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ISRAEL

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Can Israel Be Both Jewish and Democratic? By: Alex Grobman

By on January 26th, 2017

There seems to be no end to the myths surrounding the Jewish state. Israel is accused of being an apartheid state, an occupier of Palestinian Arab lands, and an international war criminal. On December 28, 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry added another canard to this litany when he warned that if Israel rejects a two-state solution, “it can be Jewish or it can be democratic-it cannot be both.”

Mr. Kerry, thereby, demonstrates his limited understanding of how Israel is governed as well as how against incredible odds the country remains both Jewish and democratic. Nor did the Obama administration even attempt to draw such a distinction in its outright support of the Muslim Brotherhood-based government of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt.

Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the US, observed that the U.S. Britain and Canada are among the few countries in the world that have had continual democratic governments. Although from inception Israel has been threatened with extinction, she has never yielded to the wartime demands of instituting onerous restrictive laws that often destroy other democracies.

Equal Rights to All Even to Those who Refute Israel’s Right to Exist

If anything, the Palestinian Arab/Israeli conflict has “tempered” Israeli democracy, providing equal rights even to Arabs and Jews who refute her right to exist. “Is there another democracy,” Oren asks, “that would uphold the immunity of legislators who praise the terrorists sworn to destroy it? Where else could more than 5 percent of the population — the equivalent of 15 million Americans — rally in protest without incident and be protected by the police. And which country could rival the commitment to the rule of law…whose former president was convicted and jailed for sexual offenses by three Supreme Court justices — two women and an Arab? Israeli democracy, according to pollster Khalil Shikaki, topped the US as the most admired government in the world — by the Palestinians.” [1]

What is equally remarkable Oren opines, is that Israel was founded by Jews from autocratic societies who were forced to grapple with issues of identity and security that would have overwhelmed even the most seasoned democracies. These discussions occurred at a time when they were occupied in absorbing almost two million Jewish immigrants from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. [2]

A Nation-State where National Character and Language of the Arab Minority is Officially Recognized

While Israel’s institutions and principles of governing are democratic, the Jewish state is nevertheless different. Like Bulgaria, Greece, and Ireland, Israel is a nation-state, but with a large Arab minority, whose national character and language are officially recognized.

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Bailing Out the Palestinian Authority In its final hours, the Obama administration transferred $221 million to the Palestinian Authority, which gives payments to terrorists and their families. By Elliot Kaufman —

By on January 25th, 2017

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry surprised many observers by devoting so much of their waning time in office to excoriating Israel. But it turns out they had more mischief planned: a last-minute Palestinian bailout.

Only three hours before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Obama administration notified Congress that it would send $221 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The funding had previously been blocked by two separate congressional holds, which are usually respected by the executive branch.

The Obama administration informed Congress that the money would fund humanitarian projects as well as political and security reforms to help prepare for a future Palestinian state. However, only the willfully blind can deny that this money will also finance terrorism and ultimately prolong the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Since 2004, Palestinian law has explicitly mandated large monthly payments to the families of terrorists who attack Israel, as well as salaries and jobs for the terrorists on their release from Israeli jails. The PA structures the payments so as to make its incentive structure crystal clear: The more Israelis you wound or kill, the more money your family will receive.

Some families of terrorists can even receive up to $3,100 per month — so long as their relative has killed many Israelis and either died during the attack or was sentenced to over 30 years in Israeli jail. By comparison, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reports that the average Palestinian salary is just over $276 per month.

These payments add up. In 2014, Israel estimated that the PA paid $75 million per year to families of terrorists. However, the number may have risen sharply this past year, to $137.8 million, financing the “knife intifada” that terrorized Israelis. By transferring $221 million in its final hours, the Obama administration has ensured that the PA will be able to carry on business as usual without reducing its terror subsidies.

Palestinian leaders have tried to hide their support for terrorism by transferring the subsidies in 2014 from the PA, which receives international aid, to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which does not. This even managed to fool State Department official Anne Patterson, who said of the subsidies at the time, “I think they plan to phase it out.” However, Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party run both the PA and the PLO, and the subsidies have continued.

How can we be so easily fooled into funding terrorism? “Willful blindness helps,” writes David Feith in the Wall Street Journal. America continues to prop up Abbas’s government, even though he denies the Holocaust, incites terrorism, and his term in office technically ran out in January 2009.

