center.

Cybertech Israel, the biggest annual cyber technologies event outside of the United States, will showcase commercial problem-solving strategies and solutions for the global cyber threat in a wide range of sectors: finance, transportation, utilities, defense, R&D, manufacturing, telecommunication, health and government.

Among special events planned are Cyber NYC sponsored by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Tech against Terrorism sponsored by the UN, Cyber for Airports, Cybermed, and sessions focusing on cyber for trains, ports and maritime.

A startup competition powered by YL Ventures will gift the lucky winner with two tickets and airfare to the RSA security conference in San Francisco next April.

A new special feature this year will be Cyber Junior, a platform sponsored by the Rashi Foundation enabling 120 Israeli teenagers to attend event and the startup competition, and meet presenters and featured speakers.

On Friday, July 6, 2007, Gregory Levey at The Jerusalem Post wrote an article: “Reaching out – Picture – Scene from Somalia."

"It’s not easy being a Jew in this predominantly Muslim country. The only Jewish blogger in Mogadishu longs for a community.”

Little did Levey know that he had brought to light what only a few knew – that there had been a Jewish presence in Somalia. I had stumbled upon the article by chance. I was living in St. Paul-Minneapolis at the time, which has the largest Somali diaspora in the world. After 9/11 the police took note of the burgeoning Somali community.

The majority are law-abiding citizens, yet Minnesota has achieved the distinction of being the recruitment center for Islamic State (ISIS) in the US.

I asked to be put in touch with Av, who also called himself Rami.

We corresponded from 2007 to 2010 – over 300 emails. I came to know this wonderful young Jewish man and his inspiring mother, Ashira Haybi. They were alone without family, with roots extending back well over one hundred years. Rami’s dad, killed during the civil war, traced his roots to Aden, Yemen, while his mom traced hers to Ta’iz, also in Yemen. Ashira was an accomplished businesswoman trading in textiles. She kept a kosher home, was Shabbat observant and raised Rami to continue the tradition. They fought vigorously to preserve their Judaism under extreme duress.

Heinz Jakob “Coco” Schumann, a jazz guitarist who survived Nazi concentration camps to return to his musical career in Berlin after World War II, has died. He was 93.

His record label Trikont said Schumann died Sunday in Berlin, the dpa news agency reported Monday.

Schumann made a name for himself as a young musician in Berlin’s underground jazz and swing scene in the 1930s. He was arrested in 1943 after authorities learned his mother was Jewish, and deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.

There, he played in a band known as the “Ghetto Swingers” before being transferred to Auschwitz in 1944, where he played music to entertain guards.

After the war he emigrated to Australia, before returning to Berlin in the mid-1950s and re-establishing his career.

Schumann was featured in a 2013 documentary called “Refuge in Music,” about the life of Jewish musicians, composers and artists under the Third Reich.

A look back at 70 years in 30 seconds pic.twitter.com/R1mqwGbWe8

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) January 28, 2018

"He did a great service for peace because peace can only be based on truth, on reality. And denying the simple fact that Israel's capital is Jerusalem is — pushes peace backward by creating an illusion, a fantasy. You can't build peace on fantasy," Netanyahu told CNN's Fareed Zakaria at Davos.
"The seat of government is in Jerusalem. This has been the case for the 70 years of Israel's existence that we're celebrating now. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people since the time of King David. That's only 3,000 years ago," he said.
"Under any peace agreement, you know that the capital of Israel will continue to be Jerusalem, and the seat of our government will continue to be in Jerusalem," he continued.

The Gas for Gaza (G4G) initiative facilitates the agreement and construction of a gas pipeline from the Israeli gas network to Gaza. It is led through the formal Task Force platform, which is convened by the OQ [Office of the Quartet.]
Ongoing progress has been achieved since the first Task Force meeting in August 2015, including identification of a route, the start of permitting in the Israeli system and ongoing progress in developing the project’s commercial framework. To support the provision of natural gas to Gaza, the OQ will:
1. Continue to chair the G4G Task Force and work with the parties to facilitate progress, including undertaking necessary studies and coordinating between the parties;
2. Initiate, coordinate and facilitate all project activities including security, technical, financial, legal and political dimensions of the project;
3. Work to secure funding for the infrastructure that is required;
4. Support the planning and permitting processes in Israel and Gaza.
Once completed, the G4G project will not only contribute to a significant increase in domestic generation on a cost-efficient basis, but also enable other critical infrastructure including the Gaza Central Desalination Plant, enable economic growth and development more broadly and importantly will fundamentally improve the quality of life.

The establishment of a high voltage 161 kV line will allow for bulk import of electricity from Israel to Gaza, which will expand the supply of electricity and reduce costs. According to estimates made by the Government of Israel (GoI), this high voltage connection can provide an additional 100 MW of electricity in 3-4 years. However, in the interim, until the electricity from the 161 kV line is available for Gaza, the option of providing an additional 25 MW as a stop-gap measure is being examined. 

While Arab leaders are rushing to make agreements and  peace with the Jews, Israel clings to the Knesset with a painting showing  the area from the Nile to the Euphrates as part of Israel. doesn' t that mean Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and part of Saudi Arabia ?!

Did any of the Arab leaders of the Israeli rulers demand that this painting be removed? Of course not, and the voices still hold on to the strategic option of peace. Every day we relinquish other rights, as will happen in the deal of the century, to which some Arabs and Muslims cheer.

...I do not know how to negotiate with those who have known treachery of the covenants, and the killing of the prophets, and their hands are still dripping with blood, throughout ancient and modern history, they are Jews. There is no difference between the Jews of today and the Jews of yesterday. They say that they are the chosen people of God. But they say that the Lord of Jews orders them to kill and destroy anyone who is not a Jew, and this is not a slander.

In our struggle with the Israeli enemy, and in order to preserve the Islamic sanctities, including Jerusalem, we have no need to turn to the life and mind of Saladin and Saif Qataz. We fight the Jews, and this is inevitable, no matter how deceitful the deceivers are. Only when Muslims raise the flag of Islam...under the unity of Muslims will we find Jews in fear and panic...

This article was linked to on the front page of the Ahram Gate newspaper.

Meanwhile, Asaad Al Azouni writes in Mustaqila that Jewish lobby groups are very dangerous. Among the worst is MEMRI, which dares to translate articles like his into English so everyone can know what Arabs really say to each other. Or, as he puts it, its purpose is "to incite the world against us through deliberate misinformation. "

But also AIPAC, of course  - and J-Street too - are Jewish lobby groups. 

Among the methods of these Jewish groups are false accusations of anti-Semitism. This is impossible, because today's Jews are Khazars from the Caspian Sea today and are not Semites to begin with. They were converted under pressure of their 17th-century [sic] king - but the king didn't convert because he loved Judaism but to escape the Christian and Islamic pressure.

Holocaust deniers are also victims of the false accusation of antisemitism, like Roger Garaudy.

The real problem, we are told, is the Babylonian Talmud, "which is the source of black terror in the world, because it incites crime and murder," which includes such laws as "send your neighbor diseases, and steal from your non-Jewish neighbor and sleep with his wife."

How dare these evil Jews call anyone antisemitic!

Aezzona has written bizarre antisemitic articles in a number of Arab publications, including the claim   ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi  is really named Rabbi Elliott Shimon.

The Palestinians' mock trial and "execution" of Trump and Pence gives the Palestinians a green light to target Americans physically. More interesting still is that members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction participated in the mock trial and "execution" of the US president and the Vice President.

Strikingly, this event took place inside a refugee camp that is run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). More precisely, the execution took place outside a school run by UNRWA. Trump and Pence were "hanged" with the UNRWA flag flying atop the school in the background.

The US and other Western countries would do well to take the Palestinian campaign of threats and incitement extremely seriously – and severely counter these threats. Submission to the intimidation will simply result in even more intimidation, more violence and more threats.

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network Mike Pence’s Knesset speech, the Jewish attitude to the idea of the nation, the threat to Britain posed by Jeremy Corbyn, Trump at Davos and Theresa May’s woes.

