05/12 Links Pt1: Israel's First Independence Day; Fatah Celebrates 36th Anniversary Of Deadly Attack In Hebron

From Ian:

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Israelis and their Independence Day barbecue, a symbol of nationhood and affluence

At 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, Israel’s 68th Independence Day, Yuval Iluz staked a claim on a square of picnic ground in the Charuvit Forest in the Judean foothills, surrounding his ad-hoc homestead with blue-and-white Israeli flag bunting, laying out woven beach mats for the “relaxation corner,” setting up a large, multi-level gas grill and blowing up a bouncy castle for the kids.
“I took on the responsibility of organizing it myself this year,” said Iluz, who owns an air conditioning company and has the equipment necessary for schlepping and setting up a three-meter-high (10-foot-high) bouncy castle to a national park located 22 kilometers (13 miles) from his home.
Iluz’s parents, three siblings and their families, some 25 people in all, will gather for the barbecue, and though they could easily gather in one of their backyards, or his, with its own pool, they choose to join the rest of the Israeli nation on Thursday, bringing along everything but the proverbial kitchen sink.
“We deliberately go to the national parks,” said Iluz, 45, who lives in Moshav Arugot, where he and his siblings were born and raised. “It has more of the atmosphere of a holiday, of being with the Israeli nation.”

Israel's First Independence Day

What was it like to experience Israel's independence day in 1948? Take from Israelis who were there: The incredible story of rising from the ashes of oppression and exile to the re-birth of the Jewish state.

UN envoys wish Israel all the best at 68

As Israel began celebrating 68 years of independence on Wednesday evening, ambassadors to the United Nations from a host of countries wished the Jewish state a hearty “happy birthday.”
The envoys featured in a video prepared by the Israeli mission to the UN.
“The State of Israel is celebrating 68 years of independence,” said Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon at the start of the short movie. “Today, friends from around the world are wishing Israel ‘Happy Independence Day.'”
Danon’s opening was followed by a series of clips of ambassadors from various countries sending their greetings.
“We wish you the happiest, most prosperous, and above all most peaceful new year, happy 68th,” said US Ambassador Samantha Powers.
British envoy Matthew Rycroft in his message said, “To the State of Israel and all your people, I want to wish you the very best for your 68th year.”
Gillian Bird of Australia said, “To the State of Israel, I want to wish you peace.”

Israel is celebrating 68 years of Independence


Chief Rabbi: Could we sit and study Torah without soldiers?

Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef gave a festive speech in honor of Israeli Independence Day on Thursday at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.
"The incredible ingathering of the exiles, they came from all ends of the earth, everyone came to the land of Israel," said Rabbi Yosef. "The prophet Yehezkel (Ezekiel) already foresaw it back then."
"The prophet prophesied the redemption which thank God is approaching the ingathering of the exiles. It is not in our merit that the Holy One blessed be He did this, not because we are worthy of it, not in our merit. We did not observe his laws, even though we came to the land of Israel."
He emphasized that "if such a great ingathering of the exiles was done like this, it is despite that we desecrated the name of the Holy One blessed be He among the non-Jews - think what would have been if we had truly walked in his ways, what the nation of Israel would have merited."
"Today thank God most of the nation of Israel is here in the land of Israel. There is a possibility here to sit and keep the commandments, there is no one who will tell you what to do, there is a democracy in which one can study Torah and educate their children."

Israel and "Palestine": What International Law Requires

Under relevant international law, a true state must always possess the following specific qualifications: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory; (3) a government; and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
While this contingent condition of prior demilitarization of a Palestinian state may at first sound reassuring, it represents little more than a impotent legal expectation.
For one thing, no new state is ever under any obligation to remain "demilitarized," whatever else it may have actually agreed to during its particular pre-state incarnation.
"The legality of the presence of Israel's communities the area (Judea and Samaria) stems from the historic, indigenous, and legal rights of the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid and binding international legal instruments, recognized and accepted by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or placed in question." — Ambassador Alan Baker, Israeli legal expert.

Gold: Israel opposes French plan even if it includes ‘Jewish state’ recognition

While Jerusalem remains adamantly opposed to the new French diplomatic initiative, enshrining Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people would be an important step, Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold has told The Jerusalem Post.
“There are many problems with the French initiative, one of them is the lack of recognition of a Jewish State,” Gold said. “But even if that was changed, it wouldn’t alter many fundamental problems with the French initiative.”
Gold voiced anger at France's vote last month at the UNESCO Executive Board meeting in favor of a resolution on Jerusalem that expunged any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.
“When French diplomats vote for a resolution at UNESCO that rejects the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem, it should not come as a surprise that Israel rejects the French initiative and the political horizon it aspires to ultimately expose,” he said.

US cool on French Mideast peace push, may not attend

The United States appears reluctant to support a French plan to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with a major conference this month.
The State Department was unable to say on Wednesday whether Secretary of State John Kerry will attend a planned May 30 meeting in Paris.
And outside experts say Washington is unlikely to want to allow France to take the lead on an issue that it traditionally sees as its own.
“We remain concerned about the continued violence on the ground and we welcome all ideas on moving this forward,” US spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.
“On this specific conference, on the May 30 event, no decision’s been made on participation.”

Eugene Kontorovich: Testifying in Congress on presidential overreach in foreign affairs

I will be testifying tomorrow before the House Judiciary Committee, during a hearing of the Task Force on Executive Overreach examining “Executive Overreach in Foreign Affairs.” The hearing will be streamed live and archived on the Judiciary Committee’s website.
My written testimony — and that of fellow witnesses Steve Groves and Stephen Vladeck — is available here.
My testimony will focus on two issues that I have written about in this space: the Obama administration’s noncompliance with the procedures necessary to lift Iran sanctions under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015; and its failure to defund a U.N. agency that accepted the Palestinian Authority as a member. These raise issues about the executive undermining Congress’s foreign commerce and and spending powers, respectively.
As I explain in my testimony, the executive has very broad inherent power in foreign affairs, and Congress has augmented this further with broad delegations. It is not easy or common for the executive to overstep its constitutional bounds in this area — it takes a special effort. But these two recent issues suggest that the White House is prone to mistake broad authority to absolute authority (a trap Vladeck comes close to in his rather feisty testimony).

Michael Totten: Washington’s Idiotic Echo Chamber

Rhodes hates the foreign policy establishment. He calls it, for whatever reason, the Blob. Its members are all, according to him, a bunch of “morons.” “According to Rhodes,” Samuels writes, “the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and other Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East.”
Aggressive intervention in Iraq failed to make the Middle East a better place. No question about it. So did light intervention in Libya. So did non-intervention in Syria. Nothing seems to work over there. Whether you’re hawkish or dovish, interventionist or isolationist, the last decade of history should be embarrassing.
Foreign policy is excruciatingly hard. It requires us to choose the least horrible option, and the least horrible option is never obvious, especially not in an unpredictable and often nonsensical place like the Middle East. Ghastly things happen no matter what we do, even if we do everything right. That wouldn’t change if we launched every member of the Blob into orbit.
We are all anti-establishment now (except those of us who are not). Even President Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor is anti-establishment now, even though, as Eli Lake put it in Bloomberg, Obama's foreign policy guru is the 'Blob' he hates.
Hatred of the establishment, whether it’s genuine or affected, is a reaction against the inadequacies and failures of the past and present, and it’s perfectly understandable. Sometimes it’s tempting to think a plumber from Poughkeepsie or a real estate agent from Des Moines might handle world affairs better than George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but replacing the old Blob with a fresh one produces the same result as a revolt against knowledge and experience.

