Displaying posts categorized under

ISRAEL

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

TOM GROSS: ON ANTISEMITISM IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE

By on October 30th, 2016

https://www.facebook.com/TomGrossMediaBRITISH POLITICIAN SUSPENDED BY PARTY AFTER JEWS BLAMED FOR THE HOLOCAUST IN PARLIAMENT

Baroness Jenny Tonge, a former medical doctor and formerly a trustee of the charity Christian Aid, who was made a baroness and appointed to the British House of Lords by the center-left British Liberal Democratic Party leader even after she had made many other anti-Semitic comments, some under the cloak of “anti-Zionism”, has finally been suspended by the party. This follows remarks at an event she organized and chaired in the House of Lords on Wednesday in which Jews were blamed for the Holocaust and Israel was compared to Islamic State.

“The meeting hosted on Wednesday by Baroness Tonge in the House of Lords, a former Liberal Democrat MP, provoked concern about the level of anti-Semitic discourse entering mainstream British politics,” The Times of London reported.

An audience member (believed to be from the ultra-orthodox self-hating Jewish sect Neturei Karta admired by Baroness Tonge) was applauded after he said at the meeting that Hitler only decided to kill the Jews after he was provoked by anti-German protests led by a rabbi in Manhattan. The speaker claimed that Rabbi Stephen Wise, whom he described as a heretic, said in 1905 that there were “six million bleeding and suffering reasons to justify Zionism”. He urged the audience to note the number.

This quotation is one of many fabricated or totally out of context remarks regularly used by Holocaust deniers to suggest that the figure of six million Jews later killed by the Nazis was a myth.

Another audience member suggested that the “Zionist movement” had power over the British parliament comparable to the power wielded internationally by Jews described in the [infamous Tsarist forgery beloved by Hitler] the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Another audience member was applauded after saying: “If anybody is anti-Semitic, it’s Israelis themselves.”

Lady Tonge made no attempt to challenge the provocative comments.

Lady Tonge, who had already resigned the Lib Dem whip in 2012 after claiming that the state of Israel was “not going to be there for ever”, resigned from the party on Thursday following her suspension from the Lib Dems.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION- 100 YEARS LATER: BENNY BEGIN

By on October 30th, 2016

“A hundred years later, and despite everything, the national home of the Jewish people is growing, rising and prospering in the land of Israel. And so it shall be.”

Next week will mark the beginning of the 100th year since the Balfour Declaration. On Friday, Nov. 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour announced in a short letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild that “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Five years later, the Balfour Declaration was included in the League of Nations resolution to mandate Palestine to the British government, and another sentence was added to it: “Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, who, with the assistance of his colleague Nahum Sokolow, worked persistently and wisely on behalf of the World Zionist Organization to obtain the documents, aspired to a clearer commitment, but the modest version was still an important tier in building the State of Israel.

Arab leaders in Palestine opposed the Balfour Declaration as soon as it was made public. They protested the use of the terms “the Jewish people” and “national home” as well as the reference to the Arabs as one of the “communities” with civil and religious — but not national — rights. It is for these reasons that the Palestine Liberation Organization determined in article 18 of its 1964 charter, three years prior to “the occupation,” that “the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate system and all that has been based upon them are considered fraud.” In keeping with his organization’s charter, PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently stated at the United Nations General Assembly (Sept. 21, 2016): “One hundred years have passed since the notorious Balfour Declaration, by which Britain gave, without any right, authority or consent from anyone, the land of Palestine to another people. This paved the road for the Nakba of Palestinian people and their dispossession and displacement from their land.”

In the same speech, Abbas also demanded that Britain apologize to the Palestinians “for the catastrophes, miseries and injustices that it created” as a result of the Balfour Declaration. Two months earlier (July 25, 2016), Abbas, in a speech read at the summit of the Arab League, asked the secretariat-general of the Arab League to support him “in preparing a legal portfolio in order to file a lawsuit against the British government for issuing the Balfour Declaration and for subsequently implementing it in its capacity as a Mandate authority.”