The improving relations between Israel and many Sunni Arab states—including those like Saudi Arabia with which it does not have formal diplomatic ties—are hardly a secret. But these countries remain reluctant to acknowledge the relations publicly and have shown little interest in actual normalization. While explaining the reluctance, Moshe Yaalon and Leehe Friedman contend that Arab countries would serve both their own interests and those of the Palestinians by dropping their insistence on a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a prerequisite to normal diplomatic relations with Jerusalem.

[T]he pragmatic Arab regimes are wary of being seen publicly as overly keen on normalization before the Israel-Palestinian conflict has been resolved. Their citizens would widely and strongly oppose such a move and perceive it as an abandonment and betrayal of their Palestinian brethren. Even Egypt and Jordan, which have diplomatic relations with Israel and have cooperated quietly but extensively over security and intelligence matters, are careful not to appear too openly conciliatory toward Israel. . . .

What’s more, Iran, in its quest for hegemony in the Middle East, would surely use any sign of rapprochement with Israel to inflame the Palestinian conflict further. . . . The Sunni states, particularly Saudi Arabia, cannot allow themselves to give Iran or Turkey, [which has aligned itself with the Muslim Brotherhood and against the moderate Arab states], any openings to amass political capital in the region. . . .

So far, [however,] conditioning normalization on resolving the conflict has not brought its settlement any closer, and instead has obstructed other moves that would benefit the entire region. . . . The time has come to recognize that treating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an obstacle toward normalization is [an] illusion. . . . Today, normalization with Israel in itself serves authentic interests in the pragmatic Arab world. Leaders of these countries understand this, and it has led to closer ties behind the scenes. However, in order to maximize the security, economic, and cultural benefits for all parties, closer ties must become public.

Of course, many Poles fought the Nazis, particularly after June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. And there are numerous incidents in which Poles risked their own lives to save Jews. Indeed, Poland capitulated to Nazi Germany but never signed a formal surrender.

It is also true that the Nazis had an easier time carrying out the Holocaust in Poland and Russia than in Western Europe. Jews in the East were far more numerous; less likely to have the economic means to help them escape; tended to live in shtetlach (villages); and because most were Orthodox, were visibly Jewish.

But it is also true that before and during the war, deep-seated hatred of the Jews was common in Poland.

And many Poles collaborated with the Nazis to help them find and capture Jews who attempted to escape.

It is therefore ridiculous for the Polish government to attempt to whitewash history and erase the role the Polish people played in helping the Nazis persecute Jews.

It also worrying that such a bill, put forward by Poland’s right-wing government, is so popular among Poles, as though Polish honor is somehow dependent on promulgating lies.

The leaders and citizens of the State of Israel, created in the aftermath of the Holocaust, have a moral obligation to speak out against attempts to stifle free debate about the Holocaust or to rewrite history. We will not be silent.

“Look at the floor,” I told my students. We were standing in Treblinka. An exposed area, freezing cold, surrounded by dark forests. They looked down. “Under your feet,” I said to them, “there is a city of the dead. It’s a city twice the size of Tel Aviv. 880,000 dead. They died for only reason — they were Jews.”

The extermination at Treblinka was overseen by fewer than 30 Germans. Most of the atrocities were committed by a Ukrainian squadron. The prisoners who tried to escape from the trains which led to the camp were caught and returned by Polish neighbors. Everyone was complicit.

My father’s grandmother, Hermione, was arrested by the Germans in Serbia. She was sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in the gas chambers. Why did she make that long journey to her death? Why were most of the camps set up in Poland? The Germans knew that at least some of the local population would cooperate.

Hundreds of Jewish residents of the town of Jedwabne were murdered by Poles. In June 1941, they were caught by their Polish neighbors, locked in a barn and burned alive. After the war, the Poles tried to claim that the Germans had carried out the massacre, but the Jews who had managed to survive the massacre bore witness to the truth.

The new law that the Polish government is trying to pass denies all this. So that we’ll know that “fake news” has reached Poland, they spun the law with a false headline. “There is no such thing,” they said, “as Polish extermination camps. The camps were German.” It’s an absurd statement. No one ever says the death camps were built by the Poles. The Germans built them. But they built them on Polish land, with Polish help, in the face of Polish silence.

Just before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the lower house of the Polish parliament voted in favor of a bill that condemns anyone who acknowledges Polish complicity in the Holocaust to up to three years in prison. According to the Polish state narrative, the Holocaust was an entirely German affair, and both the Polish government and the Polish people are entirely innocent of it. Although I was dismayed to learn this news, I was hardly surprised. After spending some time in Poland this month, I would expect no better.

Before leaving the United States, I researched the history of the Holocaust in Poland and quickly began to suspect the Polish government of whitewashing. For example, the website of the State Museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau includes an Orwellian tool called “Remember.” It invites visitors “to correct collective memory errors” by reporting journalists who use the phrase “Polish death camp”—referring to death camps established by the Nazis on Polish soil, sometimes in Polish cities, where Jews who were turned in by their Polish neighbors and others were sent to their deaths—to the Polish authorities. I also read about efforts by Polish politicians to discredit and silence those who have dared to tell the story of Jedwabne, the site of a particularly egregious pogrom perpetrated by Poles against their Jewish neighbors and culminating in the burning alive of more than 300 Jews in a barn (over 1,500 total were murdered). By the time that I boarded the plane to Europe, I was very wary of the intentions of the Polish state in retaining control over the Holocaust-related sites I was planning to visit.

Even in my short time in the country, I noticed the strange national attitude toward the Jews. Many superstitious Poles, for example, furnished their households with representations of “lucky Jews,” who, by virtue of their shrewdness with money, were expected to bring fortune to the homeowners. For that reason, street vendors sold cooking utensils featuring Jews with payot, prominent noses, and coins. The walls of a pub/home that my tour group visited were decorated with a portrait of a money-counting Jew among myriad mounted crosses and depictions of Jesus’s mangled corpse. On Shabbat, when a number of us were wearing kippot and tzitzit, Poles videotaped and photographed us as though we were exotic animals in a zoo. What was once the Krakow Jewish Quarter had been turned into a virtual theme park, with kosher-style (but not kosher) restaurants and an annual klezmer festival for the pleasure of the Christian Poles but with very few, if any, remaining Jews.

Abraham Foxman survived the Holocaust as a child in Poland thanks to a Polish Catholic nanny who took him in. But many of his Jewish countrymen suffered a very different fate, and Foxman is concerned that his freedom to say that is being threatened by legislation advanced by the Polish government.

“This is a political move to do two things: first, to rewrite history, but more importantly to prevent new history,” the former longtime national director of the Anti-Defamation League told The Jerusalem Post in a telephone interview from New York on Sunday night.

In the past 20 years, he stressed, more sources have opened up and more research has been conducted into Poland’s Holocaust history. “Yes, Poles were victims but they were also victimizers, and more and more of this is coming out, and this new jingoist, [the] neo-nationalist government doesn’t want it, and one way to prevent it is to legislate and criminalize,” Foxman said.

“We understand they don’t want to hear ‘Polish concentration camp’ – nobody is arguing that. Nobody says that is not a legitimate sensitivity and concern. But what we’re seeing is something different. What we are seeing is a political move to rewrite history, deny history and to make sure that honest history is not written,” he stressed.

“But you don’t legislate and criminalize against it – that’s contrary to freedom of speech,” he continued. Foxman added that a great concern of his is that the law could include testimonies by Holocaust survivors’ and historians.

“So if I say, I was saved by a Polish woman but there were a lot of Jews that were led to their deaths by Poles – that could be criminalized today if this legislation passes, because I’m defaming the Polish people and the Polish nation by saying that some Poles were collaborators – which they were,” he asserted.

.@UNRWA spox makes odious linkage of Holocaust Remembrance Day to UNRWA's "#DignityIsPriceless" fundraising campaign for Palestinians. @ChrisGunness, given your teachers' incessant praise of Hitler & Jihadist terrorism, on Holocaust Day it'd be wise for you to just keep silent. pic.twitter.com/lDW3CbdIjq

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 30, 2018

Tomorrow, Jan. 31, the European Union and Norway will convene in Brussels for another "emergency meeting of international donors to Palestine." The conference will see a repeat of a pattern of behavior in which the richest countries in the world spill out hundreds of millions of dollars as a solution to the crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli government, which will be represented by Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, expressed its support for emergency aid, recognizing that if the Gaza regime collapsed, it could cause another war. While the basic needs of Gaza's civilian population, like electricity and potable water, are obvious to all, another round of funding won't solve the core problem there, especially given that the role Hamas is playing in the crisis is being ignored. So to prevent the next crisis, and the one after that, real change is necessary.