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Haneen Zoabi and 180 of the adoring faithful Israel Bashers in Richmond, UK by David Collier…..see note please

By on January 25th, 2017

What makes this so appalling is that Haneen Zoabi, is an Israeli Arab politician, who currently serves as a member of the Knesset!!!! ….rsk
22 January 2017. I am at an event organised by the Richmond Palestine Solidarity Campaign. A big crowd, perhaps 180, have gathered to hear Israeli Arab member of the Knesset Haneen Zoabi speak. The room is full, but the demographic breakdown is simple. A large majority are white, British and over 55. It is the typical PSC crowd.

Haneen Zoabi had received a standing ovation at the PSC annual general meeting just two days before, she receives one here before she has even spoken. I am in the presence of PSC royalty.

The situation with the Arabs of Israel is complex. If Zoabi was here to fight for the Israeli Arab citizens, she would have my attention. If her aim was to improve the living standards, education and employment prospects of those who voted her into power, she would have my support. If the real goal was to reduce the inequality that minorities often experience, I’d wave a flag in her name. But Zoabi is not here to represent the needs of Israel’s minorities, she is here to perpetuate the external conflict.

When speaking of the democratic freedoms of a minority group Zoabi comments thus: “We want the opposite. Give us our land back. Give us our homeland back. Give us our people back. We don’t want to scream, we don’t need this freedom of expression”. This, as the entire Middle East burns in radical Islamic bush fires around her.
Racism, racism, everywhere

Not everyone in the room is a racist, not everyone an antisemite. But many are. Two PSC activists are speaking in the row behind me. One had been to Salisbury for an event with Ilan Pappe on 19th January. He had also been at the PSC AGM over the weekend. Busy guy.

He spoke of how ‘real Palestinians’ are needed to speak up against Balfour. Pappe he said “is not a real Palestinian”. What he meant of course, was that “Pappe is Jewish”. There is no other translation that works. This the evidence that anti-Zionism cuts too close to antisemitism to be ignored. Pappe is no Zionist. If Pappe was exactly Pappe, but with only the Jewish identity stripped away, he would be ‘a real Palestinian’ without question. Pappe’s offence here is simply his ‘Jewishness’.

For a PSC activist to suggest Pappe is not a ‘true Palestinian’, is like someone suggesting I am not ‘truly British’. No difference. None.

Two more standing next to me just before the event begins. Discussing PSC attempts to have Zoabi speak to British MP’s whilst she is here. Sir Alan Duncan’s name is mentioned, and from Duncan it was just a short trip to discussion over the Al Jazeera documentary and the ‘lobby’. In the heart of Richmond’s PSC base there is no need to even look over the shoulder as it is identified as the ‘Jewish lobby’.

Then there are the faces I recognise. Hard core antisemitic PSC groupies. Examples of the nature of ‘humanitarian concern’ that drive the Palestinian cause. In the image below are social media posts *only* from some of those who attended last night. Posts about Chabloz, Atzmon, Mein Kampf and Holocaust denial. When these are your points of reference for all things ‘Jewish’, all talk of it just being opposition to Zionism are washed away.

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J Street’s dead end By Gregg Roman

By on January 25th, 2017

At the end of 2017, the far-left Jewish advocacy group J Street will celebrate its 10th anniversary. At its inception, J Street promised to be the first political movement “to explicitly promote American leadership to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” However, an objective summary of the organization’s progress toward accomplishing this goal results in abject and damning failure.

In fact, the circumstances couldn’t have been more amenable toward J Street’s lofty goal. Within 14 months of J Street’s inception, Barack Obamaswept to power in elections that also left both houses of Congress controlled by Democrats.

As president, Obama’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was groundbreaking in many ways, deviating from the positions and tone of his predecessors, both Republican and Democrat. J Street backed this shift with political cover, campaign donations and organizational unanimity, providing a convenient panacea to American Jewish community outrage over Obama’s maneuvers.

The fledgling J Street found itself at the top table with veteran Jewish and pro-Israel organizations at the White House, with almost unprecedented access during Obama’s two terms.

It wasn’t merely a spectator: J Street saw itself as a vital part of the administration’s strategy and policy on Israel and the peace process. It prided itself on the puppeteer role it played in defending the White House or pushing its policy platform.

“We were the blocking-back, clearing space for the quarterback to do what we wanted him to do,” said J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, in 2011. Ben-Ami added, Obama “hasn’t been able to push as aggressively as we would like,” and J Street has “switched from being out front and clearing the way, to pushing him to do something more.”

Something more turned out to be a lot less.

During the full eight years of the Obama administration, which set as one of its foreign policy goals a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas never sat in the same room for more than a few hours in total.

While Netanyahu constantly repeated that he was willing to meet with the Palestinian leader at any place at any time, with no preconditions, Abbas made a series of impossible preconditions that pushed meaningful negotiations further and further away. J Street ended up blamingNetanyahu for Abbas’s intransigence.