ANALYSIS: Jonathan Pollard’s Strict Parole Conditions Make No Sense

It will be difficult for the U.S. government to justify the draconian, nonsensical parole conditions under which Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard is currently living in New York City. The conditions force Pollard to violate Shabbat and impede his ability to be gainfully employed, while doing nothing to advance national security, the supposed goal of the unusual measures.
Last month, the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York granted Pollard’s lawyers a request to reopen his appeal against the illogical – and I think spiteful – parole conditions.
Before we get to them, let’s put things in perspective regarding Pollard. Obama administration policies in 2014 alone resulted in the release of more than 3,700 “Threat Level 1” criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and drug dealers. The criminals were released on to the streets of the U.S. instead of being deported as they should have been. Criminal illegal aliens released by the Obama administration between 2009 and 2011 went on to be charged with 19 murders, three attempted murders, and 142 sex crimes, a House Judiciary Committee report has documented.
While Pollard is restricted to parole conditions that do not achieve their aims, as I will show, Obama has released without any U.S. supervision numerous dangerous Islamic terrorists from the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, including the infamous Taliban Five, jihadists deemed “high” risk who were recommended for continued detention and yet were freed in exchange for United States Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

‘This is our 1948’: Kurds kindle a close relationship with Jews and Israel

This mutual interest between Israel and Kurdistan is unique in the region.
In many countries, such as Morocco or Egypt, even depicting Jewish history in the country is seen as controversial.
There is mass Holocaust denial and refusal to accept the existence of Jews as a mosaic in the region in many countries.
In contrast, in Erbil you can buy books in Kurdish about Golda Meir and about the history of Kurdish Jews.
There are other areas of kinship between Jews and Kurds. Daniel Libeskind, designer of the Berlin Jewish Museum, is the architect behind a new Kurdistan Museum in Erbil. Envisioned as a 14,000-square-meter edifice with sharp angles, the project will have four distinct parts related to the fact that Kurds are divided between four countries.
In the Kurdish regions of Iraq, much of the talk today is about a referendum and eventual independence. The war with Islamic State is grinding on and Kurds have successfully pushed back the extremists and gained key allies, not only among Western powers, but also in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, countries usually hostile to Kurdish interests.
Israel, which has had a close clandestine relationship with Kurdish groups that dates to the 1960s, has generally been supportive of Kurdish rights. In January, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked expressed support for Kurdish independence.
In a 2014 speech to the Institute for National Security Studies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Kurdistan was “worthy of statehood.” All of these developments in the last years point to an enduring bond between two Middle Eastern peoples that is growing and can be cultivated.

Yale Linguist discovers that ‘Naqba’ means ‘Sorry-We-Didn’t-Push-You-into-the-Sea’ (satire)

Renowned linguist of Semitic languages Carlton Howe made a fascinating discovery earlier today. Using a combination of texts, recorded speech, and other media, Dr. Howe managed to decipher that the meaning of the Arabic term “Naqba” was actually “Sorry We Didn’t Push You into the Sea“. Dr. Howe explained his findings to the Daily Freier.
“Languages contain nuance and hidden meaning.” explained Dr. Howe as we sipped tea in his study. “Which makes the role of a scholar so truly exciting. So previous scholars stated that ‘Naqba’ means ‘disaster’. But that is simply not the case. By comparing historical texts in Arabic to contemporary speeches and poems, I was able to determine the true meaning of this term. I don’t think I am being a Gasconading Academic when I tell you that this is a true “Rosetta Stone” moment. And by ‘Rosetta Stone’ I don’t mean those goofy language videos that you check out of the library.”
News of Dr. Howe’s findings spread quickly throughout academia, with some of his department rivals challenging his findings by stating that ‘Al Naqba” actually means “Please don’t hold us responsible for our actions“, or “I demand a Do-Over” or even possibly “Next time we will get it right“.

Fatah Celebrates 36th Anniversary Of Deadly Attack On Hebron Settlers

Fatah’s Facebook page has marked the 36th anniversary of a shooting attack in Hebron that led to the death of six Jewish settlers.
The movement’s official account hails the attack that was “carried out by four heroes in the West Bank, the Fatah strike forces in the Occupied Territories.”
The post says that “13 Zionists were killed and dozens wounded” in a surprise attack against “settler bullies” on Friday, May 2, 1980.
It featured a picture that showed wounded Israelis lying on the ground being treated.
In a different post, Fatah referred to the attack saying “Fatah strikes everywhere, and when it does it shakes the foundations of the miserable state. If you’ve never heard of Hebron’s Dabuya attack, you’re unfamiliar with the Palestinian revolution. Dozens of Zionists were killed in it.” In the attack, six Jews were killed and not dozens.
In 2013, an Israeli expose revealed that Tayseer Abu Sneineh, one of the perpetrators of the attack, was appointed to the Cave of the Patriarch board of directors.

Swiss panel finds no evidence of secret 1970s deal with PLO

A Swiss investigation has found no evidence that a former government minister struck a secret deal offering diplomatic assistance to the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970 in exchange for the PLO halting attacks on Swiss targets.
The allegations emerged this year in a book, "Swiss Terror Years," which also raised questions whether a pact with the PLO had interfered with an investigation into a bomb attack on a Swissair jet in 1970 that killed 47 people.
Carlos the Jackal, the Marxist guerrilla who became a symbol of Cold War anti-imperialism, told a newspaper in March that he moved freely through Switzerland in the 1970s under a "non-aggression pact" between the government and PLO. He is serving life sentences in France for a series of attacks.
In a statement on Wednesday, the government said a task force set up to review the allegations found no indication of a secret pact between former cabinet member Pierre Graber, or any other Swiss representative, and PLO official Farouk Kaddoumi.

6 Palestinian teens arrested after rioting near Jerusalem

Six Palestinian teenagers were arrested near Beitunia, north of Jerusalem, on Thursday morning after lighting a fire near the security barrier.
The six, ages 14-17, also hurled rocks at Border Police who came to detain them. There were no reports of injuries.
Rock-throwing was also reported in the capital and on the West Bank road to the Etzion Bloc, where unidentified assailants pelted passing Israeli vehicles with stones, causing no injuries or damage, according to Israel Radio.
In Jerusalem, a 16-year-old Arab teenager threw stones at a car on Uzi Narkis street, which runs through the neighborhoods of Pisgat Ze’ev and Beit Hanina. The assailant was arrested for the attack, which caused damage to the vehicle, according to the Walla news website.
The incidents came as thousands of Israelis headed to national parks and beaches to mark Independence Day.

Palestinian Child Exploitation – 10-year old “Journalist” Janna Jihad

Used as a media prop by Tamimi clan since age 5, now promoted as child “journalist” by al-Jazeera and others [Vice]
You may recall the name Janna Jihad.
Janna is a member of the Tamimi clan from Nabi Saleh. Among the more infamous Tamimi members is Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who organized the Sbarro Pizza restaurant suicide bombing in 2001, and then broke out with a huge smile when she learned that more children actually were killed than she thought.
The Tamimi clan also has a sophisticated media operation.
Under the guidance of Bassem Tamimi and his wife, Tamimi and other village children are used as media props to confront Israeli soldiers for the cameras, including throwing rocks, hoping to create a viral image or video.
Often they succeed in that mission. The genius of the Tamimi clan media operation is that it doesn’t matter what the Israelis do. If the Israelis react, it’s a viral video moment showing how abusive the Israelis are. If they don’t react, it’s also a viral video showing how afraid the Israelis are. And children are the key ingredient essential to this Tamimi methodology.

In new Gaza clip, kids urge ‘martyrdom, blowing up enemies’

New footage to emerge out of a children’s festival in the Gaza Strip shows play-acting Palestinian kids urging each other to “die as martyrs” and “blow up their enemies,” and includes mock presentations of them capturing Israeli soldiers and running through what appears to be a tunnel.
A video of the events, part of the eighth annual “Childhood Festival” by the Islamic Association in Khan Younis in April, was uploaded to the internet this week, and was made available by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
During one segment, a young girl calls on her “child” to “join the battle! Die as a martyr, and blow up the enemies.”
Others show young boys clasping toy assault rifles as they strike poses in formation and run through what appears to be a tunnel.
Children are also shown “capturing” an Israeli soldier and throwing rocks at Israeli policemen. The setting appears to be Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, with boys dressed as ultra-Orthodox Jews seen praying the background.

IS-inspired Gaza Salafists claim to have 3,000 fighters

Jihadists inspired by the Islamic State group’s ideology are seeking to benefit from the desperation of young Palestinians to strengthen their foothold in the Gaza Strip.
But the Salafists in the enclave tread a fine line to avoid conflict with Hamas, the Islamist movement which has ruled the strip for a decade but does not share IS’s worldview.
Leaders of the Salafists, who are adherents of a strict Sunni interpretation of Islam, claim to have 3,000 fighters in Gaza.
While the figure is impossible to verify, experts see an increasing use of IS-style rhetoric to attract support.

2 suspected jihadis killed, 16 arrested near Tunis

Two suspected jihadists were killed on Wednesday during a security operation near the Tunisian capital, the country’s Interior Ministry said.
Sixteen others, some of them armed, were arrested during the operation in Ariana province just outside Tunis, it said in a statement.
A resident of the Sanhaji district told AFP that a two-hour gun battle erupted with the suspects after the national guard launched the raid at around 8 a.m. (0700 GMT).
“They were not from the neighborhood. We didn’t know them. They rented the house recently,” she said.
Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a “serve” travel advisory for Tunisia on Monday, warning of a “high” likelihood of attacks by jihadist groups, especially against Jewish targets.

New Islamic State app teaches kids ABCs of jihad

The Islamic State has repeatedly shown it is not above the indoctrination of children into jihadist ideology. Now, it seems, there’s an app for that.
The terror group has released new software for Android devices to teach children the Arabic alphabet and basic vocabulary, according to The Long War Journal, a website that follows the war on terror.
The app uses various games and songs to encourage the children to learn.
However, in keeping with its general theme, the organization has peppered its lessons with jihadist terminology.
Thus, alongside “mom,” “dad,” “cat,” and “dog,” children whose parents download the app will learn such essentials as “rocket,” “bullet,” “gun” and “sword.”
Meanwhile, the songs in the app perpetuate extremist themes and values.

