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ISRAEL

In an attempt to portray European anti-Semitism, ‘Spiral’ spins out of control Documentary sets out to highlight the troubling plight of French Jews, but ultimately asks Israel to share the blame — merely for existing By Jordan Hoffman

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-an-attempt-to-portray-european-anti-semitism-spiral-spins-out-of-control/

I doubt I’ll have stronger mixed feelings about a movie this year than Laura Fairrie’s documentary “Spiral,” an examination of the new wave of European anti-Semitism.

As one who is more attuned to this than the average American, I can say the film will be an effective tool for explaining to skeptics just how bad the problem has become, especially in France. I’m glad this movie exists — truly! (Keep that in mind as I commence to slam it over the next several paragraphs.)

There’s a rigid pomposity to the film’s narrative, which weirdly swerves from great sympathy to victim-blaming. It’s in the title: A spiral, while headed downward, is cyclical. It takes two to tango, Fairrie’s film suggests, and a partner in this dance of discrimination is the very existence of the Jewish state. It’s quite flabbergasting.

“Spiral” takes its time to get there, though. The film first introduces characters that only later reveal themselves to be connected. There’s a lawyer, Julien, who reminds us of some of the recent atrocities, such as the kosher market that acted as a “part two” of the Charlie Hebdo killings. Also the shootings at a Toulouse school; the first children killed on French soil specifically for being Jewish since World War II. Julien is the face of vigilance against this wave, and a hero.

Against this, a Parisian Jewish family leaving for Israel with their tail between their legs. They are seen as cowards, if not pawns of the manipulative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greedily rolling out the red carpet for what can only be no good, right?

The Prince, the President, and the Providence of the Temple By David P. Goldman

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/the-prince-the-president-and-the-providence-of-the-temple/

Prince William, the second-in-line to the British throne and its future heir, visited the Western Wall of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem today. His visit was the first official visit by a member of Britain’s royal family to Israel, and his appearance at the Kotel has enormous significance. So did the earlier visit of Donald Trump, the first sitting US president to visit the Kotel. The two heads of state of the English-speaking world thus acknowledged the undying connection of the living Jewish people to the ancient Jewish Temple, as well as the State of Israel’s sovereignty over Judaism’s most holy site. This is of such high moment that no American head of state ventured to do so before.

The Prince and the President did more than validate Israel’s claim to its holy sites in Jerusalem, though. They came not only as rulers but as pilgrims, offering prayers at the retaining wall of the Mount on which the Temple once stood. By doing so they did homage to the most importance pillar of Western governance, namely that government itself depends on a sense of the sacred.

What makes governments legitimate? What makes it possible for a nation-state to rise above the mere affinity of tribe and clan and assert its permanence as home and refuge of its people? What entitles it to inflict violence on those at home or abroad who would harm it, and require of its youth that they shed blood in its defense? In one form or another the nation-state must embody a sense of the sacred, by which I mean the aspiration to eternity that makes possible our individual hope of transcending earthly existence, and in extreme conditions takes precedence even over the bonds of family.

What Prince William Did Not See in Ramallah by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12612/prince-william-ramallah

It seems that Abbas and Israel have different views on how terrorism should be combated. Abbas seems to think that paying salaries to convicted terrorists and their families is a good first step in that direction.

Prince William just spread smiles around as Abbas was talking about the Palestinians’ “serious” desire to achieve peace with Israel and their “commitment” to combating terrorism.

The Palestinian leadership does not want the prince and the rest of the world to know about the conflicting messages they send to their people and to the rest of the world. The message to the Palestinians: We support anyone who murders a Jew and will take care of their families if they are killed or imprisoned by Israel. The message to Prince William and other world leaders and dignitaries: We are committed to peace and the war on terrorism.

As chance would have it, on the very day that the prince was in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority was repeating its pledge to continue funding terrorists and their families. One hopes that Prince William enjoyed his visit to Ramallah. One also hopes that he asks his advisors to translate for him what Palestinian leaders are saying to their own people in Arabic.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shared some interesting news with England’s Prince William during a meeting in Ramallah on June 27. He informed the royal visitor that the Palestinians are “serious about reaching peace with Israel.” Abbas also said that the Palestinians were “committed to combating terrorism.”

What makes this news interesting is that as Abbas was speaking to Prince William in his Ramallah headquarters, known as the Mukata, the Palestinian government issued a statement praising Palestinian terrorists imprisoned by Israel. The Ramallah-based government also vowed to continue paying salaries to Palestinians convicted of murdering and injuring Jews, defying Israeli and American demands to stop the payments.