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Two State delusions…by Michael Kuttner

By on October 30th, 2016

Hardly a day goes by when we are not bombarded with what has become infallible dogma from befuddled politicians, media and others who either wish we were not here anymore or are just mouthing politically correct slogans. http://israelbehindthenews.com/two-state-delusionswrites-michael-kuttner/15244/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ibn-today

It is important to get this subject into some sort of perspective and strip away all the myths, misconceptions and plain old lies which seem to have multiplied as time goes by. In the complete absence of any semblance of historical veracity or current logic the repeated repetition of worn out ideas fulfills no discernible purpose. Given the total detachment from reality on the ground displayed by the multitude of international self-proclaimed experts who usually think they know what is best for us, it could well be a useful exercise to clarify some home truths.

These can basically be divided into two main subjects. First the legal facts as they pertain to another Palestinian Arab State and second some recent surprising developments which the media in general prefers to ignore.

One of the most revealing factors when this subject is reported is the complete absence of anything which might somehow negate the generally accepted narrative. In this respect we are faced with George Orwell’s version of double speak. In other words the agenda that the progressives of this world have set in place must be adhered to at all costs even if that means denying verifiable lies and assertions. It also means that those who dare to challenge the infallible and politically correct dogmas run the risk of being demonized, ridiculed and ostracized.

It is vital to understand that there has never been an Arab Palestinian independent country. There never was an ancient Palestinian-Arab nation. Arabs first arrived in the land of Israel/Judea with the Muslim invasion in 637 CE. Arabs first identified themselves as “Palestinians” in the 20th century, after the Six Day War. Claiming a 5,000 year old Palestinian nation is a historical lie. Nevertheless historical lies are trotted out on a daily basis. Just look at this bare-faced piece of revisionist history which the rest of the world prefers to ignore.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL: MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on October 30th, 2016

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

A cockpit for surgeons. The state-of-the-art control system installed in the Head and Neck Operating Room at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center is the first of its kind in the world. Like a computerized cockpit system, a semi-circular wall of screens project the surgeon’s movements as he excises a tumor in the patient’s neck.
https://www.rambam.org.il/EnglishSite/AboutRambam/Publications/NewsandEvents/Pages/One-of-a-Kind-Control-System-for-Rambam%E2%80%99s-Head-and-Neck-OR.aspx

Philips uses Israeli tech to make scanners safe. (TY Atid-EDI) I wrote previously (Jun 26) about SafeCT-29 from Israel’s Medic Vision. Now Philips HealthCare has selected SafeCT-29 to make their CT and PET/CT scanners compliant with US XR-29 regulations regarding safe levels of radiation.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/philips-healthcare-selects-medic-visions-fda-cleared-xr-29-solution-for-use-with-its-ct-and-petct-scanners-300324590.html

An answer to jet lag? (TY Hazel) Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered a link between the level of oxygen breathed by mice and their ability to adapt to a shift in daylight hours. http://www.timesofisrael.com/shift-in-oxygen-levels-can-reduce-jet-lag-israeli-study-finds/

Pilates can help recover from a heart attack. A study at the rehabilitation institute at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot has shown that the Pilates physical fitness system can strengthen the body physically and emotionally after a heart attack. The exercises help reduce patients’ body-mass index and boosts confidence.
http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Israeli-researchers-discover-Pilates-exercises-help-after-heart-attack-455456

A call for help from cows in labor. (TY Atid-EDI) The AfiAct II cow monitoring system from Israel’s Afimilk will now send an alert to the dairy farmer when its sensors detect a cow experiencing a prolonged labor. Nearly half of first-calf Holstein cows in the U.S. require intervention from a farmer or veterinarian during labor. http://www.afimilk.com/news/afimilk-introduces-automatic-calving-alert-service

360-degree colonoscope now has extras. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Jan 2015) on the Aer-O-Scope® 360-degree disposable colonoscope from Israel’s GI View. It has now been upgraded to enable surgeons to take biopsies and remove polyps. The new colonoscope has just received FDA clearance.
http://www.fdanews.com/articles/178523-fda-grants-510k-clearance-to-gi-views-aer-o-scope-disposable-colonoscope-system-with-therapeutic-access