Israeli interests demand that Hanegbi switch roles from an observer to a central actor in the event and that he ask for an orderly plan to shut down the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. Hanegbi needs to prevent viable alternatives to the destructive status quo that for 70 years has defined Palestinians in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, etc. as refugees from the 1948 War of Independence, leading billions of dollars of international aid to be funneled into perpetuating the Palestinian narrative about a "right of return." The unstinting support of various Israeli governments and the Israeli defense establishment for UNRWA has caused considerable damage, and it's time to think up more efficient ways of helping that are not tied to the Palestinian narrative or to terrorist organizations. The political price of continued cooperation with UNRWA outweighs all other considerations.

Former President Barack Obama this week defended his decision to allow a December 2016 United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements to pass in the waning days of his administration, blaming the “skyrocketing” pace of settlement construction.

“The pace of settlement construction skyrocketed making it almost impossible to make any kind of Palestinian state,” Obama said during a talk at Temple Emanu-El in New York City on Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported.

“Voting against the resolution would have damaged our credibility on affirming human rights only when it’s convenient not when it has to do with ourselves and our friends,” the former president said.

At the time, the Obama administration refused to use US veto power in the Security Council to block Resolution 2334, breaking with decades of American policy of defending Israel against one-sided UN measures targeting the Jewish state.

Obama also downplayed America’s relatively strained relationship with Israel under his administration, arguing that his decisions on the Jewish state were reflective of the strong bonds between the countries.

“To be a true friend of Israel it is important to be honest about it, and the politics of this country sometimes do not allow for it,” Obama said.

On Monday, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer blasted the media for ignoring the implications of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including present-day members of Congress John Lewis and Maxine Waters, having met with raging anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan in 2005:

Since the press hasn’t covered the fact that members of the Congressional Black Caucus in 2005 met with anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, I’ll make coverage easier. Here are 21 members of Congress today who belonged to the CDC in 2005. Why not ask them if meeting w anti-Semites is ok? pic.twitter.com/TjDlKAstMp

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 29, 2018

Last week, it was revealed that the CBC pressured photojournalist Askia Muhammad for over ten years to suppress a photo of former President Barack Obama and Farrakhan at a meeting of the CBC in 2005 when Obama was a state senator.

In case anyone was unfamiliar with Farrakhan’s Nazi-like rhetoric, Fleischer enlightened them:

Then Fleischer ripped the media for their utter hypocrisy:

Saturday marked the day set aside by the global community to commemorate the tragedy of the Holocaust during World War Two.

International Holocaust Memorial Day is intended to honor six million Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, but leave it to Democrats to make a mockery of the day.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., shamefully politicized the day by using it to attack President Donald Trump and to advocate for Muslim refugees.

“On #HolocaustMemorialDay, Trump restricted refugees from Muslim-majority countries. Make no mistake — this is a Muslim ban,” she tweeted.

In a call for open borders, Harris, who epitomizes the adage that elections have consequences, likened Muslim refugees to victims of the Holocaust — like Anne Frank.

Israel supported a U.N. resolution, opposed by the United States and the European Union, that changes the name of the international remembrance day for the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The April 7 remembrance day, previously known as the Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda, will focus solely on the murder of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis by members of the Hutu-majority government. The amendment was approved on Friday in the General Assembly by consensus. It will be known now as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Rwanda’s ambassador to the United Nations, Valentine Rugwabiza, told the General Assembly that the new name clarifies that the genocide was carried out “against the Tutsi.” But the United States and the EU objected that, in the words of Kelley Currie, the U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, the new name “does not fully capture the magnitude of the genocide and of the violence committed against other groups.”

In addition to the Tutsis slaughtered, another 50,000 or more Hutu who tried to help the Tutsi also were killed during the massacres that year in a 100-day period from April to July.

Israel was the only Western-allied country to co-sponsor the resolution. The United States expressed its objections but did not intervene. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Dear Minister Erjavec,

You are on record as calling for your country to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state as soon as possible.

In doing so, you said that you believe this will advance the prospects for peace in the region. But as a long-time supporter of the quest for a two-state agreement, I would respectfully ask you to reconsider your position. This is neither the time nor the way to move the parties closer to an accord. To the contrary, it will only make a daunting challenge still more so.

For Slovenia, I know, the issue of “self-determination” looms large — reflecting your country’s own difficult history. You are instinctively drawn to support those who, in your mind, seek what your nation aspired to — and most recently achieved in 1992.

But “self-determination” can’t be viewed in a vacuum, as if it were an end itself, somehow disconnected from the surrounding world. It invariably has context and consequences, both of which must be taken into account in weighing alternative policy options in any specific situation.

Precisely because Slovenia is a friend of Israel and has maintained mutually beneficial ties with the Jewish state since shortly after your nation’s independence, I ask you to consider the potential negative results of any such move on your part.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Sudan’s president, who is accused of genocide by the International Criminal Court, on the sidelines of this week’s African Union summit on grounds of “operational necessity,” the United Nations said Monday.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters that operational necessities allow the UN chief to meet with President Omar al-Bashir “from time to time” on issues such as the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur and the UN peacekeeping mission in the oil-rich Abyei region that is disputed between Sudan and South Sudan.

“That doesn’t obviate the need, of course, for respect of the International Criminal Court,” Haq said.

Al-Bashir is accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur during fighting since 2003.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour told local media that Guterres praised the efforts by Sudan’s government to achieve peace in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan during Sunday’s meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

A delegation of US diplomats had to cut short an event in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Tuesday, an attendee said, after protesters stormed their meeting.

The protesters, who were objecting to US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, also kicked and threw tomatoes at the delegation’s car as they left, a video posted online showed.

Some five protesters kicked one of the doors of the car, which had US consular license plates, and ripped the plastic casing off a side mirror, Reuters reported.

The American diplomats had been invited by city officials to give a workshop on doing business over the internet.

Samir Hazboun, head of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, said the group had been holding a training session for local businesspeople about digital commerce with an American expert and a delegation from the US consulate in Jerusalem. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

IDF Spokesperson Brigadier-General Ronen Manelis's op-ed, which was published Sunday morning in Lebanese and Arab websites, is a conscious and dramatic move. I can’t remember a similar act taking place in the past 50 years.

In fact, it’s the first time that the IDF appeals directly and officially to all of Lebanon’s citizens, urging them to come to their senses and stop Iran and Hezbollah from turning Lebanon and its citizens into hostages, while fatal decisions about their lives and welfare are being made in Tehran according to the ayatollah regime’s interests.

“These violations don’t threaten us,” Manelis wrote. “On the contrary, the difference between a violation that ends in a report to the UN and a violation that will lead to a security deterioration is, first and foremost, subject to an Israeli decision.” These words come as a sort of red line set by Israel, as it directly warns Lebanon of an Israeli attack.

Manelis appears to be appealing to Lebanon’s citizens over the heads of their prime minister and president, who are controlled by Hezbollah, in an unconventional way aimed at making it clear to them that they might suffer a disaster if they fail to come to their senses and work to stop the Iranian takeover of the Lebanese regime and Iran’s physical entrenchment in Lebanon.

He points to the fact that Iran is basically disregarding Lebanon’s sovereignty and gradually turning the country into a branch of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iraqi-Shiite militias operating at Iran’s service and the Iranian military industry.

Hezbollah has threatened to open fire at IDF soldiers if Israel does not halt the construction of a barrier along the Israel-Lebanon border, Hadashot TV reported Monday.

Israel has been building the obstacle — made up of a collection of berms, cliffs and concrete barriers — for a long time, but it has only now reportedly angered the Lebanese terror group, which last fought Israel in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The message was delivered to Jerusalem via the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the report said. The UN force, fearing a possible escalation, passed the message on to the US and French ambassadors, who updated the Prime Minister’s Office on the matter.