The Iranian Spy Who Helped Create Two Terror States Inside Israel The price of peace is treason. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270545/iranian-spy-who-helped-create-two-terror-states-daniel-greenfield

When the Oslo deal that would create two Islamic terror states inside Israel came up for a vote in the Knesset, the legislator whose vote helped it pass is the same man now accused of spying for Iran.

The strange story of Gonen Segev, doctor, Minister of Energy, drug smuggler, Nigerian exile and now accused Iranian spy, is also that of the dirty politics behind the peace process. It wasn’t idealism that made the deal with the PLO. It was dirty backroom deals with dangerously unprincipled politicians.

Segev’s cousin had testified in court that he was “a pathological liar who makes excuses and evades responsibilities for his actions.” But the same is true of the Israeli left which brought Segev on board.

The alleged Iranian spy began his political career on the right. But 3 years after he became one of the youngest members of Israel’s legislature, he aligned with the left and helped pass an agreement with the PLO that is the second biggest threat to Israel’s existence after Iran’s nuclear weapons.

It’s only fitting that Gonen Segev, whose political life hit its terrible peak with the PLO deal, should climax his post-political criminal career by standing accused of spying for Israel’s worst enemy.

And the former politician and defrocked doctor has the same excuse for the latter crime as for the former one. He wanted to be a hero. But Gonen Segev doesn’t have a history of being a hero.

What he does have is a history of being willing to do anything for money.

Palestinians: The Only Acceptable Peace Plan by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12586/palestinians-peace-plan

“If Kushner and Greenblatt wish to learn more about the true ambitions of the Palestinians, they would do well to take in a sermon at a mosque on some Friday or stop into a school in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Perhaps then they would see for themselves that no peace plan in the world can, at the moment, counter the poison that is injected daily into the hearts and minds of the Palestinians and their children.”

The Palestinians want nothing to do with President Trump’s plan: they know it will never satisfy their demands. The Palestinians are not opposed to the peace plan because of a dispute over a border or a settlement or a checkpoint or the status of Jerusalem. They are against Trump’s plan — and any other peace initiative — because the Palestinians have something else in mind.

The two Palestinian parties, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, may disagree on everything — except the elimination of Israel. The only peace plan acceptable to current Palestinian leaders would be one that facilitated their mission of pursuing jihad against Israel to obliterate it.

If Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt wish to learn more about the true ambitions of the Palestinians, they would do well to take in a sermon at a mosque on some Friday or stop into a school in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Perhaps then they would see for themselves that no peace plan in the world can, at the moment, counter the poison that is injected daily into the hearts and minds of the Palestinians and their children.

The Palestinians have never laid eyes on US President Donald Trump’s plan for peace in the Middle East. The Palestinians know nothing about the plan, which still has not been made public.

That fact, however, has not stopped them from categorically rejecting the yet-to-be-announced plan — a stance the Palestinians repeated this week as US Middle East envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt visited Israel and a number of Arab countries to discuss the plan.

The Trump plan has not even been finalized and, as such, has not officially been presented to any of the parties to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Kushner and Greenblatt have been working on the plan for several months; their current tour of the region comes in the context of Jordan and Egypt.

David Singer: Jordan Balks at Replacing PLO in Negotiations with Israel on Trump Plan….See note please

Who can fault the kinglet? He has a spurious historical tie to Palestine, ruling over the “East Bank” of the Mandate. Uneasy lies his head, since the PLO remembers “Black September” when his plucky dad killed many hundreds and dislocated thousands be deporting them from Jordan…..rsk
President Trump’s long-awaited plan on ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will be further delayed following a flurry of diplomatic activity over the past week.

Critical to the success of Trump’s plan will involve replacing the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as Israel’s negotiating partner over the last 25 years. The PLO has cut its own throat by making it very clear it will have nothing to do with anything Trump proposes.

Trump’s Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt met in New York City on 15 June with United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The White House reported they had a productive discussion about the efforts of the United States to promote peace in the Middle East and to meet humanitarian needs in Gaza.