Smart patch to relieve migraines. (TY Atid-EDI and PRNewswire) Israeli startup Theranica Bio-Electronics has developed Nerivio Migra – the first of its “smart patches” delivering neuromodulation therapy – to provide migraine relief. A recent study of 86 patients at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center showed promising results.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theranica-announces-closing-seed-funding-130000902.html

Teva and IBM to expand alliance. (TY Eli) Teva and IBM are to significantly expand their existing global e-Health alliance using the IBM Watson Supercomputer’s Health Cloud to develop new treatments and improve the management of chronic diseases. It aims to streamline the long process of bringing new therapies to market.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/teva-ibm-to-tackle-new-drugs-chronic-diseases-with-ai/

Complex treatment of rare defect restores infant’s speech. A multi-disciplinary team of Israeli doctors at the Vascular Anomalies Clinic at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center performed an advanced procedure called Sclerotherapy to save a 2-year-old boy born with a venous malformation that had spread to his windpipe.
https://www.szmc.org.il/eng/article/news,101/

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Checkmating Obama The president has waited eight years to exact his revenge on Israel. October 28, 2016 Caroline Glick

By on October 28th, 2016

In one of the immortal lines of Godfather 2, mafia boss Michael Corleone discusses the fate of his brother, who betrayed him, with his enforcer.

“I don’t want anything to happen to him while my mother is alive,” Corleone said.

Message received.

The brother was murdered after their mother’s funeral.

Last week it was reported that the Obama administration has delivered a message to the Palestinian Authority. The administration has warned the PA that the US will veto any anti-Israel resolution brought before the UN Security Council before the US presidential elections on November 8.

Message received.

Open season on Israel at the Security Council will commence November 9. The Palestinians are planning appropriately.

Israel needs to plan, too. Israel’s most urgent diplomatic mission today is to develop and implement a strategy that will outflank President Barack Obama in his final eight weeks in power.

Lobbying the administration is pointless. Obama has waited eight years to exact his revenge on Israel for not supporting his hostile, strategically irrational policies. And he has no interest in letting bygones be bygones.

Before turning to what Israel must do, first we need to understand what Israel can do.

A good place to begin is by considering what just transpired at UNESCO, where twice in a week, UNESCO bodies resolved to erase 3,000 years of Jewish history in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

The fight that Israel waged at UNESCO is not the fight it needs to wage at the Security Council. The stakes at the Security Council are far higher.

Like the UN General Assembly, UNESCO’s decisions are non-binding declarations that have no legal or operational significance. As such, there is no reason to expend great resources to fight them. For Israel, the goal of the fight at UNESCO is not to defeat anti-Israel initiatives. That is impossible given the Palestinians’ automatic majority.

The purpose of the fight at UNESCO is to humiliate European governments that side with antisemitic initiatives, and to weaken the congenitally anti-Israel body itself.

The government achieved both of these objectives. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s disavowal of his own government’s abstention from the vote on the first resolution – like the similar position taken after the fact by the Mexican government – was a diplomatic victory for Israel.

So too, the fact that UNESCO’s own Secretary-General Irina Bukova felt compelled to disavow her own agency’s actions by rejecting the resolution’s denial of the Jewish people’s ties to Jerusalem was a significant victory for Israel. Her statement was deeply damaging for UNESCO and its reputation.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Bashing Israel Trumps Helping Gays Students for Justice in Palestine blasts the West’s ‘imperialist LGBT agenda.’ By Dore Feith

By on October 28th, 2016

This is Queer Awareness Month at Columbia University. Yet instead of advocating for gay rights in the nearly 80 countries where homosexuality is a crime, the Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is using the month for programming that defames Israel. “Good Gay/Bad Gay,” for example, claims Israel has an “imperialist LGBT agenda.” The organization attacks Britain and the U.S. along similar lines.