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Fake News: Trump Caved to Arab Pressure on Jerusalem Embassy Move Claims that Trump administration caved to Arab pressure over the embassy move is fake news. By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

By on January 25th, 2017

Several Israeli-based media outlets are repeating a story from an Arab media outlet that the U.S. Embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is “off the table” due to Arab pressure.

But let’s look at the evidence thus far produced and line it up against reality.

The reports claiming the Trump administration has backed down from its stated commitment to move the embassy assert the reason that is happening is because of pressure placed on the new administration by the Palestinian Arab leadership.

A story in the Times of Israel quoted a report in the Arabic media outlet Asharq Al-Awsat. That report mentioned that assurances were given to Palestinian Arab leader Mahmoud Abbas and the PA’s perennial negotiator Saeb Erekat in a meeting held on Tuesday with “David Blum,” of the US Consulate in Jerusalem.

But there is no David Blum in the US Consulate in Jerusalem.

The US Consul General in Jerusalem (serving “Jerusalem, Gaza and the ‘West Bank,’ that is, not Jewish Israelis) is Donald Blome. In other words, there must have been a mistranslation going from Arabic to either Hebrew or English.

A quick search of the actual American diplomat in Jerusalem, Donald Blome, reveals that he was appointed in July, 2015 by President Barack Obama, not by President Donald Trump. Given that Blome’s alleged message of reassurance to the Palestinian Arabs that the new administration was bowing to their pressure, it beggars the imagination that Blome was speaking on behalf of Trump.

There is still more evidence that this explosive “evidence” is, at best, unofficial remarks from a sympathetic holdover from the last – exceedingly hostile – administration. In an updated version of the report on the matter from the very source of the rumor, there have been significant substantive changes in the report.

The first difference is that the name of “David Blum” no longer appears in the report. There is no longer any name associated with any American government office as the source of the claim. This is what the report now says:

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The Left Lost Its Logic On Israel by Noah Beck

By on January 25th, 2017

Support for Israel among Democrats has plummeted in recent years, a new Pew poll shows, with about as many – 31 percent – saying they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, which garnered 33 percent support.

By contrast, 74 percent of Republicans surveyed sympathize more with the Jewish state. That is the widest partisan gap since 1978.

A similar poll last year found a deep divide within the party, with conservative and moderate Democrats favoring Israel over the Palestinians by 53-19 percent.

This trend has accelerated during President Barack Obama’s tenure. During Israel’s 2014 war with Hamas, 61 percent of Democrats sympathized with Hamas and hundreds of left-wing historians openly sided with the terrorist group.

Bernie Sanders, whose liberal support nearly won him the 2016 Democratic primary, sought to empower anti-Israel figures like Cornel West – a supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement – and James Zogby of the Arab American Institute.

President Obama’s refusal to veto an anti-Israel U.N. resolution last month was ranked as the most anti-Semitic incident of 2016 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. When Congress condemned that resolution, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a leading contender to run the Democratic National Committee, voted against it.

This hostility toward Israel is not limited to the American Left.

In the UK, it often coincides with anti-Semitism. As Jonathan Tobin observed, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been “openly sympathetic with Hamas and Hezbollah,” has “campaigned for the release of terrorists convicted of attacking Jewish targets,” and “praised vicious anti-Semites.” The co-chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club resigned after the organization voted to endorse Israel Apartheid Week. The club has a growing record of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents. Last May, Britain’s Labour Party secretly suspended 50 of its members for anti-Semitic and racist comments.

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U.N. Unlikely to Find a Middle East Balance What is essential for Israeli-Palestinian peace is direct negotiation by both sides without preconditions. Two Letters

By on January 24th, 2017

The essential action required for the U.N. to achieve the long sought for amicable solution to the Israeli/Palestinian dispute isn’t to declare that Palestinian refugees from the 1947-49 war have no legal right to return to Israel (“The U.N. Can Find Balance in the Middle East” by Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz, op-ed, Jan. 13). The five million refugees already have, unlike any other refugees in the world, a special U.N. agency sustaining them. If the Palestinian Authority’s demands are fully satisfied, there will neither be a Jewish state nor a democratic state.

What is essential are direct negotiations by both sides without preconditions. In Moscow, Fatah and Hamas officials are once more attempting to unify into a single Palestinian unit. But negotiations between the two opposing Palestinian groups in many previous attempts have failed. In Resolution 2334 the U.N. should have demanded free elections within Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem before any negotiations, to determine which party and leaders represent the majority of the electorate and are therefore qualified to negotiate—without preconditions—with democratic Israel. Not doing so confirms the bias of the U.N. toward Israel, noted in U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power’s speech before justifying the U.S. abstention vote. When will the U.N. stop treating Israel like a banana republic?