However, the Israeli government was unimpressed, and responded with a threatening message of its own, the report said. Israel said it was acting in its own sovereign territory in accordance with a Security Council resolution adopted after Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.

The section Israel is now constructing, on the northern side of the border fence, is angering Hezbollah. However, in parts, the fence is built inside Israeli territory.

Britain’s legislature approved new legislation Monday distinguishing between the political and military apparatuses of various organized crime syndicates, following years of treating international terrorist organizations in the same fashion.

Parliament’s Mafia Distinction Act, set become law on 1 February, will apply the same conceptual division to the various mafias operating in the UK that heretofore pertained to the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah. Whereas until now these crime syndicates of prostitution, drug dealing, protection rackets, and other marks of the criminal underworld have been classified under law as wholly illegal, the MDA deems any of these groups’ activities not directly involved in violent crime, or the threat thereof, legitimate enterprise.

Thus, explained bill sponsor MP Hedda Inthesand (Ipswich), the various political activities of mafia groups will now be reclassified and decriminalized. “When a don sends his personnel to lobby public officials, journalists, or other public figures, that will remain outside the purview of criminal law,” she told reporters at a press conference following the law’s passage. “We are gratified that enough other legislators share our view that if it makes sense to distinguish between the political wing of groups such as Hezbollah and their military wings, we should be applying the same legal standard to groups established closer to home.”

MDA passed with a comfortable majority of 399-71, with many MPs crossing party lines to approve the measure. A number of the lawmakers reported to journalists that they had been contacted by political operatives of the organizations in question, who had urged them to vote in favor of passage if they knew what was good for them.

Rocket warning sirens went off in Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip just after midnight Monday-Tuesday, with one rocket reportedly landing within the Hamas-controlled territory.

Residents of the Sha’ar Hanegev and Sdot Negev regional councils, where the sirens were heard, reported hearing at least on explosion shortly after midnight.

Palestinian sources said the rocket fell inside the Gaza Strip. It was not immediately clear if a further projectile had been fired into Israel.

There were no immediate reports of injuries of damage on either side of the border fence.

There had been a significant increase in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza after US President Donald Trump’s December 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but January has seen a return to relative calm with the most recent rocket attack before Monday night occurring on the first of the month.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is urging Arab-Israelis to march in their villages, cities and at nearest checkpoints against the Trump administration’s positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The PLO issued the call to action in a press release urging a united Palestinian voice against the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; the rumored rejection by the White House of Palestinian refugees’ right to return to Israel as part of any future peace deal; and the cut-off of American aid for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

There will also be concurrent events at Al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. At the same time, the PLO declared this coming Friday a major “day of rage” in the Palestinian territories and regional Arab and Islamic capitals.

Speaking to the Media Line, Muwafaq Suhwail, a Fatah official in Ramallah, explained that the invitation to the “Palestinians who live in Israel” to protest comes within the context not only of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Jerusalem declaration but also Vice President Mike Pence’s recent visit to Israel.

“The latter gave Israel the green light to keep moving forward in violating the international resolutions,” Suhwail said. “Palestinians inside Israel and the West Bank side-by-side must boost the popular resistance against the unfair.”

Four years after the 2014 Gaza war, the myth that there is a need to rebuild Gaza persists. This myth is nurtured by both Israeli and U.S. officials. Touring the Hamas attack tunnels that lead into Israel from Gaza, U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt expressed harsh criticism of Hamas for wasting resources on "tunnels and rockets to attack Israel, instead of helping the people of Gaza by getting the lights on, the water flowing, and the economy growing."

Senior Israeli officials told the Israeli daily Haaretz last week that Qatar is "one of the only countries in the world that truly cares about improving the situation in Gaza,"[2] implying that Qatar's aid is needed.

But does Gaza really need Qatar's aid, four years after the war? And if it does not, who is served by the myth that it does, and for what purpose?

First the facts: Inequality exists across the globe, from east to west, and Gaza is no exception. But the depiction of Gaza in its entirety as wracked by poverty and destruction and in desperate need of the world's assistance is a lie – as has been shown not by Israeli propaganda but by BBC Arabic, and by none other than Al-Jazeera, Qatar's media arm.

Al-Jazeera has been broadcasting reports on a very different Gaza; a November 26, 2017 Al-Jazeera TV report on the development of Gaza shopping centers clearly show a commercial boom there. A January 13, 2018 Al-Jazeera program showed how youth unemployment in Gaza – a problem in many parts of the world, including India and Europe – is being addressed, with computer training that will allow distance employment. The video shows vocational training centers, universities, and vibrant student life in Gaza (to view the entire untranslated Al-Jazeera program, click here). In late 2016, BBC Arabic aired a story on Gaza restaurants, showing, in its words, "an aspect of luxury, vibrancy, and riches" in Gaza life.

Senior Hamas official Imad al-Alami died on Tuesday, three weeks after he allegedly shot himself in the head, the Hamas-linked al-Rai reported. He was 62.

Alami, who was also known as Abu Hamam, was regarded as a hard-liner and a supporter of Hamas’s ties with Iran.

The senior Hamas official died at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where he was treated in intensive care for the past three weeks, the report said.

On January 9, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that Alami shot himself in the head “while examining his personal weapon in his home.”

Hamas-run Interior Ministry Spokesman Iyad Bozm added that Alami “mistakenly” opened fire on himself.

However, some experts and commentators have questioned the veracity of Barhoum and Bozm’s accounts, speculating that a rival Hamas member may have shot him.

Hundreds of Gazans took part in a funeral procession for al-Alami in Gaza City including several top Hamas officials.

Speaking before Imadi’s remains at the Great Mosque of Gaza, Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh praised the senior Hamas official.

There was renewed hope among Palestinians this week after Mahmoud Abbas bagged $50 million in aid money to buy himself a private jet. While some accused the Palestinian President of selling out his people, Abbas said he deserved it.

“I am in the 14th year of my 4-year term and my legs aren’t what they used to be. I can’t be sat in armed jeeps the whole time, making things up, cursing, and handing out sweets to the kids.” he added.

The UN’s favorite little grandpa went on to say that he intended to use “Abbas Airlines” to transport his friends between Gaza City and Ramallah, once the freiers at the European Union finished building them a luxury airport with a lovely baggage carousel.

Hamas also welcomed the move, adding that foreign visitors would be most welcome. Visas would be free, but tourists are expected to take out their own insurance n the unlikely event that yada yada yada. Tourists are already lining up for the opportunity to see Arafat’s Tomb, the Roger Waters Wax Museum, the United Nations School that definitely was NOT used to fire mortars at Israel, and the Hamas Bumblebee. Also, Hamas mentioned something about a tunnel connecting Gaza International’s main concourse and downtown Tel Aviv.

The Abbas Airlines aircraft, dubbed “Quds Force 1”, boasts 72 flight attendants, each covered head to toe. And apparently they’re virgins.

Iranian military boats have quietly ended years of harassment of US Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf, and it looks like another welcome sign of a new cop on the beat.

For years, armed Iranian “fast boats” would charge at US ships in a dangerous game of chicken, rising to a level the Navy deemed “unsafe or unprofessional” at least twice a month. It was a clear signal of disrespect, and a test of what Washington would put up with.

But the game stopped last summer, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Officially, the Navy doesn’t know why. US Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel says, “I hope it’s because we have messaged our readiness . . . and that it isn’t tolerable or how professional militaries operate.”

But Tehran surely takes that “isn’t tolerable” message a lot more seriously now that President Barack Obama is out of office.

Obama, after all, had shown he wouldn’t enforce his own red lines, infamously blinking rather than live up to his own vow that use of chemical weapons by Syria’s bloody Bashar al-Assad would be a “game-changer.”

Republican Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) on Monday introduced the Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act, which would require the U.S. Treasury to report on the assets of key Iranian officials.

According to the press release from Cotton's office, the bill will have the Treasury provide reports on Iranian ayatollahs' assets in an attempt to expose how they have corruptly managed the country's economy.