That is, Students for Justice in Palestine is denouncing Western criticism of the anti-gay bigotry of Arab and other governments. Such criticism, it says, is nothing more than a cynical tactic for the West to distract from its own imperialist oppression.

This twisted perspective is integral to the anti-Israel movement and what it calls “intersectional” activism. “Intersectionality” argues that all victims of oppression—racism, sexism, imperialism, classism, etc.—should express solidarity with one another.

The national Students for Justice in Palestine organization states in its mission statement: “We believe that all struggles for freedom and equality are interconnected and that we must embody the principles and ideals we envision for a just society.”

Freedom, equality and justice—all noble-sounding goals. The trouble is that on campuses across the country Students for Justice in Palestine puts its opposition to Israel at the fore of its activism, harming both the credibility of its supposed vision and the very people on whose behalf it claims to struggle.

In March, for example, transgender-rights activist Janet Mock was prevented from speaking at Brown University by, among others, the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Why? Because she was being hosted by a student group that operates under Hillel, the principal Jewish student organization on campus.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

UK: Labour Party Still Shooting Itself in Both Anti-Semitic, Far-Left Feet by Denis MacEoin

By on October 26th, 2016

The Palestinian “resistance” is not a struggle to create a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel.No group or leader within the “resistance” movement has ever considered that their goal. Their position is summed up in the slogan chanted by many students and pro-Palestinian groups, “Palestine will be free, From the river [Jordan] to the [Mediterranean] sea”.

It is not, in fact, illegal in the slightest for the Jews to be in a country in which they have continuously lived for 3000 years. The only title to the land the Palestinians seem to have is that under the Ottoman empire, the land had been subject to Muslim governance; and if one applies Islamic law, rather than common law, any land that has once been under Muslim control must stay that way forever — including of course “el-Andalus,” all of southern Spain and Portugal.

Seamus Milne added that Palestinians in Gaza have the right to “defend themselves” and claimed: “It isn’t terrorism to fight back. The terrorism is the killing of citizens by Israel on an industrial scale.” No, the terrorism is the tens of thousands of rockets and missiles fired from Gaza into Israel for more than a decade.

Given that Gaza had long been unoccupied by anyone at that date and that Israel had never killed “citizens” on an industrial scale, we can see something at play totally at odds with reason, fact, and political knowledge. That something is creeping out from beneath an unpleasant rock, and that it has a deep connection with anti-Semitism, if it is not anti-Semitism in its purest modern form.

A central feature of Labour’s anti-Semitism is a staggering failure to understand the difference between traditional hatred of Jews from some religious and far-right sources, and modern expressions of that hatred through the medium of Zionism. The Labour enquiry into anti-Semitism entirely ignored several important definitions of anti-Semitism that included the singling out of Israel for condemnation, the use of double standards for Israel, and delegitimisation of Israel by negation of Zionism as the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people. The U.S. Department of State issued just such a new definition in 2010. Several of its clauses mention anti-Israel charges, including this: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist”.[1]

The Palestinian “resistance” is not a struggle to create a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel. From the PLO to Hamas to the PFLP to Hezbollah, no group or leader within the “resistance” movement has ever considered that their goal. Their position is summed up in the slogan chanted by leftist students and pro-Palestinian groups across the world, “Palestine will be free, From the river to the sea”. The “river” is the Jordan and the “sea” is the Mediterranean, meaning that there is no room whatever for a Jewish state in the region. Self-determination, an ideal loudly proclaimed for practically every ethnic and cultural group in the world by people on the left, is denied for one community only: the Jews.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Funeral of the Oslo Accords by Guy Millière *****

By on October 25th, 2016

Despite the unceasing waves of murdering innocent Israeli civilians, Western politicians speak as if Israel were not under attack. The politicians are not interested in hearing what Palestinian leaders say when they call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

These Western leaders can well imagine what those consequences would be if the Arabs had their way: genocide. One can only assume they are pleased with that.

In private, some people say that the burial of Shimon Peres was also the burial of the Oslo Accords and of a never-ending “peace process” that brought only war.