This UN visit was followed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flying to Amman for a public meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah on June 18 – their first since 2014. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, General Intelligence Department Director Maj. Gen. Adnan Jundi, Adviser to His Majesty and Director of the Office of His Majesty Manar Dabbas and Adviser to His Majesty for Economic Affairs Mohamad Al Ississ attended the meeting.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Cells go into a huddle before fighting infection. Weizmann scientists have discovered that cells in the immune system cluster together to decide tactics, before being sent out to battle infections. These “helper T-cells” resemble American football and basketball teams that frequently go into a huddle during their games.
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/game-clones-team-huddles-t-cells

Cats (no not Katz!) can help fight AIDS virus. Scientists at Israel’s Technion Institute are learning more about the human AIDS virus from discoveries made researching the feline equivalent (FIV). They have uncovered a protein that is resistant to treatment. Breaking this resistance will help fight human AIDS.
https://www.israel21c.org/discovery-in-feline-virus-could-help-better-fight-aids/

More accurate radiotherapy. Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center is the first hospital in the Middle East to install the state-of-the-art Spine SRS software from Germany’s Brainlab. It allows doctors to give a single dose of higher level radiation to patients suffering from spine cancer without damaging nearby healthy tissue.
http://www.hadassah.org/news-stories/first-in-israel-hadassah-uses-innovative-technology.html

Tailored rehabilitation solutions. Innovators at Pele, a tech-innovation program at the Jerusalem-based ALYN Hospital, develop personalized solutions for children with special needs. For 8-year-old Arab boy Yusuf, who cannot bend his joints, it is a structure that allows him to feed himself.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-8-year-old-who-can-now-eat-by-himself-and-other-rehab-tech-success-stories/ https://www.youtube.com/embed/kt1H0Rv-w8w?rel=0

Rambam trauma training. 22 participants from 16 nations attended the 19th “Developing and Organizing a Trauma System” and Mass Casualty Management Course at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus. To date the center has trained more than 3,000 health care professionals and officials from 61 nations.
https://www.rambam.org.il/EnglishSite/AboutRambam/Publications/NewsandEvents/Pages/Local-Experience%E2%80%94International-Solution.aspx

Your medical questions answered. Israel’s Medint Medical Intelligence collects and analyzes information from medical websites, social platforms, blogs, and forums to help patients with cancer and chronic illnesses make informed medical decisions. E.g. find doctors treating similar conditions, or relevant clinical trials.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3740705,00.html https://www.medint.io/

Neurosurgery saves two children. It was a busy week at Israel’s Schneider children’s hospital. First 10-year-old Ilai had emergency minimally invasive surgery to remove a large colloid cyst in his brain. Then doctors performed a 13-hour operation to remove a huge brain tumor from 13-year-old Maxim. Both are now home.
https://www.schneider.org.il/?CategoryID=1011&ArticleID=3887
https://www.schneider.org.il/?CategoryID=1011&ArticleID=3886

Ex-NYC Mayor and terror victim reunited. In 2002, 13-year-old Dvir Musai was blown up by a terrorist’s mine. At Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital he was visited by then NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Now employed at Hadassah Herzstein Heritage Center, father-of-two, Dvir received another visit from Mr Giuliani.
http://www.hadassah.org/news-stories/rudy-giuliani-visits-hmo.html

READ THEM ALL….

Bishop Graham Tomlin and the Demonization of Israel by Denis MacEoin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12560/bishop-graham-tomlin-israel

If Israel plays a part in the persecution of Christians, it must be doing a very bad job indeed.
“Shortly after the [1967] war, [Israeli Defense Minister] Dayan met with officials of the Muslim Wakf, who governed the holy site, and formally returned the Mount to their control…. the Wakf would determine who prayed at the site, an arrangement that would effectively bar non-Muslim prayer.” — Yossi Klein Halevi, The Atlantic.
It should be clear from the above that Israel is one of the least likely countries in the world to persecute the followers of any religion. A well-educated and thinking man, Bishop Tomlin ought to have known this or have been able to check the facts for himself. None of the above is remotely secret.
“[A]re the world Christian bodies denouncing the Islamic forces for the ethnic cleansing, genocide and historic demographic-religious revolution their brethren are suffering? No. Christians these days are busy targeting the Israeli Jews.” — Giulio Meotti, Italian journalist.