"This report will expose to all the world just how badly the ayatollahs have mismanaged the Iranian economy and just how much money they’ve stolen from the Iranian people," Cotton said. "For too long, they’ve lived lavishly while their own people have suffered, and it’s time we shine a bright line on this corruption."

Hatch said the legislation will give the public information about how Ayatollah Khamenei has profited at Iranians' expense.

"I am pleased to join Senator Cotton in introducing the Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act, a bill that calls for the public release of information concerning the fortunes that line the coffers of Ayatollah Khamenei and his regime," Hatch said. "By educating the public about the Iranian government’s profiteering at the expense of its own people, this proposal will aid Iranians in their quest for freedom and prosperity."

In a January 22, 2018 speech at an awards ceremony for officials from the Iranian diplomatic corps, Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, former Basij commander and director of the culture and society division of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), emphasized that Iran's Islamic revolution was spreading in the Middle East, and that uprisings in the spirit of this revolution were anticipated in Egypt and Tunisia. However, he said, the U.S. is collapsing, as its own president had declared, and its political influence in the region is stricken and waning.

Having said this, he went on to warn, against the backdrop of the recent popular uprising in Iran, about Western propaganda, especially American propaganda, that he said depicts revolutionary Iran in crisis. This situation, he said, is not real and exists only on social media, and was invented by the West in order to cultivate despair about the Iranian regime among the Iranian people.

As an example of the collapse of the West, Naqdi noted that the UK has appointed a "minister of loneliness," and advised Prime Minister Theresa May to examine why matters had reached such a low point. He concluded by saying that Asia and Africa were taking over the West, particularly Europe, and added that "in the next century, they'll have to look for the European gene in museums."

Iranian Leader Khamenei's Representative in Iraq Mojtaba Hosseini: Israel, That "Cancerous Tumor," Will Be Extracted in a Few Years pic.twitter.com/VE1qyfFfJP

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 30, 2018

On January 20 Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch, aimed at clearing the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) it calls “terrorists” from the area of Afrin in northwest Syria. The Turkish military says more than 200 YPG members have been killed in operations involving hundreds of strikes on targets using tanks, ground troops and warplanes. The offensive marks an escalation in the already complex and deadly conflict, risks creating a rift between Washington and Ankara, and opens a new front line that further complicates attempts to resolve the Syrian war.

Since 2012, the YPG has come to dominate parts of Syria as the regime forces collapsed and concentrated on fighting the rebels. The Kurds in Syria have historically suffered grievous discrimination at the hands of the Assad regime.

They were subjected to forced Arabization and their culture was under assault. Many were denied citizenship. Since 2012 under the aegis of newfound freedoms they have been a bulwark against Islamic State and become key partners of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS.

The YPG is also, however, connected to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a multi-decade conflict with Turkey and is viewed by Ankara and other countries as a terrorist organization. Like other groups in the region, the YPG therefore combines problematic origins with a present attempt to change its image. The US has been careful in its statements, indicating that it is working with the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is an umbrella group that contains the YPG. Turkey has complained to Washington for years about weapons transfers to the YPG and accused America of recruiting a “terrorist army” in Syria. As the war against ISIS winds down, Turkey sees a threat on its border, and the US increasing its presence in eastern Syria. In mid-January the coalition announced plans to expand the training of a stabilization force in eastern Syria. Ankara upped its rhetoric and said it would launch an operation against Afrin.

Turkish Political Commentator Hüseyin Güneş: In Syria, Turkey Fights the U.S., Not Just Terrorists; If We Defeat America, This Will Spell the Beginning of Its End pic.twitter.com/0t3d1lEuFL

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 30, 2018

The idea that Syria's civil war is winding down has been repeated so often in recent months as to become a cliché. It has never been entirely true.

U.S. officials recently confirmed Washington's intention to indefinitely retain effective ownership of around 28 percent of Syrian territory, in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. But those plans are increasingly in conflict with the other major international players in the war-torn country. That includes America's erstwhile ally, Turkey, which recently launched "Operation Olive Branch," an incursion into the Kurdish-held Afrin canton in Syria's northwest. Meanwhile, President Bashar al-Assad's regime is assaulting mainly Sunni Arab rebels to the south, and completing its conquest of the Abu Duhur airbase in the northern Idlib Province.

All this bloodshed doesn't just spoil Washington's plans — it also calls into question whether the participants in the Syrian war are anywhere close, to quote another cliché, to "bleeding themselves out." Even if the dynamics driving the overlapping conflicts of Syria's war are drawing to a close, they aren't generating a peaceful and orderly future for long-suffering Syrians. Rather, new conflicts are emerging fully formed from the wombs of the old.

Since mid-2014, there have been two parallel wars taking place on Syrian soil. The "original" war is the fight between the Sunni Arab rebels and the Bashar al-Assad regime, which is centered on the more densely populated area of western Syria. The second war is the contest between the Islamic State and the U.S.-led global coalition assembled against it.

U.S. coalition forces stationed in the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij are ready to guard against a threatened Turkish offensive that risks direct confrontation between the NATO allies, a coalition spokesman said Friday.

Turkey last week launched an air and ground assault on the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin in an attempt to oust the American-backed People's Protection Units, or YPG, which Ankara considers a terrorist group. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to extend the operation 60 miles east to Manbij, where, unlike in Afrin, the Pentagon maintains U.S. troops.

"Our forces there are well prepared to defend themselves," coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told the Washington Free Beacon. "We have air coverage over all of our troops so we're always prepared to defend ourselves, whether it's from ISIS or any other threat."

Dillon reaffirmed American support for the Kurdish YPG fighters who make up the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a key U.S. partner in the campaign against the Islamic State. The Trump administration has continued to provide weapons, training, and air support to SDF troops over the protests of Turkey.

"They have played a role in making sure we can stay focused on defeating Daesh," Dillon said, using an alternative name for ISIS. "That threat still exists, there's still hardcore fighting happening, and that's what we are still focused on and we don't want anything to distract from that."

At the end of December, we reported on the airlift of a critically ill newborn boy to Sheba Medical Center’s Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital in Israel, just days after he was born to Syrian refugees in Cyprus.

ISRAEL21c has just received an update on the successful treatment of the infant’s serious congenital heart defect.

“It was not clear to us if he needed an operation or could be stabilized with proper treatment without the need for surgery. After monitoring the situation closely, it was decided that an operation was needed,” said Dr. David Mishali, chief of pediatric and congenital cardiothoracic surgery at Safra.

“We were able to substantially improve his pulmonary blood flow, which resulted in a quick improvement in his condition. After a period of recovery, we released him from the hospital today [January 24].” He is scheduled to return to Sheba when he is six months-plus old in order to finish the treatment for his condition.

“During the baby’s time in the hospital, we made sure that the family felt at home and we will continue to follow his progress.”

On the day that the world commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, the U.K. liberal newspaper The Guardian declared in an editorial :

“The Arabs, meanwhile, cannot be blamed for feeling that Europe’s blood debt to the Jews was paid with what they see as their territory.”

The Arabs, like other third-world peoples, are only ever seen as victims of Western oppression and colonialism. They cannot themselves be guilty of oppressing others.

The West self-righteously deplores the old European anti-Semitism of the “far right.” But a new Green-Brown-Red anti-Semitism—encouraged by an alliance of the Far Left, the Greens and Islamist sympathizers—is studiously downplayed, ignored by the media, or blamed on Israel.

Truth be told, the virus of Nazi anti-Semitism was exported to the Arab and Muslim world as early as the 1930s. It gave ideological inspiration to Arab nationalist parties like the Ba’athists in Syria and Iraq and paramilitary groups like Young Egypt, founded in 1933. Anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are the central plank of the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, and their ideological cousins, Islamic State, who sought to impose Allah’s kingdom on Earth through jihad and forced conversion of non-Muslims.

The Holocaust was, in the words of author Robert Satloff, as much an Arab story as a European. In spite of efforts to trumpet the stories of individual “righteous” Muslims who rescued Jews (particularly in Albania), scholars continue to uncover evidence of Arab sympathy and collaboration with Nazism.

Tomorrow at 21:00, a new series will be broadcast by News 10's Arab Desk head Tzvi Yehezkeli.