Understanding that the economic relations between Israel and Europe could deteriorate, Netanyahu set about negotiating free trade agreements with China, India, South Korea and Japan, and he signed economic and military cooperation agreements with seven African countries also threatened by Islamic terrorism.

Against all odds, Israel is now in a much stronger position than it was even a few years ago.

The death of former Israeli President Shimon Peres led to a wave of almost unanimous tributes. Representatives from 75 countries came to Jerusalem to attend the funeral. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas even left Ramallah for a few hours to show up.

Such a consensus could seem to be a sign of support for Israel, but it was something else entirely.

Those who honored the memory of Shimon Peres put aside the years he dedicated to creating Israel’s defense industry and to negotiating key arms deals with France, Germany and the United States. Those who honored the memory of Peres spoke only of the man who signed the Oslo Accords and who embodied the “peace process.” They then used the occasion to accuse Israel.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The State Department’s Disproportionate Animus Toward Israel The hypocrisy of Mark Toner’s condemnation of Israel’s plan to resettle Amona evacuees. Joseph Puder

By on October 24th, 2016

U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner issued, on October 5, 2016 a statement that “strongly condemned” Israel’s plan to resettle the Amona evacuees whose settlement is to be demolished by an order of Israel’s Supreme Court. Toner stated that “proceeding with this new settlement, which could include 300 units, would further damage the prospects of a two-state solution.” The same term “strongly condemn” was used by the State Department when the Assad regime in Syria used chemical weapons against civilians. Equating the murder of innocent civilians by a brutal dictator with 300 new housing units to resettle Israeli civilians in Shiloh, whose homes are due to be demolished in December, is disproportionate to say the least.

Toner’s boss, Secretary of State John Kerry in London with British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, issued the following statement (October 16, 2016), “Suffice it to say that all of us are more than concerned and deeply, deeply disturbed by and outraged by what is happening in Aleppo, which is in the year 2016, in the beginning of the 21st century, a horrendous step back in time to a kind of barbarianism, a use of force that is of insult to all of the values that the United Nations and most countries believe should guide our actions.” Secretary Kerry expressed “concern” and was “deeply disturbed” by events in Aleppo, but did not “strongly condemn” the killing of thousands of Syrian civilians in Aleppo. The U.S. State Department has disproportionality displayed animus in its attitude toward Israel, and it smacks of a deep bias on top of a long history of anti-Semitism at Foggy Bottom.

In response to a reporter’s question as to why President Obama or Secretary of State Kerry did not use the term “strongly condemn” that the State Department spokesman used, Toner replied: “Well, there have been times in the past when it has come – these kinds of words have come from either Secretary Kerry or President Obama, and the message is always the same, which is we view settlements as counterproductive and counter to Israel’s interests. We’re going to keep up with that message and we’re going to keep conveying it to the Israeli Government when they take these kinds of actions. I think this one was, as we noted in the statement, particularly exceptional in the fact that it came mere days after we had concluded this memorandum of understanding, and also in the wake of one of Israel’s leading statesmen, Shimon Peres’s death.”

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Former FM director-general: Since 1973 the US has assured Israel it won’t back changes to UNSC 242. ‘Israel has every right to refuse a 1967 withdrawal’ By Tovah Lazaroff

By on October 23rd, 2016

US support for resolution to replace UN Security Council Resolution 242 would conflict with commitments given to Israel by Washington going back to 1973, former Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

“I remember that after the ’73 war the United States gave Israel commitments that it would not allow for a change in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242,” Gold said.

“The United States is Israel’s major ally, that has not changed,” Gold told the Post on the sidelines of a speech he delivered to the Israel Allies Caucus conference in Jerusalem.

“While we have tactical disagreements from time to time, I believe that America will stick by its commitments to Israel.”

Resolution 242 was approved in November 1967, some five months after the Six Day War. It is the basis on which the entire Israeli-Arab peace process is structured.

Most significantly, its text specified an Israeli withdrawal from “territories” – not “the territories” – captured during the war.

“All the peace agreements [and initiatives] were based on this resolution,” Gold said.

Continue reading →