Islamic State’s ‘General Shawarma’ killed in strike

An Islamic State commander who gained online notoriety when anti-IS activists noted his likeness, in his camouflage uniform, to a shawarma kebab, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike.
The Pentagon confirmed the death Monday of Abu Wahib alongside three other jihadist fighters near the town of Rutba, in the Anbar desert, according to the Daily Mail.
Abu Wahib, the 28-year-old commander of the Sunni Al-Anbar Lions militia, was photographed last year standing next to a black IS truck in Iraq’s Anbar province, wearing brown camouflage and a black beret.
A member of the anti-Islamic State group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently posted a picture of the bearded Wahib next to a photo of shawarma being roasted on a spit with the caption #same.

Frank Gaffney: Obama Goes to Hiroshima to Condemn Nuclear Weapons, But No President Has Done More to Encourage Proliferation

Center for Security Policy founder Frank Gaffney joined SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon on Breitbart News Daily Wednesday morning to discuss the irony of President Obama’s trip to Hiroshima to “bray about the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons,” while Obama’s policies have done nothing but encourage their proliferation.
Gaffney and Bannon opened by discussing the strategic situation in the Pacific, where Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter just completed a tour.
“It didn’t really go that well, did it?” Bannon asked.
“Well, I guess it went about as well as you could expect, when he’s forced to acknowledge, effectively, that there’s no ‘pivot to Asia’ forthcoming, despite a lot of talk about it earlier in the Administration,” Gaffney replied.
He noted that the reduced U.S. Navy lacks the resources for a strategic pivot into the Pacific. “There aren’t the ships that enable us to project power into that region, and such ships as we have are increasingly threatened by the growing presence of the Chinese.”
Gaffney described U.S. allies in Asia as “increasingly frantic.”

Rouhani Praises Iran’s Terror Reach

Put aside Iraq and Afghanistan, where Soleimani coordinated the smuggling in of explosively-formed projectiles used to kill several hundred Americans. And put aside Syria, where Iranian intervention has contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths and an order of magnitude greater number of refugees. Instead, consider “Palestine,” where Soleimani’s partners are not the Palestinian Authority or those seeking to live side-by-side with Israel, but rather Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — both of which dedicate themselves to the elimination of Israel and any Jewish presence in the region, in effect, seeking genocide.
To endorse such life’s work suggests not only is Rouhani complicit in endorsing if not enabling terrorism, but also that pumping billions of dollars into the Iranian economy is having the opposite effect than that which President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry promised. Then again, that’s no longer a surprise as Obama’s point man—and likely Kerry’s as well—likely never cared about changing the game in the Middle East, so long as they could get credit for shuffling the cards.

John Kerry Urges European Companies to Do Business With Iran

Wall Street Journal – Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that European businesses should not use US sanctions on Iran as an excuse for avoiding business with Tehran.
Mr. Kerry’s comments, just ahead of meetings with European banking leaders here Thursday, were part of the Obama administration’s moves recently to help integrate Iran into the global economic system after decades of punitive sanctions.

Female Iranian Politician Barred From Parliament for Appearing with Hair Uncovered

An Iranian state committee ruled Wednesday that a female member of parliament who was elected in February cannot be sworn in because she allegedly appeared with her hair uncovered when traveling abroad.
The Dispute Settlement Committee of Branches, an official judicial body, determined that Minoo Khaleghi could not serve as a member of parliament, basing its ruling on photos of Khaleghi that had circulated on social media showing her traveling through Europe and China without a headscarf. Iranian law states that women must wear a headscarf in public at all times, even when abroad.
Khaleghi claimed that the pictures of her with an uncovered head were fake. “I am a Muslim woman, adhering to the principles of Islam,” she wrote in a statement to an official state newspaper. The people who published the pictures of her, she charged, were driven by “political greed.”
Iran’s interior ministry arrested an activist for posting the pictures of Khaleghi on social media a day before she was suspended.

Iranians to miss hajj after no deal made with Saudi Arabia

Iran has failed to reach agreement with Saudi Arabia on arrangements for its pilgrims to join the annual hajj in September following the severing of ties, its culture minister said on Thursday.
An Iranian delegation held four days of talks in Saudi Arabia last month aimed at thrashing out a deal but with Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran closed since January and Iranian flights to the kingdom halted they hit deadlock.
“The arrangements have not been put together and it’s now too late,” Ali Jannati told the official IRNA news agency. “The sabotage is coming from the Saudis.
“Their attitude was cold and inappropriate. They did not accept our proposals concerning the issuing of visas or the transport and security of the pilgrims.”
“Saudi officials say our pilgrims must travel to another country to make their visa applications.”

Iran revs up for its latest Holocaust cartoon contest

This weekend, Iran will stage its third cartoon exhibition about the Holocaust. The images on display, pooled from submissions that came in from various parts of the world, mock a history of genocide and Jewish suffering. The event has garnered global notoriety and is a persistent mark against an Iranian regime that has tried over the past year to show that it’s ready to emerge from international isolation.
Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attempted to distance the administration of President Hassan Rouhani from the contest. In an interview with the New Yorker, Zarif said the event was sponsored by private nongovernmental organizations and not his government. He then pointed to a history of supposed Western double standards.
“Why does the United States have the Ku Klux Klan? Is the government of the United States responsible for the fact that there are racially hateful organizations in the United States?” Zarif asked. “Don’t consider Iran a monolith. The Iranian government does not support, nor does it organize, any cartoon festival of the nature that you’re talking about.”
But the organizations involved, the Owj Media & Cultural Institute and the Sarsheshmeh Cultural Center, are institutions with direct ties to organs of the Iranian government, including the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran’s Press TV Fails to Fix False Report Claiming Saudi King Gave $80 Million to Netanyahu’s Election Campaign

Despite being debunked by Breitbart Jerusalem and others, Iran’s state-affiliated Press TV has not corrected a false report claiming that Saudi King Salman financed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election campaign in 2015 to the tune of $80 million.
The report, titled, “Leaked: Saudi King financed Netanyahu’s 2015 election bid,” cites fabricated quotes purportedly from Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog alleging that the Saudi financing was documented in the “Panama Papers.”
Contacted by Breitbart Jerusalem on Monday night, Herzog’s office denied the report, saying the quotes were entirely fabricated.
The false report has since been parroted by several obscure English language Middle East sites whose incorrect articles have been getting some social media traction, including Siasit Daily and Shehernama.com. The websites Boing Boing and the Center for Research on Globalization each have removed their versions of the story.
Still, the fake report spread like wildfire on social media. Craig Silverman reported Wednesday at BuzzFeed Canada “As of today the original fake story has generated over 25,000 Facebook interactions. There have only been a few efforts to debunk the hoax.”

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Proud to be a Zionist (5776 edition)

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's version:

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Every year, the State of Israel seems to be up against yet another unsolvable crisis. These have ranged from wars to suicide bombings to terror rockets to facing the prospect of nuclear-armed enemies. Over the past year she has faced multiple threats: A spate of stabbing and car ramming attacks that have been fueled by open incitement by the Palestinian Authority, Israel's greatest ally America working to allow a nation that threatens Israel daily to build nuclear weapons in less than 15 years, people who pretend to be "pro-Israel" and yet who spend every waking hour working to weaken her, and more efforts at all political levels to delegitimize Israel as a nation.

Yet, here she is, 68 years old and more beautiful than she was at birth.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and arguably more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, stabbed and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards, which can be easily proven for anyone who wants to investigate the situation impartially. (People willing to do that are, regrettably, few and far between.) It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war footing.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. The most recent spate of religiously motivated attacks, prompted by words by the PA president himself, has largely died down because of Israeli defensive actions.

The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn't acted decisively things would look like Iraq or Afghanistan today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Jews know something about being singled out, about being judged with double standards. We have been attacked for being too rich and too poor, too successful and too needy, too capitalist and too socialist, too religious and too secular, too insular and too integrated. These same wildly inconsistent attacks are now targeting the Jewish state. Israel will survive and thrive, just as Jews themselves have, despite these attacks.

And the best survival technique is success.

Israel has succeeded and continues to succeed in its many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, incredible leadership in high-tech and the environment, world class universities and culture. Practically every computer and mobile phone being built today includes technology and innovations from a single small Middle Eastern country. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

And they are indeed starting to dream. The internal struggles throughout the Arab world are, in many ways, a subconscious cry from Israel's neighbors to be more like the Jewish state. Despite the constant incitement against Israel in their media, ordinary Arabs know that Israel treats its minorities with more respect, and gives them more civil rights, than Arab nations give their own Arab citizens. One of the many ironies that is emerging is that both the most populous and the richest Arab nations are now openly on Israel's side on many matters, and the charge by their critics that they are "Zionist" - which used to be anathema - has lost its sting.