Entitled False Identity, the series is presented by Yehezkeli, who impersonated a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer seeking to contribute to and join the organization.

Yehezkeli received close consultation from intelligence companies, as well as the Shin Bet internal security agency, and the Mossad. To perfect his identity, he obtained a genuine Syrian passport, a Palestinian Authority passport for backup, and an Internet signature of an active business in Jordan with a website and verification address.

Under the name "Sheikh Abu Hamza", Yehezkeli went equipped with quality photographic equipment disguised in a garment button and camera glasses deep into the state of affairs that he calls the "silent jihad".

Yehezkeli, who has become Torah-observant in recent years, sees added value in the fact that he surveyed the field and encountered Islam as a religious person. "Once a person serves the Creator he becomes more sensitive to forgeries. On the one hand, it helps me know the material and identify with believers, although I disagree with their way. The fact that I'm religious allows me to open my eyes even more, I can't be swayed by this aspect." Yehezkeli also adds that part of his rapprochement with the religious world may have been due to his preoccupation with his coverage: "They opened a door for me to enter in a more real side."

"But Islam needs a deep understanding of itself," says Yehezkeli, and hopes that there will be a reform in Islam as is happening in Saudi Arabia. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

A bill to be considered by Ireland’s Senate on Tuesday would criminalize trade with Israeli settlements. If enacted, it could put leading U.S. companies with Irish subsidiaries to a choice between violating the Irish law or violating the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, which require U.S. firms to refuse to participate in foreign boycotts that the United States does not sanction.

In addition to running afoul of U.S. federal law, the bill would subject companies to U.S. state-level sanctions, violate European Union and international law, threaten Ireland’s vital economic links to the United States, and hinder the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The bill, titled “Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018, would make it a violation of Irish criminal law for Irish persons and companies to import or sell items, or to provide services, produced in the Israeli settlements. It would punish violators with up to five years in prison. The senator who introduced the bill, Frances Black, previously signed a letter calling for a boycott of all Israeli products and services.

While the bill does not mention Israel or Palestine by name, Black and its other sponsors have announced that it was designed to effectively prohibit Irish transactions relating to Israeli settlers and settlements, including in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights. The bill would punish Irish citizens and residents, as well as companies incorporated in Ireland, which engage in such transactions, regardless of whether the violation occurs in or outside Ireland. While there are several contentious occupations closer to Europe — including Russia’s occupation of Crimea, Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus, Armenia’s occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, and Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara — its sponsors suggest that the Irish bill is carefully drafted to apply only to territories occupied by Israel.

To this author’s knowledge, no such law criminally prohibiting trade with Israeli settlements has been enacted in any other European country. Indeed, the Irish bill, if enacted, would be inconsistent with EU and international law. For example, the EU has exclusive competence for the common commercial policy and member states are not permitted to adopt unilateral restrictions on imports into the EU.

The bill is also inconsistent with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the international agreement covering trade in goods. As Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, accurately put it in June 2017:

Ken Livingstone, who was investigated but only lightly punished by the Labour Party for his repeated claims that Hitler “was supporting Zionism”, has participated in a special programme on Iranian propaganda station Press TV. Press TV was stripped of its broadcasting licence by Ofcom but Mr Livingstone was invited onto a show disseminated via social media, apparently to coincide with Holocaust commemoration ceremonies.

The programme began with a sickening propaganda introduction by presenter Roshan Muhammed Salih, who asked callers to call in and debate whether the Holocaust has become a weapon used by Israel, “with the accusation of antisemitism regularly thrown at its enemies”, or whether “the memory of the Holocaust has been exploited for political or financial gain” and “corrupted Jewish culture”.

Callers repeatedly claimed that Holocaust commemoration is used as a clever political device to distract from the supposed oppression of the Palestinians and to benefit “Zionists” without being challenged.

One caller from the UK, Maisoon, said that the word “Holocaust” had been “manipulated by the Jews”. She berated Mr Livingstone for talking about antisemitism because she accused him of failing to “mention the fact that Palestinians and Arabs are Semites”. Mr Livingstone only challenged her when she said that she did not distinguish between Jews and Zionists, at which point Mr Livingstone told her about the large number of anti-Zionist Jews that he said he knows.

Asked by Mr Salih why there are so many films about the Holocaust and not about the Palestinians, Mr Livingstone claimed that “anyone doing a film about that is going to be announced [sic] antisemitic”.

In a repetition of his previous claims, Mr Livingstone also said that when he was suspended by the Labour Party for claiming that Hitler “was supporting Zionism”, he “couldn’t walk down the street without Jewish people coming up to [him] and saying ‘We know all this is true, what is all this about? Don’t these MPs read their history?’ It’s not about antisemitism, it’s about political struggle inside the Labour Party.”

If any further evidence was needed about the disingenuousness of Jeremy Corbyn and the dangers a government led by him might pose internationally – not just for Britain but also for Britain’s Nato allies – it is worth watching Corbyn’s interview on Iran with the BBC’s Andrew Marr yesterday.

‘You’ve been very reluctant to condemn the government of Iran. Can I read you what Amnesty International has said about Iran… ?’ began Marr yesterday, to which Corbyn interrupted him with the extraordinary response:
‘I think that actually, if I may say so, you’re spending too much time reading the Daily Mail, do you know that?’

Having failed to read Corbyn passages from Amnesty’s report, Marr then turned to the issue of his generously paid appearances on the Iranian regime’s propaganda channel Press TV.

‘You took money from Iran. You took money from Press TV events,’ said Marr.

Corbyn responded: ‘A very long time ago I did some programmes for… Yes, I did some programmes for Press TV. I ceased to do any programmes when they treated the Green Movement the way that they did.’

Contrary to what Corbyn said (and unfortunately Marr didn’t follow-up on it), this is not true.

Corbyn continued to take money from Iran’s regime through his appearances on Press TV well after the reformist Green movement was ruthlessly put down in 2009 and hundreds of pro-democracy campaigners were killed and thousands imprisoned or driven into exile.

Corbyn was reportedly paid as much as £20,000 for his appearances on Press TV between 2009 and 2012, according to his register of interests, on the House of Commons database. He was even paid to appear on Press TV after the channel had its license revoked and was banned from broadcasting in the UK for its part in airing the forced confession of Newsweek’s Iran correspondent, Maziar Bahari.

In a fiery exchange on Twitter, George Galloway, the former Labour and Respect MP has threatened to sue Momentum Chair and Labour National Executive Committee member Jon Lansman for calling him out over a now-deleted tweet aimed at Jewish comedian David Baddiel. Mr Galloway had initially tweeted at Mr Baddiel that “There will be no supporter of the Palestinian people marching behind vile Israel-fanatic ‘comedian’ David Baddiel. There will be no opponent of Imperialist wars marching behind Stella Creasy [Labour MP for Walthamstow]. #JustSaying.” This appears to be in reference to a planned protest of Donald Trump’s visit to the UK later this year, which Mr Baddiel and Ms Creasy have both shown support for.

Mr Baddiel took issue with this, pointing out that he has not shown much sympathy for Israel, and that the targeting of him as a Zionist could be based on his Jewish identity, firing back: “Since I’ve always made it entirely clear that my attitude to that country [Israel] is entirely meh, I think we can only conclude that by ‘Israel-fanatic’ George just means Jew. Vile Jew. And that therefore he is an antisemite. Now let him come at me with his stupid f***ing lawyers.”

“Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations” is antisemitic under the International Definition.

Mr Baddiel received a plethora of support, including from The Sun when it reported on the row, at which point Mr Galloway accused Mr Baddiel of defaming him: “Badiel has repeatedly defamed me as an antisemite on Twitter and Facebook long before The Sun reported his vile falsehood today. Such slander or the violence it can encourage (I could show you my scars) will not silence me. The last word on my lips – G-d willing – will be Palestine”.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), who has had no problem labeling President Trump a racist, had no problem hugging one of the worst racists on the planet in 2006 as she joined members of the Congressional Black Caucus to meet virulent anti-Semite Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Farrakhan’s history of vehement Jew-hatred was amply illustrated by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer on Monday, as he castigated the press for their double standard in condemning politicians who have countenanced KKK leader David Duke but not members of the CBC for meeting with Farrakhan.