Bertrand Horwitz

Asheville, N.C.

The writers state: Security Council “Resolution 2334 forcefully reasserted the 1949 Armistice line . . . which separates the West Bank from the state of Israel.”

This is the reverse of the truth. By attempting to define the border between Israel and Palestinian territory, the resolution directly contradicted the armistice agreement, which states: “The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question.” It thus leaves Israeli claims to that area intact until an agreement is reached.

Stanley Shapiro

Teaneck, N.J.

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AMB.(RET.) YORAM ETTINGER: PRESIDENT TRUMP VS. THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

By on January 24th, 2017

In order to avoid the failed Middle East track record of all US presidents, since 1948, President Trump should refrain from — rather than repeat — the systematic errors committed by his predecessors.

They were misguided by the political correctness and conventional “wisdom” of the US State Department, which courted Saddam Hussein until the 1990 invasion of Kuwait; embraced Ayatollah Khomeini, while betraying the Shah of Iran; identified with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, while deserting Mubarak; heralded Arafat as a messenger of peace; facilitated the Hamas takeover of Gaza; and welcomed the Arab Tsunami as an “Arab Spring, a transition toward democracy.” The State Department has sacrificed the 1,400-year-old complex, disintegrating, unpredictable, volcanic, violently-intolerant and frenzied Middle East reality on the altar of well-intentioned, but oversimplified and futile attempts to reset the Middle East in accordance with a Western state-of-mind and values.

Largely ignored by the State Department, the conflict-stricken Arab Middle East has adopted the norm that “on words one does not pay custom,” especially when aimed to mislead, confuse and defeat the “infidel” Christian, Buddhist and Jew. Thus, Western establishments attribute much credibility to the philo-Palestinian Arab talk, while failing to examine the Arab/Palestinian walk.

Contrary to the State Department worldview, Arab policy-makers have never considered the Palestinian issue a top priority, nor a core cause of regional turbulence, nor the axis of the Arab-Israeli conflict. All Arab leaders have been preoccupied with domestic, regional, intra-Arab and intra-Muslim lethal challenges – such as the threats posed by the megalomaniacal Ayatollahs and Islamic terrorism – which are unrelated to Israel’s existence and the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

Unlike the State Department, Arab leaders have accorded critical weight to the subversive/terrorist Palestinian walk (track record) in Egypt (1950s), Syria (1966), Jordan (1968-1970), Lebanon (1970-1983) and Kuwait (1990). Therefore, they have always showered the Palestinian issue with lavish talk, but never with financial or military walk; certainly not during the Israel-Palestinian wars in Lebanon (1978, 1982-83), Judea, Samaria (1988-1990, 2000-2002) and Gaza (2009, 2012, 2014).

Unlike the State Department, Arab leaders do not consider the Arab-Israeli conflict “the Middle East conflict.” They are aware that the raging Arab Tsunami — which triggered violent regime change in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq and Syria — is totally independent of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israel’s existence. The boiling Arab Tsunami has pro-US Arab leaders to an unprecedented counter-terrorism cooperation with Israel, which they perceive as a regional stabilizing force, contrasted with the unreliable Palestinians.

While Foggy Bottom believes that an Israeli retreat to the pre-1967 ceasefire lines would produce an Israel-Arab peace, Arabs have been unable to produce intra-Arab peace during the last 1,400 years. Is it realistic to assume that a dramatic Israeli concession would induce the Arabs to accord the “infidel” Jewish state that which they have denied each other — intra-Arab peaceful coexistence?! Is it reasonable to assume that an unprecedented Israeli concession would convince the Arabs to depart from a major tenant of Islam (Waqf), and recognize an “infidel” entity in the Middle East, which is designated by Islam to be divinely and exclusively-ordained to the “believers”?!

In contrast to State Department policy, the reconstruction of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (since 1967) has never been the cause of the anti-Jewish terrorism (since the 1920s) and the Arab-Israeli wars (since 1948). Middle East reality documents that the real cause of these wars has been the existence — not the size — of the Jewish State in an area that is, supposedly, part of “the abode of Islam.”

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Obama released millions to PA hours before leaving office Officials tell AP: Obama defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the PA in the final hours of his administration.

By on January 24th, 2017

Former U.S. President Barack Obama defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the final hours of his administration, officials toldThe Associated Press on Monday.

Republican members of Congress had been holding up the money to the PA, but a State Department official and several congressional aides said the outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning, just before Donald Trump became president.