Zionists have every reason to be proud of the incredible achievements of the Jewish national movement.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

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Detective Protein

The fact that our body naturally has the ability to fight against foreign components such as bacteria, virus, pathogens and other micro organisms is interesting. These actions are known as immune responses as the body has a very effective and detailed armory to fight most pathogens and keep us from harm as a result of the presence of these pathogens.

One will wonder on a biochemical level how does our body recognize a treat and how does it handle the treat to prevent it from causing a breakdown of law and order thereby causing diseases. The entire process of immunity (the body's defense mechanism) is vast and depends on a lot of factors especially the nature and location of the antigen or invader.

WHAT ARE MHC PROTEINS?

In this article we will be looking at a very special class of proteins know as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins that mediates the identification of self and non-self components of the body.

Like every other class of proteins they have specific function and this class of proteins are very unique as they do the job of an undercover detective that moves around in a casual manner to uncover the presence of bad guys (antigens or pathogens or non-self components in one's system).

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a set of genes that encodes cell surface molecules which controls a major part of the immune system in all vertebrates by determining histocompatibility. The main function of MHC molecules is to bind to peptide fragments derived from pathogens and display them on the cell surface for recognition by the appropriate T-cells.

I do not intend to bore you with so much terminology, so let us liken their function to another situation we are more familiar with. These group of proteins do the work of an agency that registers citizens and issue out compulsory Original National ID cards to citizens (self components of the body). They also ensure that every citizen wears the ID card on his neck at all times so that when the soldiers on patrol comes around they can easily identify the IDs. These solders on patrol already have special skills to identify an Original National ID and a fake one, making it a very easy and an efficient process for the non-self components to be easily identified and dealt with.

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UN "FAO Goodwill Ambassador," a Lebanese singing star, is an antisemite

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization is dedicated to defeating world hunger. Over the years it has been criticized for being a bloated bureaucracy that was inefficient or even counterproductive, and it is in the fourth year of a large restructuring program.

To publicize its message, it has recruited famous stars from the acting, music and sports worlds to be "goodwill ambassadors" to spread its message about the importance of fighting hunger. Celebrities like Susan Sarandon, Raul, Pierre Cardin, Celine Dion and a few dozen others have been so designated.

One of these goodwill ambassadors is Lebanese singing superstar Majida El Roumi. Here is a poster for an upcoming concert at the Pyramids on May 20. Her YouTube videos have millions of views.

This UN FAO ambassador is also an antisemite.

Al Nilin reports on a press conference El Roumi had this week.

Majida responded to questions by the attendees of the conference without equivocation. She spoke about the Arab world conditions in which we live and discussed their causes. One is the idea of ​​breaking up the Arab world and to realize the dream of "Greater Israel" from the Nile to the Euphrates. She said, "When I was fifteen years old, I read "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and what is happening today is mentioned in detail in those protocols. Any Arab who sees what is happening today in the Arab world, everything we see and we are seeing today, are mentioned in the book of protocols, which calls for destabilization of the Arab world to start, and it is not limited to the Arab world. What happened in the French capital of Paris and Brussels recently is a Zionist plot with the complicity of Arab and international worlds."

In this video of the same press conference, starting at 10 seconds, Majida says, "International Zionism behind the fragmentation of the Arab world, they have something in their minds called the world government, all of us were created on this land to serve them."

In 2014 she already had told the media that she had read the Protocols at the urging of her father, himself a famous musician, to understand history.

Given that another UN agency employs a singing star who openly supports attacking Jews, this is perhaps not nearly as startling as it should be. But the FAO should be asked why they want to be linked with an open Jew-hater.

(h/t Shawarma News)

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Electoral Commission takes Tories to High Court over election spending scandal

From the Mirror website today:

The Electoral Commission are taking the Tories to the High Court to force them to reveal documents detailing the spending on Battle Buses ahead of the 2015 general election. 

The Commission have already asked the Tories twice for the documents, but they have only provided "limited" disclosure. 

Political parties have a legal obligation to provide full spending disclosures to the Commission on request.

Later...

Tory Party yields up Election expenses documents only after Electoral Ciommission said they were asking High Courst to force their release

— Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) May 12, 2016

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Haters want Congress to create "Special Envoy for Palestinian Children"

The "US Campaign to End the Occupation" started something new:

Tell Congress to Support Palestinian Children's Rights!

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Israel had held an average of 201 Palestinian children in custody each month since 2011. By the end of February 2016, there were 440 Palestinian children in the Israeli prison system, which means that the number of Palestinian child detainees have skyrocketed. This is a dire situation.

There is an urgent need for bold US leadership on this issue and we now have a rare chance to support an initiative to make this happen. Representative Betty McCollum (MN-04) has initiated a letter to President Obama urging him to appoint a Special Envoy for Palestinian Children.

Urge your Representative to sign on to this letter asking for a Special Envoy for Palestinian Children today!

The number of child detainees has indeed skyrocketed. From 178 in August to at least 438 in February. 

Could it be because so many decided that they want to stab Jews to death in that timeframe?

No, that is not to be mentioned.

But Betty McCollum's letter does mention it in passing, if only to find a few more like-minded members of Congress who do not want to betray themselves as being so obviously anti-Israel. It is highly disingenuous, giving lip service to the idea that children are being recruited by terror groups but not saying that they should be protected from that. Not a single word about incitement. She mentions the 12-year old girl who was detained without mentioning that she intended to stab Jews.

The sole purpose of the suggested "Special Envoy to Palestinian Children" isn't to help children but to demonize Israel; if McCollum cared about children then she would try to protect them from the child abuse that causes them to consider stabbers to be heroes.

The "Campaign to End the Occupation" doesn't even pretend. It simply wants to find any means it can to pressure Israel, and Palestinian children are perfect pawns for that purpose.

Luckily, the vast majority of Congress knows that this is a scam. The "Campaign" says that last year McCollum got 18 representatives to sign on to that anti-Israel letter - which is about 4% of the members of Congress.

Palestinian children indeed deserve to be protected - protected from a sick society that encourages them to kill themselves in the attempt to hurt Jews.

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Happy St Pancras Day to all our readers

As May 12 is both the feast day of St Pancras and Steve Winwood's birthday, it is a big deal here on Liberal England.

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A forgotten Israeli diplomat's praise of his country from 1955

I could not find any mention of Yehudah Gaulan, consul general of Israel to Canada in the 1950s.

But I can help immortalize him. A minor speech he made to the local Rotary Club is still very relevant, and it is a shame that Israeli diplomats are not nearly as keen to invoke Biblical history as easily as Gaulan did.

From the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, January 28, 1955:

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05/11 Links Pt2: Uni of London event calls for the Jewish state’s demise; Capt. America, the UN and the Temple Mount

From Ian:

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Daphne Anson: Marvellous Melanie on British Leftist Antisemitism

Nobody tells it better than Ms Melanie Phillips. A must-watch (or listen-to) video.
Nearly an hour's worth of footage, but this wonderful woman is worth every minute.
To quote the uploader:
British Columnist for The Times, Melanie Phillips, critiques attempts
by the Left to equate Antisemitism with Islamophobia, distorting the
truth about Islamism in the process. JBS exclusive coverage of an
ISGAP program from the ISGAP Center in NYC.
Islamophobia vs Antisemitism

Speakers at University of London event call for the Jewish state’s demise

Just when you think you have heard it all along comes Tariq Ali to lecture Israelis on how the end of the Jewish state will benefit not only Palestinians but Israelis as well.
For Ali the main problem in Europe isn’t anti-Semitism but Islamophobia. He admitted there was some anti-Semitism in the Arab world but it was only brought about by reaction to Israel and that once Israel has disappeared antisemitism will disappear.
Ali was speaking last night at the University of London’s Student Union in front of an audience of 300 alongside anti-Israel author John Rose, Weyman Bennett of Unite Against Fascism, Lindsey German of Stop the War Coalition, Arthur Goodman of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and “As a Jew” activist Walter Wolfgang .
The main message of the evening was that antisemitism is being used merely to attack Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and to silence all criticism of Israel (aka the Livingstone formulation). Both John Rose and Ali then went on to explicitly call for the demise of Israel.
On entering we were handed an unsigned leaflet headed “Labour Jews Assert” which stated that “Some people…are wielding ‘antisemitism’ allegations as a stick to beat the Corbyn leadership”. Luckily, Jonathan Hoffman was on hand to circulate printed copies of the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism. EUMC shows that what these people claim isn’t antisemitism actually is!