But in 2006, as Jeryl Bier of The Wall Street Journal reports, Waters and members of the CBC met with Farrakhan after Hurricane Katrina, three years after the CBC met with Farrakhan, and Barack Obama, then a state senator, posed smiling with the racist minister. Bier writes that after the January 2006 hearings of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity regarding the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, at least four CBC members headed to St. Augustine Church to meet Farrakhan. A video posted to YouTube in 2009 shows Reps. Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee of California, Al Green of Texas and William Jefferson of Louisiana hugging and shaking hands with Farrakhan as they conversed about public responses to Katrina.

Here's @RepMaxineWaters greeting @LouisFarrakhan in New Orleans in 2006 to talk strategy. I write about the meeting in Tuesday's @WSJopinion: https://t.co/Z3w9cpLTnfpic.twitter.com/DvVJqBCDf9

— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) January 30, 2018

Following on from my post yesterday, here is a further simple summary. There's really no need to ever listen to, or watch, a 'debate about Israel/Palestine' as it always follows this pathetic route. The 'trembling Israelite' response and what it should be.

Fourteen prominent Jewish and advocacy groups urged a key Senate committee to reform the Higher Education Act (HEA), which they claim is being “misused to promote biased, one-sided, and anti-Israel programming in our nation’s Middle East studies centers.”

In a letter sent to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and ranking member Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on Wednesday, the coalition of signatories accused Middle East studies programs funded in dozens of universities under the law’s Title VI statute of amounting to “unbalanced and biased efforts at indoctrination.”

Title VI programs were first introduced in 1958 as a way to cultivate American expertise in foreign languages and different world regions during the Cold War era. The frequent exclusion of “scholars with diverse perspectives” harms these objectives, and violates a requirement put forth by Congress when it reauthorized an amended version of the HEA in 2008, the groups claimed.

“Biased professors have leveraged Title VI funds to cement their control over both their programs and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the principal academic organization for scholars of the region,” charged the coalition, which includes the American Jewish Committee, American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and Endowment for Middle East Truth, among others.

Rather than fostering objective scholarship, MESA “now empowers an intellectually corrupt elite and encourages polemical politicized work that has transformed Middle East studies centers into a source of anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda,” they continued.

The latest Reem's vigil was a success.

Our numbers significantly increased so that we were not out-numbered by a factor of four to one, as has been the case in the past.

Matt Finkelstein and Susan George took point in front of the opposition while our lead organizer talked to the press.

I understand that there were concerns about staying on message, as well as organizational discipline.

I think that those are reasonable and necessary concerns depending on what we want to accomplish going forward.

But, needless to say, this should not prevent those of us with a different take from expressing our opinions.

What I found most interesting about the recent action was the fact that Susan and Matt clearly demonstrated the illiberality of the other side.

From my perspective, this is not about progressives versus conservatives.

This is about liberals versus anti-liberals and, make-no-mistake, anti-Zionism is decidedly anti-liberal.

Michael Burd and Alan Freedman are back for 2018 this week, and start with an interview with Israeli activist May Golan who has been campaigning the government to address the crime problem from illegal African immigrants into Israel.

They then chat with Australian Conservatives leader Senator Cory Bernardi on how some politically correct musicians objected to him including their songs in his Australia Day favourites list, and catch up with Senator James Paterson on Australia's voting performance on contentious UN resolutions.

The fellahs also speak with Keith Buxton from Bridhes for Peace on a petition he initiated requesting that Australia moves its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and find out the view from Jerusalem from Isi Leibler on the latest happenings.

The deputy mayor of the city of Frankfurt announced on Monday that the municipal government will end all commerce with banks that conduct business with organizations that support a boycott of the Jewish state.

In a statement sent to The Jerusalem Post, Deputy Mayor Uwe Becker wrote that “we will shortly only work together with banks, peoples’ banks, and Sparkassen (public saving banks), who do not maintain business relations with organizations of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement or affiliated groups.”

Frankfurt is the first German city to sanction banks and financial institutions for providing services to the BDS campaign targeting Israel. The Frankfurt decision to penalize financial entities could have far-reaching implications for the scores of BDS organizations that operate in Germany.

Frankfurt, with a population of nearly 720,000, is located in the state of Hesse and is considered the banking capital of Germany.

Becker said that he planned to forward letters to banks about the new anti-BDS policy.

Frankfurt’s anti-BDS policy also applies to credit institutions and companies that conduct business with the city of Frankfurt.

It has been a while since I posted about antisemite Lauren Booth, but she’s back in the news for having her dishonesty catch up with her.

Lauren Booth, sister of Cherie Blair, has been removed as a trustee of Islamic charity Peacetrail.

Ms Booth set up the charity in 2013 after converting to Islam in 2010.

A Charity Commission investigation has found a series of failings, including a failure to account for “at least £92,110” of the organisation’s total expenditure.

Ms Booth, the daughter of late actor Tony Booth and half-sister of Cherie Blair, says the report is “incorrect” and that “completed accounting was provided”.

The report states that about £40,000 of charity funds had been withdrawn at cash machines and by cashing cheques, with no paperwork provided to back up its use.

University of South Florida student government senators attempted last week to push through a resolution condemning the Trump administration's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, with the support of a network of external pro-Palestinian activists.

The text of the "Hands off Resolution" was promoted on Palestinian community social media nearly two weeks before student government representatives were informed that the resolution would be brought for a vote.

The student resolution, co-authored and co-sponsored by senators Andrew Pitts-Nordera and Yousef Afifi, asked the senate to declare it "refutes the Israeli justification for Palestinian occupation under the religious context of a ‘promised land' that is repeatedly provided."

Their motion also condemns the Balfour Declaration, the British statement in support of the creation of a Jewish State, whose centennial was marked last year. The students erroneously dated the statement to 1916 and mischaracterized the informal letter as an "act" issued by the UK government.

The text of the motion appeared in full on Jan. 13 on the Palestinian American Congress Facebook page, a 10,000-member forum that regularly pushes anti-Israel rhetoric, including celebrating Palestinian terrorist leaders.

On January 21, LA Times White House correspondent Brian Bennett covered US Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Israel in an article that includes the following:

We contacted the LA Times and Bennett himself pointing out that, in fact, there are 18 Arab Knesset members spread among a number of different parties, including members of the governing coalition.

The 12 Arab members and one Jew whom the story refer to are the members of the Joint List, just one party grouping. Therefore, in addition to a factual error, the LA Times gives the incorrect impression that all Arab MKs were to boycott the Pence speech, which was not the case.

With no correction issued, we contacted the LA Times Readers’ Representative, Deirdre Edgar.

But there’s still been no response.

Is Sara Netanyahu's temper more newsworthy than Mahmoud Abbas's hateful language?

What's with NPR's news judgment?

In December, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said, in reference to Jews, that "there is no one better at falsifying history or religion than them," and in case there was any doubt about who he meant by "them," quickly followed up with a verse from the Koran that casts Jews as distorting and deceiving people. NPR's Daniel Estrin covered Abbas's speech, but altogether ignored the anti-Jewish remarks.

In early January, Abbas delivered a lecture which he rewrote Jewish history, claiming, among other things, that Oliver Cromwell in 1653 meant to deport Europe's Jews to the Middle East, and that Jews during the Holocaust preferred slaughter over life in Palestine. The Jewish community, left, center and right, forcefully condemned the outlandish speech, with many concluding that it revealed Abbas is not a partner for peace.

NPR was unimpressed. One brief paragraph, buried toward the end of a segment about the American vice president, referenced the televised speech — but avoided any mention of Abbas's rambling conspiracy theories and wild fabrications.

But yesterday, NPR and its correspondent in Jerusalem did find some remarks worthy of detailed exploration. Ten years ago, the wife of Israel's prime minister was recorded losing her temper during a phone call with one of her aides. In the recently released recordings, Sara Netanyahu briefly screamed in fury about how she was characterized in a gossip column. It is the kind of embarrassing story that might itself appear in a gossip column. On NPR, though, Daniel Estrin made sure to translate nearly every word of the leaked recording.