Anglican Bishop Graham Tomlin, heads the diocese of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which has many of London’s most expensive residential properties, is undoubtedly a man of brains and good works.[1]

On May 26, 2018, however, he published in The Times an article, entitled, “If this rich vein of wisdom disappears, a part of us dies”. The “rich vein of wisdom” to which he refers is the long tradition of Christian thought and experience in the region where the religion first appeared, and was handed down through centuries of Islamic rule. For the most part, the article is a well-argued defence of Christians in the Middle East:

The systematic persecution of Christians in the Middle East is a serious threat. The number of Christians in Middle Eastern countries has fallen from about 20 per cent to 4 per cent in recent years and regular bomb attacks on Christians in Egypt are becoming part of a deadly pattern.

So far so good. Tomlin’s heart is surely in the right place. But immediately after that he goes on:

Even in Jerusalem, new regulations are threatening to tax the Christian churches out of existence, prompting the recent unprecedented closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as an act of protest. The buildings from ancient times will still stand, but if Christians are hounded out of the Middle East, driven to emigrate by radical Islam, or, in the case of many Palestinian Christians, by the lack of opportunities to thrive in Israel, this rich source of wisdom will disappear just like the ruins of Palmyra.

THE MAIL: BBC SLAMS MARR OVER ‘ISRAEL KILLS KIDS’ SLUR-TOM GROSS

I attach an article below from today’s Mail on Sunday (the Sunday edition of the Daily Mail, one of Britain’s most popular papers).

It is a very rare forced admission by the BBC that their star presenter, Andrew Marr, breached editorial guidelines with a “misleading” claim (probably based on fake news elsewhere in the British media which Marr had wrongly believed and not fact checked) that Israel had killed “lots of Palestinian kids” in Gaza. Marr gratuitously made the claim in the middle of discussing a story about Russia on his influential Sunday morning BBC1 show.

It is an important story by the Mail but it is regrettable that the Mail story doesn’t mention that Hamas and Islamic Jihad took responsibility for most of the recent Gaza deaths – people may wrongly think Marr was right.

Anti-Semitism campaigner Jonathan Sacerdoti forced the BBC complaints board to actually carefully examine the deaths on the Gaza border over recent weeks, which they were legally bound to check carefully, and the BBC complaints board concluded that their own presenter had in fact mislead the BBC audience with his claims.

Of course, Marr is the just the tip of the iceberg. BBC correspondents, anchors and BBC chosen studio “experts” continually provide misleading information, smearing Israel, as do many other media outlets.

On the day Sacerdoti made his complaint to the BBC several weeks ago, he also notified me about this and I considered writing about it, and yet not a single British news outlet I then approached at the time said they would be interested in an article pointing out that Marr (and much of the rest of the media) had mislead.

Max Blumenthal Channels Leni Riefenstahl and Celebrates Hamas: Andrew Harrod

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/06/max-blumenthal-channels-leni-riefenstahl-the-triumph-of-hamas

“Can any parallels be made then to Nazism and Judaism?” asked a questioner in a conference room packed with about 100 people at the June 9 screening of Killing Gaza at Washington, DC’s rabidly anti-Israel Jerusalem Fund. This shockingly absurd query typified the atmosphere surrounding the latest screed against Israel produced by “gonzo journalist” Max Blumenthal and his equally deranged colleague Dan Cohen.

“Judeo-Nazi” analogies are nothing new for the Jerusalem Fund presenters Blumenthal and Cohen. Cohen has previously described how their film about Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge military campaign against Hamas terrorists in Gaza “was inspired by” a past “bracing portrait of the Nazi death camps.” Blumenthal has similarly written that the film chronicles “Israel’s wholesale criminality” and “sadistic Israeli violence.”

Blumenthal and Cohen have discussed Killing Gaza on Christopher Hedges’ On Contact talk show on RT, the Russian state-funded television channel thatregistered in 2017 under America’s Foreign Agent Registration Act. Like many other American leftists, he has found a home at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda mouthpiece, where RT newscasters like the 9/11 TrutherAbby Martin go to extreme lengths to vilify Israel and its use of “Hitler’s methods.” RT’s Israel-hatred befits Hedges, who wrote in a review of Killing Gaza that “toxic racism and militarism infect Israeli society.”

Cohen told host Hedges that Gaza is a “man-made intentional hell for what Israel considers non-humans” and made false allegations about Israel depriving Gaza of water. In contrast, Israel has over the years almost doubled the amount of water supplied to the Palestinian territories under the 1993 Oslo Accords and hasworked to improve Gaza’s desalinization and water treatment capabilities. Hedges concurred that the film supposedly documented common canards about “one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters,” notwithstanding Gaza’scommercial development and obesity public health problems.