Superb Jonathan Hoffman @ULU Malet street 9/5/16

The superb Jonathan Hoffman took to the microphone during the Q&A to articulate Israel’s case under immense pressure.
Last night there was no mention of Hamas and Hezbollah and their genocidal intent to destroy Israel and every Jewish person worldwide. Neither was it mentioned that Hezbollah flags are openly on display at Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop The War Campaign protests in London and that the Holocaust is flagrantly traduced.
This tells you ALL you need to know about PSC and STWC types however “anti-racist” they try to claim they are.

'Israel only country allowed by US to modify new stealth fighter jets'

Israel is unique among America’s allies in that it is the only country on earth that enjoys special dispensation to install modifications on US-made military hardware, according to an Internet report.
The tech magazine WIRED reported this week that not only will Israel be the first US ally to receive the brand-new stealth F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter jet, but it will be alone among the Pentagon’s customers that will be permitted to outfit the warplane with its own technological enhancements.
The first Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jet, due to be delivered to Israel in December, has entered an advanced production stage.
Jeff Babione, head of the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin, said the plane would upgrade Israel’s tactical and strategic capabilities, and strengthen relations between the company and the IAF, Defense Ministry, and Israeli defense industries for many decades to come.
Israel has purchased 33 F-35A fighters jets at an average cost of $110 million per aircraft. The first two aircraft are due to arrive at the Negev’s Nevatim airbase in December this year, and the air force is preparing to integrate them into its operations.
According to WIRED, Israel will be permitted to install “customized software and weapons” while also allowing the Israeli Air Force to service the planes independently.

Captain America, the UN and the Temple Mount

The movie Captain America: Civil ͏War posits a difficult question: where should moral responsibility reside? Should it be in the hands of an individual (even those with superpowers) — or should it be delegated to an organization that enjoys some sort of collective legitimacy?
Of course, Captain America is not a philosophical treatise, but a Hollywood blockbuster. Still, this dilemma is very real in our current world, where some people do have much more power than others. George Soros, Sheldon Adelson, Juilan Assange, Mark Zuckerberg — those are but a few examples.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
It is easy to laugh at the idea that, in our world, any kind of real authority can be invested in an evil and corrupt organization like the UN. But the question is still there, and it is legitimate.
In the movie, Tony Stark signs an international accord that gives the UN power over the Avengers — both because he is hoping to avoid a further escalation of a conflict between the Avengers and the rest of the world, and because he genuinely believes that people like him should not be fully trusted. Steve Rogers (Captain America) freely admits to mistrusting any such authority, and refuses to sign. He believes that his moral judgement, however flawed, is better that “anything devised by a committee.” He also argues that, in the end, following orders from above doesn’t abdicate him or anyone else from personal accountability.

UNESCO's resolution of hate against Israel

UNESCO was created in 1945 after World War II not as a political body but to contribute to peace that would be established on the basis of humanity’s moral and intellectual solidarity.
UNESCO betrayed its own principles and ethos by the resolution, passed by the Executive Board on April 16, 2016. Not only inaccurate historically and factually, the resolution was one partly of self protection for reasons of security, but mainly one based on hatred and animosity to the State of Israel, and on the part of some countries, of antisemitism.
The resolution, submitted by seven Arab countries including Egypt passed by 33 in favor, 6 against, and 17 abstentions. France, Spain, Russia, and Sweden voted in favor; the U.S, UK, and Germany voted against.
The vote of France, which has experienced terrorist massacres in Paris, was particularly surprising and disappointing. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova dissociated herself from the resolution, saying it was a political decision by the economic council and the management council of UNESCO, and she herself was opposed to it.
UNESCO does not have a good record regarding Israel and Jewish holy places.
In 2010, and again in October 2015, resolutions proclaimed that Rachel’s tomb near Bethlehem and the Cave with the tombs of the Jewish patriarchs in Hebron (Ma’arat HaMachpela), which are mentioned in Genesis, were Islamic holy sites. The new 2016 resolution reaffirms that the two sites are an integral part of “Palestine,” and calls on Israel to end its illegal, archeological, excavations there.

French PM: UNESCO vote on Jerusalem was ‘unfortunate, clumsy’

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Wednesday said a UNESCO resolution on the Temple Mount that ignores any Jewish connection to Jerusalem was “clumsy” and “unfortunate” and should have been avoided.
The Paris-based UN cultural body adopted the resolution on April 16, sparking outrage in Israel and among Jewish organizations which decried its total disregard of a historic Jewish connection to the holiest site in Judaism. The resolution refers to the Temple Mount area solely by the Muslim terms Al-Aqsa Mosque and Al-Haram Al Sharif, except for two references to the Western Wall Plaza that were put in parentheses.
“This UNESCO resolution contains unfortunate, clumsy wording that offends and unquestionably should have been avoided, as should the vote,” Valls told the French parliament.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve also criticized Paris’s vote in favor of the resolution, telling an event organized by CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, that he does “not take a supportive view of the text.”
The resolution “should not have been adopted,” Cazeneuve said at the event in Paris, adding that the resolution passed “was not written as it should have been,” the Le Figaro daily reported.

Rubio: Israel to Keep Golan Heights in a Permanent Syria Settlement

Israel needs to hold on the Golan Heights “for the foreseeable future” to as a buffer against the instability in Syria, and “the wisdom of that has only increased” since Syria descended into an intractable civil war, former presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in wide-ranging talk at the Hudson Institute on Tuesday.
Rubio, who had recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, offered his views on the war against ISIS, the futures of Syria and Iraq, Iran’s regional aggression, and American global leadership. He argued that American engagement after World War II was essential in developing global peace and prosperity, especially in Asia. While economic shifts have caused some Americans to want to disengage from the world, the vacuums that ensue often end up threatening the United States.
“From the pure selfish national security interest of the United States, we want to see stability in Syria, in Iraq, because in the absence of that stability you are going to have radicalized groups who are going to be using it to stage and conduct external operations against the United States and its interests,” he explained. Rubio clarified that the “radicalized groups” include not only ISIS, but also Iran, which has seized upon American disengagement from the region as an opportunity to expand its sphere of influence and threaten American allies.

Trump says he’ll visit Israel, where he thinks everyone likes him

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he believes he enjoys “massive” support from Israelis as he announced he would visit Israel before the presidential election, in an interview published by an Israeli daily Tuesday.
Trump told the free Israel Hayom tabloid that he had not heard of Israelis disliking him, despite a number of recent polls showing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton as the favored candidate in the Jewish State.
“You are the first person to tell me that there are people in Israel who view me in a negative light, because I enjoy such massive support in Israel,” Trump told interviewer Boaz Bismuth.
His comment came in response to a question on whether he could assuage the fears of Israelis who believe he would be bad for their country for demanding US allies, including Israel, pay for American military assistance.
Trump added, “We are going to defend Israel. Israel will get assistance. Don’t forget that Israel is a bastion of hope for America in the region. Israel is the most important.”

Trump to Israel Hayom: Israel is the US's bastion of hope

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says that if he is elected, "we are going to protect Israel" • "We are going to make sure Israel is in very good shape forever," Trump pledges, declaring that he will be visiting Israel "soon."
Q: As we speak, today, Israel remembers the victims of war and terror. Our memorial day is today and in a few hours we will begin celebrating Independence Day. As you know, the threats facing Israel have not gone away. On the contrary. As Israelis remember their dead, and then celebrate their independence, what message would you like to send the Israeli people?
"I think that the threat to Israel right now is greater than it has ever been because of what happened with Iran and the Iran deal made by President [Barack] Obama. I think it is a horrible, horrible situation that our president has placed Israel in and I think that Obama has been very, very bad for the people of Israel. I just want to tell them that I am extremely strongly in favor of Israel, I respect it and have loved the people of Israel for a long time. I have many friends who are from Israel and we're going to make sure that Israel is going to be in very good shape forever."

Democrats Continue to Endorse CAIR, Despite Knowing Its Ties to Hamas

According to US Senator Charles Schumer, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is known “to have ties to terrorism,” and cutting off contact with the Islamist group “should be government-wide policy.”
Also according to Schumer, D-N.Y., CAIR is to be applauded “for its determination to continue to spread humanity around the world and to cultivate mutual understanding amongst Americans of all backgrounds and cultures … I know that the Council on American-Islamic Relations will continue to serve New York State and the nation for many years to come.”
One of these assessments must be wrong. So which description does Senator Schumer believe?
He’s not saying. Emails and a telephone call seeking comment from his office in recent weeks drew no response.
His comments critical of CAIR came during a 2003 Senate hearing, and in 2009 correspondence with the FBI. The praise came in a letter written for the group’s annual fundraising banquet last Fall.
In 2009, Schumer joined with Republican Senate colleagues Jon Kyl of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma in writing to the FBI to praise reports that the Bureau had cut off all non-criminal investigative contact with CAIR due to its roots as part of a Hamas-support network. The Investigative Project on Terrorism broke the news about the FBI policy to shun CAIR one month earlier.