Public criticism of the German auto industry has escalated on reports that diesel exhaust tests were carried out on both monkeys and humans.

The tests were reportedly carried out by a research group funded by major German auto companies. The German government on Monday condemned the experiments and Volkswagen sought to distance itself from them, with its chairman saying that “in the name of the whole board I emphatically disavow such practices.”

The tests from German companies are particularly striking, as during the Holocaust the Nazis killed people by pumping exhaust gas into sealed “gas vans.”

Revelations of the tests add a twist to the German auto industry’s attempt to move past Volkswagen’s scandal over cheating on diesel tests and the resulting questioning of diesel technology across the industry.

Volkswagen Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said the tests must be “investigated completely and without reservation,” the dpa news agency reported.

In a rare acknowledgement of its secretive work, Britain's MI6, officially the Secret Intelligent Service, honored late British intelligence officer Major Frank Foley on Tuesday for saving an estimated 10,000 German Jews in Nazi Germany prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The most senior spy in Berlin, stationed in the German capital's British Embassy, Foley issued thousands of visas to German Jews seeking to flee Nazi persecution - an act of heroism that was never acknowledged during his lifetime.

MI6 honored Foley, who died in 1958, with the unveiling of a bust at the agency's London headquarters. The ceremony was attended by family members and the Holocaust Education Trust.

Foley's cover story for his espionage activity in Germany was his work as a passport control officer at the Berlin embassy, moving to Berlin in 1920 to report on the changes taking place in the country.

Visas issued by Foley, who was described as "the Scarlet Pimpernel" at the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, enabled German Jews to "legally" emigrate to Britain or Palestine.

Despite not being protected by diplomatic immunity, Foley risked arrest and even his life by entering concentration camps, including Sachsenhausen, to present camp authorities with visas issued for Jewish prisoners, enabling them to escape.

Foley also hid Jewish families fleeing from persecution in his home.

nternational Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed annually on 27 January (the date the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated in 1945), is an occasion not only for commemorating the millions who died during the Holocaust (1933-1945), but also for acknowledging the heroic efforts of those who helped European Jews escape the clutches of the Third Reich.

One of those acknowledged heroes was the internationally acclaimed pantomime artist Marcel Marceau (1923-2007), whose work as a young man with the French underground was celebrated in a Facebook video posted on 26 January 2018:


The same story is told in this excerpt from an unattributed article widely shared on social media since 2015:

The Louvre Museum is putting 31 paintings on permanent display in an effort to find the rightful owners of those and other works of art looted by Nazis during World War II.

The Paris museum opened two showrooms last month to display the paintings, which are among thousands of works of art looted by German forces in France between 1940 and 1945.

More than 45,000 objects have been handed back to their rightful owners since the war, but more than 2,000 remain unclaimed, including 296 paintings stored at the Louvre.

“These paintings don’t belong to us. Museums often looked like predators in the past, but our goal is to return them,” Sebastien Allard, the head of the paintings department at the Louvre, told The Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday.

“The large majority of the retrieved artworks have been plundered from Jewish families during World War II. Beneficiaries can see these artworks, declare that these artworks belong to them, and officially ask for their return.”

As the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, a recently unveiled exhibit at a Holocaust museum in Brooklyn tells the largely untold story of Eastern European religious Jews who fled the Nazis — and found refuge in Shanghai.

Last October, the Amud Aish Memorial Museum launched “A Precious Gift: Escape to Shanghai,” featuring original artifacts that give a glimpse into the lives of Orthodox Jews starting from their time in Eastern Europe, through their travels to Shanghai and ultimately their religious life in China — before they found a permanent home elsewhere. The exhibit also highlights the heroic efforts of worldwide government officials who risked everything to help Jews. The exhibit also explains how Shanghai was a safe haven because it did not require entry visas, and maintained open borders for all immigrants until the late 1930s.

The many artifacts on display in the exhibit include a transit visa issued by the Japanese Vice Consul in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, who disobeyed orders from his superiors and authorized travel papers for Jews; sacred religious texts printed by Jewish refugees in Shanghai; candlesticks with Chinese writing on them, bought by a Polish Jew in Shanghai; and a marriage contract from a Jewish wedding that took place in China after the war.

Small group workshops, specifically for middle school students, accompany the exhibit, and focus on the individual story of a Holocaust survivor. One such workshop explores the experience of Judith Cohn-Goldbart, a Jewish girl whose family left Berlin for Shanghai shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938. Judith remained in Shanghai until years after the war, and was a teacher at the religious girls’ school established there. Participants in the group workshops are given the opportunity to examine copies of original artifacts from Shanghai, such as a Jewish student’s report card.

Modiin-based Wizcomtech one of the largest producers of pen-shaped handheld scanning translators, said it has clinched a $5 million deal with a US distributor to sell a new pen that helps children with dyslexia.

The company’s Quicktionary translation pens, available in more than 24 languages, are already being used by students in English classes and matriculation exams in junior high and high schools in Israel, as well as by students in the UK for their foreign language studies. The electronic pen-shaped scanners immediately translate text, from and to a variety of languages, onto an LCD screen set within the pen.

Now, the company is turning its sights to the dyslexia market.

“We saw a demand in the market for a slightly different product than our existing translation pens and developed a pen which offered a solution for children with dyslexia,” said Dror Drukman, CEO of Wizcomtech.

The reading pen scans text and breaks words down into syllables using a digital voice, and gives students synonyms for the words they are reading so that they can better understand and remember them in the future.

An Israeli startup specializing in neurological disorders is the winner of Henry Ford Health System’s first-ever artificial intelligence (AI) challenge.

Montfort (Mon4T)’s real-time brain monitor leverages smartphone technology to conduct, record and analyze data from a set of digital tests from patients with conditions like Parkinson’s disease and normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH).

Henry Ford Innovations, established in 2011 to support the health system’s technologies, issued the challenge last fall as part of a program in Israel designed to bring Israeli technologies to the US healthcare market. Montfort was chosen winner out of a pool of 50 applicants.

With more than one billion people suffering from neurological diseases worldwide and several thousand patients per neurologist, Montfort’s solution developed out of a need for more personal care and feedback.

“If we can come to depend on machine learning solutions to ease the burden involved with a lot of these routine tests and diagnostics, then that leaves more time for patient care,” said Mark Coticchia, Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer for Henry Ford Health System.

Montfort’s “master app,” available for both iOS and Android, is installed on the patient’s smartphone and links to all of the device’s integral sensors including touchscreen, microphone, and accelerometers. Indicators are provided in three dimensions: motor, cognitive and affective.

I’m delighted to tell you that my personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel, is published today.

Through the prism of my often painful struggle to separate from both my political and biological families, I tell the story of the onslaught against British national identity and the values of the western nation – which provoked in turn the popular uprising which expressed itself in Britain as the vote for Brexit and in America as the election of President Donald J Trump.

Britain’s former Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, has written about the book:

“Melanie Phillips has been one of the brave and necessary voices of our time, unafraid to speak the language of moral responsibility in an age of obfuscation and denial. This searing account of her personal journey is compelling testimony to her courage in speaking truth to power

They are from the Salute to Israel Parade. Marching are members of the NCSY Dance Group which had performed in Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden that year. I was group leader. It was the first time the Israeli Folk Dance Festival had performed there.

Previously it had been in Carnegie Hall, which has, or had, an ambience all its own. But festival director, Fred Berk had been itching for a more genuine folk dance festival feeling. He hated the stage and curtains in the illustrious concert hall. When I took his Leadership and Choreography course in 1967-68, he always stressed that true folk dance required dancing onto the performance area and dancing off of it. NO CURTAINS raised and lowered.

At the 1970 festival we all sat around the performance area, getting up to dance on and off when it was our group's turn. Then at the very end of the show, all of the groups and dancers danced together in separate circles.

A couple of months later, at the parade, my dancers and I donned our costumes and danced up Fifth Avenue. We had sewn the skirts the year before for the 1969 festival, but then we added white trim on the bottom plus the "belts" in 1970. And we wore our own white blouses. For the festivals, we danced barefoot, but of course that wouldn't work on the NYC streets.