More than $227 million in foreign affairs funding was released at the time, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for UN organizations, according to AP.

The Obama administration had for some time been pressing for the release of the money for the Palestinian Authority, which comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development and is to be used for humanitarian aid in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, to support political and security reforms as well as help prepare for good governance and the rule of law in a future Palestinian state, according to the notification sent to Congress quoted by the news agency.

The official and the aides spoke to AP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Last March it was reported that members of Congress were delaying a payment of $159 million in aid allocated for the PA in an effort to pressure the PA to relaunch negotiations with Israel.

That was not the first time that the United States’ aid to the PA has made headlines in recent years. Washington has several times cut – and subsequently resumed – the financial aid to the PA.

Previously, this issue made headlines was when the PA unilaterally applied to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Obama administration indicated at the time it was reviewing its annual $440 million aid package to the PA because of the decision.

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A NOTE TO THE BOYCOTT, DIVEST AND SANCTION IMBECILES…..MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on January 24th, 2017

Dear Cretins…..Here is a list of things you must give up…compiled by my friend Michael Ordman….rsk
Part 1: Technology and Food

Step 1. First remove all Intel Pentium and Celeron computer processor chips from personal computers (desktops, laptops and notebooks) as these were either developed or manufactured in Israel.

Note: The revolutionary new Ivy Bridge processor will be manufactured in Israel. Any computers running the Windows XT operating system must be turned off immediately as this was developed in Israel. All current Microsoft operating systems are not to be used as Microsoft is heavily reliant on its Israel R&D centre.

Step 2. Any computers that still work need to have their anti-virus software and personal firewalls removed as this technology originated in Israel. The organization’s firewall will also need to be switched off. Staff should no longer open external emails as most of these will be infected with viruses. No outgoing emails can be sent. The algorithm (code) that’s used today for sending e-mails, was made by an Israeli who worked at the Ben-Gurion University in Be’er-Sheva in 1980.

Step 3. Discard all mobile phones, as this technology was developed in Israel, where the first mobile phones were manufactured. Mobile chip technology from a single Israeli company has now been installed in over 100 million devices. Only top-level staff may retain mobile phones for emergency situations. However the use of SMS (Texting) is expressly forbidden as this facility was developed in Israel. No 4G devices can be used, as the chipset is Israeli.

Step 4. Turn off your voice-mail service and delete any recorded messages. Israeli companies invented the voice-mail system. If someone you do not know answers your phone-call, then hang up. Israeli call-centres and call-centre technology is in widespread operation in the UK.

Step 5. Before accepting any printed material, check that the supplier has not used the Israeli device that might have saved up to 50% of the ink used.

Step 6. At home, do not use Facebook as many in-built and add-on applications are Israeli-developed. Do not watch videos on the Internet as the platform used to upload them may be from AOL and hence from an Israeli company. Do not use the Internet to search for answers to your questions as this may involve use of an Israeli-developed search engine. Better to remain unenlightened.

Step 7. On your TV or home entertainment centre, do not use Video On Demand (VOD) to watch movies as you may inadvertently see an advert displayed using Israeli software. Do not purchase any games devices as these are likely to use Israeli technology.

Step 8. Do not read books using an e-book as this may contain Israeli technology. Do not use data storage as it may have been developed at Israel’s storage technology R&D center.

Step 9. Do not buy an electric car as it is likely to be powered with an Israeli battery or use Israeli developed charging mats. Continue to sit in traffic knowing that you are polluting the environment and financing oil-rich despotic regimes.

Turning to food and drink: All food outlets on the organizations’ premises must dispose of cherry tomatoes, which were developed in Israel. Staff must ensure that no cherry tomatoes are included in sandwiches brought into office premises. The ban also applies to honey and any products derived from honey. Israel has developed solutions to the worldwide problem of bee-colony collapse, so that any products derived from bees might only be available now due to an Israeli invention.
Click to read about the Top 12 new fruit and vegetables species developed in Israel

Avoid drinking any of the world-recognized award-winning Israeli wines. Do not consume homemade drinks from Israeli-manufactured household drinks machines.

Avoid any fruit from South Africa or Peru as produce from these countries is being marketed with Israeli brand names.

No agricultural products from the following areas must be consumed as they use water irrigation and agricultural technology provided directly from Israel. This includes most of Africa, China, India, Indonesia (a Muslim country), Nepal and many others.

Much fruit and vegetables (including organic) imported into the UK has been enhanced using Israeli technology. This may save millions of people from starving around the world, but is not a good reason for you to eat it. To be safe, only eat fruit and vegetables that you have grown yourself using seeds that have been in your family for generations.

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