Al Sharpton Pairs with CAIR to Help BDS Supporters Oust SDSU President

Al Sharpton's race-baiting National Action Network has joined forces with the terror-linked Council for American-Islamic Relations to provide "muscle" to the anti-Israel BDS students on San Diego State University's campus in order to help them oust President Elliot Hirshman.
The call for Hirshman's resignation came from SDSU's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) who were upset that the president didn't rescue them from the "#StopTheJewHatred" campaign posters recently posted on campus by David Horowitz's Freedom Center. On the posters, specific names were listed of prominent student and faculty BDS activists who openly support terrorist attacks on Israel by Hamas and Fatah. Members of SJP and the Muslim Students Association considered the posters hate speech and viewed them as threatening to the safety of the students mentioned. Hirshman's less-than-full-throated agreement made him target number one.
After Hirshman issued a statement in support of free speech on the SDSU campus that failed to outright denounce the posters' claims, an incensed mob gathered around him as he tried to leave campus inside the safety of a police car. He was held hostage for hours by the BDS supporters. When they finally let him speak, he softly apologized for anything he said that might have upset them. That appeased them enough to move away and let him leave, but that didn't satisfy their bloodlust.

When ‘antiracists’ are the racists: Left-wing anti-Semitism in Britain

Braunold, though very critical of his former left-wing comrades, is nevertheless too easy on them. The far leftist opposition to recognizing Jews as an ethnic minority, which Braunold suggests is based on a coherent if misguided version of anti-racism, disappears when it’s politically convenient, which suggests a lack of principle. Britain, after all, has a large, vocal contingent of “As a Jews”–left-wing individuals of Jewish descent, typically atheists with no ties to the organized Jewish community, who preface their harsh criticisms of Israel with “As a Jew…” “As a Jews” were mercilessly satirized as “ASHamed Jews” by Howard Jacobson in “The Finkler Question.”
The “As a Jews” are especially valuable to the anti-Israel left, for obvious reasons. I have yet to see any British “anti-Zionist” leftist respond to an “As a Jew” by stating something along the line of, “I appreciate your anti-Israel sentiment, but as a good anti-racist I don’t recognize Jewish ethnicity. Therefore, being that you’re an atheist and all who hasn’t observed any Jewish ritual since at least your circumcision, you’re not a Jew, and it’s highly offensive to cynically use the fact that your ancestors were of the Jewish religion to try to score political points.” Instead, the “As a Jews” are trotted out, front and center, to serve as “anti-Zionist” spokesmen.
This accentuates my point that the far left is, in fact, willing to acknowledge Jewish corporate existence beyond religious ties, but, as a I wrote, only “to the extent Jews rely on their residual memories of collective oppression to aid left-wing liberation movements,” including and especially the Palestinian nationalist movement. As I’ve pointed out before, if you’re only against racism when it serves your broader political goals, then you’re not really against racism.
UPDATE: It’s also worth noting that while the British far left relegates Jewish identity, which has always had an ethnic/peoplehood component, to oblivion except when it’s political useful, it has racialized Muslims, so much so that the Malia Bouattia, who is of Algerian descent and not of especially dark complexion, is said to be the “first Black president” of the National Union of Students. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of this except what’s politically useful.

Who Is Responsible for Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party? Jeremy Corbyn.

In an otherwise excellent column written just weeks before Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, the Scottish journalist Stephen Daisley declared that, “Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. How I wish that he were. How much easier it would make things. We could chalk all this up to the prejudices of one man and we could avoid the raw, awkward conversation we’re about to have.” Daisley didn’t excuse Corbyn; far from it. He argued rather that Corbyn was a “symptom and a symbol” of the left’s “anti-Semitism problem.”
But this too falls into the trap of seeing Corbyn as, at worst, a naïve, left-wing variety of the stereotypical British eccentric. Corbyn, according to this narrative, means well; he just isn’t very perceptive when it comes to the sensitivities of British Jews and, conversely, overly solicitous of radical Muslims whom he views as anywhere and everywhere oppressed by Western imperialism. To believe this explanation for Corbyn’s behavior, however, is to accept the false notion that British anti-Semitism manifests itself solely in the form of Oswald Moseley’s black-shirted thugs, or ageing Tory Lords trading Jew jokes in the backrooms of London’s most exclusive private clubs.
At some point, you earn a reputation for the company you keep and the environment your leadership engenders. It really doesn’t matter that Jeremy Corbyn (as far as we know) has not explicitly said anything anti-Semitic in the literal sense of the term. He has surrounded himself with, elevated, and shielded all manner of people who have, stubbornly backing down only when it has become politically untenable to continue defending them. All the while he denies that his party even has an anti-Semitism “crisis” in the first place. Like a stinking fish, the Labour Party rots from the head, and the head is Jeremy Corbyn.

Jewish UK Labour activist backed to replace Livingstone on party committee

The former president of Oxford University's Jewish and Israel society will likely replace ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone on the UK's Labour Party National Committee, The Jewish Chronicle reported Wednesday.
Scottish Jewish Labour activist and ex-chair of the Zionist Youth council, Rhea Wolfson, was recommended to the post after winning the support from left-wing political organization Momentum earlier this week.
The move comes following Livingstone's abrupt suspension from the Labour party earlier this month after he said during a BBC broadcast that Hitler supported Zionism.
Momentum, described as a grassroots movement supportive of current UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, released a statement shortly after announcing their pick for the position.
“Rhea Wolfson is a very impressive young woman, committed to fighting for a more democratic party and a credible democratic socialist agenda."
The statement added: “As a young, Jewish Scot, she will provide important perspectives that will improve the running of the Labour Party.”

PreOccupiedTerritory: Study Links UK Labor Antisemitism With Days Ending In Y (satire)

An analysis of the scale and drivers of antisemitism in Britain’s Labor Party has found a statistically significant correlation between the phenomenon and days ending in the letter y, researchers have confirmed.
Researchers at the Institute for Demographic Investigation of Objectionable Topics (IDIOT) looking at the prevalence of, and contributing factors to, hate for Jews among members of the country’s center-left party found what they are calling a stunning overlap of days of the week ending in the letter y and manifestations of that hate in public. The results of the study are available in the newest edition of the IDIOT monthly journal, due out in June.
For the study, IDIOT researchers conducted a meta-analysis of existing surveys that looked at prejudice in the ranks of Labor, and looked for common threads. While some correlation exists between increased levels of Muslim membership in the party and antisemitism, the researchers found that correlation to be weak compared to the link between the specific prejudice and days ending in y – a one hundred percent correlation, said lead researcher C. DeForrest Forthtrys.
“It’s rare in statistical studies that anything achieves a correlation of one hundred percent,” said Forthtrys. “That makes it all the more remarkable, because this is not new information. It could have been observed much earlier, and calls into question the judgment and perception of all previous antisemitism studies.”

In France, an uncertain future for Jews

France is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, and its most troubled.
A wave of anti-Semitic violence in recent years has shaken Jews in this country to the point where growing numbers no longer see a future here.
Some have simply left. In 2015, approximately 8,000 French Jews abandoned France for Israel — a record number that has grown with each passing year. Meanwhile, others have decamped to London and elsewhere.
“I don’t have any hope anymore, honestly,” said Noemie, a middle-aged French Jewish woman who appeared in a recent BBC documentary with her mother, who said she no longer even felt safe publicly identifying as Jewish in France. The documentary aired in April.
But those statistics — and the stories behind them — are complicated. Not every case can be attributed to anti-Semitism, and many French Jews who have officially relocated to Israel still spend a portion of every year in France.
There are some Israelis, such as Omer Shatz, a human rights lawyer living in Paris, who consider France safer than Israel, where the prospect of stabbings, bombings and attacks are a seemingly inescapable reality.
“In terms of security, I don’t believe that Israel is a safe place for Jews,” he said. “Or for anyone else.”
But a sense of anxiety nevertheless pervades a community that accounts for just 1 percent of the total French population but nearly half of all victims of what French authorities call “xenophobic” violence.

All Muslim Terrorists are Crazy

A Muslim terrorist stabbed four people at a train station near Munich while screaming, “Allahu Akbar”. In between proclaiming the glory of Allah, he also shouted that his victims were all “unbelievers”. A woman heard him say, “Infidel, you must die”.
The German authorities came to the inescapable conclusion that the attack had nothing to do with Islam. Instead the Muslim terrorist had been “mentally ill” and was probably not even fit to stand trial. The Koran wasn’t to blame. It was the fault of his psychological problems.
This isn’t surprising. It’s a well known fact that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism. Instead there are just a lot of people out there, of Muslim origin, suffering from a unique set of psychological problems that cause them to shout Allahu Akbar while trying to kill people who aren’t Muslims.
This should not however be attributed to the notoriously peaceful religion of peace.
Just last week the FBI busted James Muhammad who had been plotting to shoot up a Florida synagogue for the “glory of Allah”. Muhammad explained that he wanted to murder the men, women and children praying at the synagogue because, “I have a lot of love for Allah”.
Not only did this minor story receive only a fraction of the attention devoted to the truly important news that a Muslim teenage girl had Isis written in her High School yearbook, but Muhammad’s lawyer insisted at a bail hearing that he isn’t a terrorist, just suffering from mental problems.

Hashtags, Periscopes and Vines take over Israel’s Foreign Ministry

Ideally, this entire article would be composed of no more than 140 carefully chosen and tweeted characters.
If that were to prove impossible, the next best option would be for it to be comprised of an interlocking series of 140 character blurbs constituting a tweetstorm.
Barring that, we’ll do our best using an old-fashioned format. The Israeli foreign ministry today hosted an auditorium full of eager journalists, both foreign and local, and senior Twitter executives who were in Israel to announce a $250,000 award to whoever engineers the best global ads api (application program interface: a set of routines, protocols and tools for building software applications) promoted by the hashtags #startupnation #innovation #promoteprize.
According to Rowan Barnett (@rowbar), Twitter’s Senior Director for Media for countries outside of the United States, this was the first such launch and the first event of its type held in conjunction with a foreign ministry.
Israel’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, launched a scheme for anyone tweeting a pro-Israel message accompanied by the hashtag #IsraelRetweetedMe. Every message chosen would be retweeted by the State of Israel’s 148 official twitter feeds, some of which are followed by hundreds of thousands of people. The first beneficiary was Guy Levy, a technology writer for the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, who started out on Sunday with 250 followers and twenty-four hours later had multiplied that by ten. “I started out addicted to Facebook,” he said, sounding like a recovering alcoholic, and echoing many Israelis, “but now I’ve been turned on to twitter.”

Hillary v. Liberals on BDS

For a presidential candidate to take a pro-Israel stand in the middle of a campaign is not generally considered going out on a limb. So when, at the prompting of a Jewish group, Hillary Clinton wrote a letter opposing the BDS — boycott, divest, sanctions — movement that targets Israel, she was merely doing what almost all candidates, both Republican and Democrat, have done in recent decades. Though it can be dismissed as a transparent pander, Clinton’s statement may do some good. The former secretary of state is a Methodist and by taking such a public stand only a week ahead of that church’s General Conference slated to be held next week in Portland, Oregon, it’s possible that she may shame some delegates into opposing resolutions that support BDS. But while no one should consider Clinton’s letter to be an act of courage, it does illustrate the stark divide within the Democratic Party over Israel and the efforts by some on the left to wage economic war on the Jewish state.
Just days before Clinton’s letter (which was sent to the Jewish Action Network that wrote to her rather than to the Methodists themselves), the Pew Research Center released a new poll that illustrates both the continuing depth of broad-based support for Israel in the United States as well as the widening split within the Democratic Party on the question. The results place Clinton’s statement about BDS very much in the mainstream of American opinion while at the same time as putting her in the minority among the liberal base of the Democratic Party.
The Pew results show that when it comes to the Middle East conflict, a clear majority of Americans still view Israel more sympathetically than the Palestinians. Overall, 54 percent back the Israelis while only 19 percent are on the side of the Palestinians. Israel retains the support of a majority within every age group, all educational levels, and even among the supporters of both major parties and independents. The highest levels of support come from Republicans (75 percent) and conservatives (79 percent).

New York Times Again Downplays BDS Extremism

Not for the first time, The New York Times today downplayed the aims of the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement, transforming it from an radically anti-Israel group into nothing more than a critic of the country's West Bank policies.
In a brief piece about Hillary Clinton's criticism of the BDS movement, reporter Maggie Haberman asserted that BDS merely is "critical of Israel's policies toward the West Bank."
In fact, there's a virtually unanimous consensus — one including critics of BDS, critics of Israel's policies in the West Bank, and even the movement itself — that BDS is about so much more.
For example, the BDS movement, in a mission statement protesting Israeli policies and supposed "colonialism" since 1948 (that is, long before Israel controlled the West Bank), calls for the Jewish state to be sanctioned at least until it accedes to Palestinian demands for a so-called right of return. This call for an influx of the descendants of Palestinian refugees is broadly understood as a way of eliminating Israel by engineering away the country's Jewish majority.
Omar Barghouti, a founder of the BDS movement, certainly understands this, and has not been shy about admitting his goal is for Israel to be replaced with a "unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority."

 Anti-Israel Week Clouds Holocaust Day at UC Irvine

Several groups of students at the University of California Irvine held anti-Israel events last week, upstaging Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), the annual memorial of the genocide of 6 million Jews during the Second World War.
This year, Yom Hashoah was held on May 4. Anti-Zionism week was held between May 2 through 5.
The anti-Israel events on campus, spearheaded by the Muslim Student Union, Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine and the American Indian Student Association, were marked under the title “Anti-Zionism: The Roots of Oppression,” according to UCLA student Shani Shahmoon, writing in the Observer.
Shahmoon writes:
On the UCI campus, several events marked the occasion. Programs denying Israel’s right to exist and condemning Israel over the conflict with the Palestinians were featured. …
Anti-Zionism Week’s activities included a discussion comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the dispossession of land from American Indians, as well as a talk by Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, activist and spokesman for the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta.

IsraellyCool: Hillel Commemorating the Nakba: The Only Path to Enlightenment

I got a message from a friend today telling me that Brown-RISD Hillel is commemorating the Nakba tomorrow.
So let me get this straight: Jewish Students are mourning the failure of a genocidal group that tried to annihilate them.
UPDATE 2 (5/10/2016 @10:19pm): The event was not cancelled, as you may have been told. It is to take place in the Hillel building, but is no longer sponsored by Hillel due to external pressure. The organizers, Sophie Kasakove, Ben Williams, and Eital Schattner-Elmaleh, made a new event, this time a private one – only those invited can see it

Study: 1 in 6 Israeli Academics Hides National Identity Due to Fear of BDS

A recent study found that one out of every six Israeli academics hides his or her national identity when submitting drafts of research papers in order to avoid being a victim of the academic boycotts fueled by the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
“These are the new hidden Jews, the new anusim (forced converts) within Israeli academia,” said International Freedom of Research Center (IFRC) Director Sharona Goldenberg, who presented the study’s findings at a Tel Aviv conference on antisemitism and the BDS movement. “By putting them into a situation where they need to hide their identity, the boycotters are breaching their basic rights.”
The IFRC study, conducted last month, surveyed 500 Israeli academics who live in Israel and abroad. Israeli academics, according to the study, sometimes use only part of their name or a different name when they first submit proposal drafts. At other times, scholars will not use Israeli subjects in survey samples or data related specifically to Israel.

Technion head warns of international BDS attack on Israeli universities

Israel’s most important resource has been under international attack by anti-Israel elements for some time, Prof. Peretz Lavie, chairman of the Association of University Heads in Israel (VERA) and president of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology said this week.
Lavie issued a statement in response to reports that the University of Chile’s Law Faculty student union had voted to approve a BDS resolution against Israel.
“The academic boycott of Israeli universities has begun to metastasize outside the US and the UK,” he said.
“We all have to understand that an academic boycott means a boycott of the strategic advantage of the State of Israel – its human capital. This is our most important resource and it is under international attack by anti-Israel elements for a long time,” he added.
Lavie called on the government to intervene and consolidate its efforts to counter BDS.

At Haaretz, Is Style Guide Just a Suggestion?

About the word "settlement," Haaretz's English style guide states:
In these parts, a word with political connotations. Use it only for a Jewish locale in the West Bank (or former/evacuated settlements in Gaza).
Indeed, in the Israeli-Palestinian context, the word "settlement" refers to an Israeli community over the Green Line and that is how it is most often understood.
Nevertheless, in his Haaretz Op-Ed earlier this week, Moshe Arens uses the term to mean something else. His Op-Ed begins:
In Israel's doorstep -- within mortar range of Israeli settlements and rocket range of Ben-Gurion Aiport -- live two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Arens isn't referring here to a Jewish locale in the West Bank or an evacuated settlement in Gaza. He is talking about Jewish communities in southern Israel, close to the Gaza Strip.

UK Media Watch prompts Guardian and Indy revisions

As we noted recently, a Guardian article by Sian Cain (Michael Chabon witnesses ‘grievous injustice’ in occupied territories, May 6th) included the following paragraph, with background on the “Palestinian territories” Israel “entered” during the 1967 war.
Chabon and his wife, writer Ayelet Waldman, are contributing to and editing the as-yet-unnamed book of essays that will be published to mark the 50th anniversary of 1967’s six-day war, when Israel first entered the Palestinian territories: the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, parts of the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip.
As we explained, the Golan Heights were seized from Syria during the Six-Day War and were never ‘Palestinian’ – even in the broadest sense of that often misused term.
We complained to Guardian editors, and they agreed to remove reference to the “Golan Heights” from the article.

Owners of UK Kosher Restaurant Hit by Arson Attack Say They Will Prevail as Police Investigate Crime (VIDEO)

The owners of a kosher restaurant in Manchester said on Tuesday that they will not be discouraged by the recent arson attack against their eatery, which police are investigating.
Amos and Martine Vaisman, owners of Ta’am Grill and Restaurant, said on Facebook that they “worked against the odds” and are “delighted” to announce their restaurant’s grand opening on Wednesday. They added, “We want singing and dancing and lots of enjoyment.”
The Vaizmans planned the grand opening of their restaurant’s new location in Prestwich — a town in Manchester that has a large Jewish community — for Monday. They even placed a full-page ad in a local paper to promote the event. But that was before their establishment was engulfed in flames on Friday night.
Surveillance video footage shows two men inside the restaurant pouring liquid everywhere. A ball of fire then erupts all around the Bury New Road restaurant, followed by an explosion.
Manchester Police received the surveillance footage and confirmed that they have launched an investigation into the attack. Surveillance footage from around the area is also being collected and reviewed, according to Breitbart. A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said the two offenders gained entry into the restaurant by breaking a window and that they used gasoline to set fire to the cooking surface, which caused intense damage to the entire restaurant.

Canada prevents anti-Semitic comedian from entering country

Canadian border services agents in Montreal sent convicted anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala back to France after he landed in Montreal for a series of ten sold-out shows.
The move on Tuesday came following his latest conviction in France only hours earlier for breaking hate speech laws, for which he was fined $11,400.
It also came in the wake of more than two weeks of pressure on Ottawa by Jewish groups to keep Dieudonne from entering Canada based on his numerous convictions in Europe over the last decade for hate speech and Holocaust denial.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre had said Dieudonne was not welcome.
“It would seem that the [Canadian Border Services Agency] made the right decision today,” said David Ouellette of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “Through his incitement to violence, glorification of terrorism, and anti-Semitic vitriol, he was clearly not admissible to Canada.”

Brooklyn Jewish school bus arson investigated as hate crime

Police on Tuesday were looking for five African-American youths seen on video torching a Jewish school bus in a Brooklyn neighborhood marred by race riots in the 1990s.
An 11-year-old boy has already been arrested and charged as a juvenile with arson and criminal mischief in the Sunday evening blaze, which is being investigated as a possible hate crime. Surveillance video shows a group of boys running off the bus as it catches on fire, police said.
The bus belonged to the Bnos Chomesh Academy, a girls' high school in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, where tensions between the Jewish and black communities living side by side spurred riots in 1991. Police Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said a group of six youths took flat cardboard boxes on the unlocked bus and set them on fire on the seats.
"It was purposefully done with prior planning," Boyce said. "Clearly this was a religious school bus. Anyone in the community knows that."
It was the third incident being investigated by police as a possible hate crime during the past week in the neighborhood. On Friday, a bus driver for a different Jewish school said his side mirror was pelted with a brick and smashed by someone.

Salesforce acquires Israeli startup Implisit for tens of millions of dollars

Companies around the globe are constantly looking for new ways to improve their sales teams’ efficiency, with many methods relating to their CRM (customer relationship management) software. To aid this process, Salesforce has acquired the Israeli startup Implisit, which developed a technological solution for forecasting potential deals through analysis of sales teams’ and their clients’ correspondence and existing documents.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Salesforce has acquired the company for “tens of millions” of dollars, citing people familiar with the matter. Salesforce is in the midst of a startup acquisition campaign, with five different company purchases in the last five months: MetaMind, PredictionIO, SteelBric, MinHash, and now Implisit. The enterprise giant has also purchased Israel startups in the past: In 2011, Salesforce bought Navajo Systems, followed by the buyout of BlueTail a year later.
Implisit has built software that is essentially another layer of analysis on top of the company’s corporate CRM systems. Its technology combines full automation, algorithmic data mining, and intelligent data entry to provide meaningful insights for its client’s sales teams.
Implisit’s system knows how to dig through the sales team’s textual information and help them in every aspect of their CRM activities. It uses emails and different modes of communication between the sales team and the client to estimate the likelihood of a potential sale and provide predictive analytics.

The Lost—and Found—Jews of Crete

During the Nazi occupation of Greece in 1944, the Gestapo rounded up the roughly 300 Jews living on the isle of Crete. They were herded onto a cargo ship headed for the Greek mainland with Auschwitz as their ultimate destination, but were spared the gas chambers in a cruel twist: The British torpedoed the ship. No one survived.
Etz Hayyim synagogue is the only remnant of the Ovraiki, or Jewish Quarter, in Chania, Crete’s second-largest city, which was home to the island’s Jewish community. The building stands in the same place it’s been since the Middle Ages, crammed into the city’s old town, a walled maze of alleys fanning out from a pretty harbor with a medieval lighthouse. The Ovraiki’s Jewish community stretched back some 2,300 years, surviving all kinds of invaders: Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottomans. Today, though, there are barely more than a dozen Jews left in Crete, and much of the quarter is home mostly to Starbucks and shops selling “I Love Crete” T-shirts.
For decades after Chania’s Jewish community was destroyed, the synagogue stood dormant. It was desecrated. Used as a dump, a urinal, and kennel. Pounded by earthquakes. Filled with dead animals and broken glass, its mikveh oozing muck.
Then, after half a century, Nicholas Stavroulakis arrived and took on the synagogue as his mission, starting reconstruction in 1996. Today, Etz Hayyim holds weekly Shabbat services and hosts a research library with some 4,000 volumes—which began with Stavroulakis’ personal collection. Next month, Etz Hayyim will honor both its past and its future: On June 14, it will host both its annual memorial service for the hundreds of Crete’s Jews lost during WWII, as well as an exhibit marking the 20th anniversary of the reconstruction.
In a recent interview at his family home in Chania, Stavroulakis told me how Etz Hayyim came to be so important to him. “It called out to me,” he said. “It had become a monument to the victory of Hitler and the Nazis. Not only had the Jews all been killed but their very history was being erased. To my mind, it had to be saved at all costs.”

Ernest Michel, Auschwitz survivor and Jewish leader, dies, 92

Ernest (Ernie) Michel, who after surviving Auschwitz and a forced death march went on to become a prominent American Jewish communal leader, has died at 92.
Michel died at his home in Manhattan on Saturday.
He worked as a Jewish communal professional for more than 60 years, joining the staff of the United Jewish Appeal in 1947, according to UJA-Federation of New York. He served as its executive vice president from 1970 to 1989, overseeing the merger that created UJA-Federation of New York.
Michel also served as chairman of the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and negotiated with the Mormon Church over the church’s practice of posthumously baptizing Jews who died in the Holocaust.
According to an interview printed on Wollheim Memorial, a site featuring testimonies of numerous Holocaust survivors, Michel was born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1923, the son of a cigarette manufacturer. In 1939, he was deported to a forced labor camp and later to Auschwitz. After a forced death march to Buchenwald in January 1945, he was forced on a second death march in April, which he managed to escape.

Inside Israel's Secret Startup Machine

Even in the hallowed annals of teenage hackerdom, this never-before-told story might top them all. In the early 1990s Avishai Abrahami found himself, as required for most Israelis when they graduate from high school, enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces. But Abrahami had been assigned to a division he wasn’t allowed to speak of, not even to his parents–a crack cybersecurity and intelligence team known as Unit 8200.
He was given an assignment that seemed right out of Mission: Impossible. Break into the computers of a country that remained in a state of hostility with Israel. The task contained several hurdles: First, figure out how to get into those computers; second, how to crack the encryption; and finally, the monumental challenge, how to access the “enormous amount” of computing power necessary to decrypt the data.
So here’s what Abrahami did once he thought he could breach the targeted computers: He broke into the computers of two other hostile countries and hijacked their processing power to suck out the data held by the first target. A masterwork of spycraft–and a primitive precursor to cloud computing–done without leaving his chair in Tel Aviv.
“If we had to do it with a computer researcher,” says Abrahami, “it would have taken us a year. It took us a day. I’m trying to think what would have happened if someone had discovered it, what a crisis that would have created.”
But (until now) no one ever did. Which is consistent with a unit whose existence, until roughly a decade ago, had never even been publicly acknowledged or identified.
The public did, however, hear about Abrahami, who’s now 45. After leaving Unit 8200, he cofounded Wix, currently one of the world’s leading cloud-based Web-development platforms.

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