Golda Sought Bombing of Auschwitz

Golda Meir was among Jewish leaders who tried to persuade the United States government to bomb the camp in 1944.

Israel National News
by Dr. Rafael Medoff

Seventy years ago today, the first gassing of prisoners was carried out in the Auschwitz death camp.  Now researchers have found evidence that Golda Meir, the future prime minister of Israel, tried to persuade the United States government to bomb the camp.
On September 3, 1941, the Nazis gassed to death 850 prisoners in Auschwitz. During the next three years, an estimated 1.75-million prisoners, most of them Jews, were murdered in the gas chambers there.

A number of Jewish leaders asked the Roosevelt administration to bomb the camp, or the railways leading to it, in 1944. What was not known until now is that one of those who sought the bombing was a young Zionist leader in Palestine who would later become Israel's prime minister: Golda Meir.
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Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt Israel Philharmonic performance

BBC radio cuts its radio coverage of the London event because of the disruptions • British Culture and Communications Minister Ed Vaizey, who was in the audience, says, “Demonstrators seem to have turned the entire audience pro-Israel.”
Israel Hayom

Pro-Palestinian activists disrupted a Thursday night concert in London by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, causing so much disturbance that the BBC had to cut short its live broadcast of the show.

The orchestra, under the direction of acclaimed conductor Zubin Mehta, was performing at the Royal Albert Hall for the Proms, an eight-week summer series of daily classical music performances in London.
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UN report vindicates Israel's naval blockade of Gaza and right to use force against violence

A special United Nations commission has upheld without question or reservation Israel's right to enforce a naval blockade of Gaza in a report that is remarkably forthright about why the Jewish state must take extraordinary measures for self-defense.

NYDailyNews.com

The panel's conclusion vindicated totally Israel's legal authority to stop the flotilla of six ships that sought to break the embargo in 2010. There were two rationales that bear clear statement:

First: The blockade was imposed to stop Hamas and other radical Palestinians from importing weaponry after raining thousands of rockets into Israel. Second: Preventing shipping into Gaza has a negligible impact on Palestinians' quality of life because the territory's ports cannot berth ships with substantial cargoes of humanitarian supplies.

Those truths make the Palmer Commission report a stunning rebuttal to the world chorus condemning Israeli military action that led to nine deaths on a vessel called the Mavi Marmara that refused to turn back. Chief among those rebuked was the government of Turkey, where the flotilla debarked and which served as its enabler.
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‘Israel’s bullying in eastern Med is over’

The eastern Mediterranean will no longer be a place where Israeli naval forces can freely exercise their “bullying” practices against civilian vessels, a Turkish official said Friday.

Hürriyet Daily News
by Serkan Demirtaş

The official said this would be the outcome of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s statement earlier in the day that “Turkey would take every precaution it deems necessary for the safety of maritime navigation in the eastern Mediterranean.”
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Germany pulls out of Durban III anti-racism conference

Berlin fears event will be misused for anti-Semitism; German FM tells 'Post' move expression of Germany's "special responsibility" to Israel.

JPost

In addition to Germany, a total of nine countries from the UN’s 193 member nations have pulled out of Durban III, including the US, Canada, Italy, Austria, Australia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Israel.
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Iran’s Ominous Red Sea Move

Both Israel and Iran have sent warships into waters south of Israel. FoxNews reported on Wednesday that Israel had deployed two more warships to its Red Sea border with Egypt; Israel already has an unspecified naval presence in the area. Iran, for its part, was dispatching its 15th fleet to the Red Sea.

FrontPage Magazine
by P. David Hornik

An earlier report on Ynet noted that Iran’s 15th fleet comprises a submarine and several warships.
Although it’s an uncertain call, the reports give the impression that Israel’s move came first and Iran’s is a response. As Ynet also reports:
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EU appears split on Palestinian statehood bid two days after Sarkozy’s call for the EU ‘to speak with one voice’

According to diplomatic sources, Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland and the Czech Republic are opposed to the Palestinian unilateral move while Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden are likely to back the UN resolution.

EJP

France and other countries, including Britain, might follow the same path if there is no progress in restarting Israeli-Palestinian talks.
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Israel - Health Ministry: 'Haredi Sector Suffers from Obesity'

Israel - The Health Ministry has determined that there are more overweight people in the ultra-Orthodox sector than in the secular one.

VosIzNeias.com

Yair Amikam stressed in a letter to the chairman of the ministerial Tender Committee that “the problem is seven times worse in the haredi sector than among seculars.”
At first, Amikam stated, the Dairy Board and ministry would work to raise awareness to the issue among children and teenagers. The campaign was to be brought to the sector’s members through a haredi radio children’s show.
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No Democracy for Palestine

PA Security in Action

The arrest this week of a Palestinian university professor by Palestinian Authority security forces serves as a reminder that the Palestinian state that Mahmoud Abbas is seeking will not be much different from most Arab dictatorships.

Hudson New York
by Khaled Abu Toameh

The 122 countries that have promised to vote in favor of a Palestinian state at the United Nations need to ask the Palestinian leadership whether the new state would be free and democratic and respect human rights and freedom of expression.

The Palestinians want a political system that resembles the one in Israel and other Western democracies. They do not want regimes like the ones in Syria, Libya, and many other Arab countries.

The fact that hundreds of Palestinians are being held in Palestinian-controlled jails without trial and are being subjected to various methods of torture shows that democracy and respect for human rights do not exist in the Palestinian Authority's lexicon.
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Israeli aid group off to Africa

Humanitarian group sends delegation to aid thousands in Kenya and Somalia after drought.

The Jerusalem Post
by GIL SHEFLER

An Israeli humanitarian group has sent a delegation to the border of Kenya and Somalia to aid tens of thousands of locals displaced by the worst drought to have hit the Horn of Africa in over 60 years.

IsraAID, in partnership with Operation Blessing International, said on Thursday it had dispatched four Israeli aid workers to a town near the border between the two countries earlier in the week.

“Words cannot describe the situation here. I have never seen anything like it,” said Dana Manor, an experienced aid worker who was in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami and in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. “We visited the camps and the overwhelming refugee influx is putting a stress on the existing infrastructure, people are constantly requesting food, tents [shelters], access to the schools, and water.”
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Jerusalem - Rav Chaim Amsalem Slams Charedi Education, Says Torah Study With Trade To Support One’s Family Is What Chazal Clearly State

Jerusalem - Hundreds of thousands of students begin a new school year today. Some will learn basic Judaism and Torah along with general studies. Some will study Torah in the mornings and general studies in the afternoons, and some will learn Torah exclusively. While the minimal degree of Jewish content in the more secular schools saddens me, I am even more troubled by the third category described above. The haredi world in which I live does not educate children in accordance with Jewish tradition.

VosIzNeias.com

Haredi schools not following Jewish tradition!? Aren’t they the ones who do uphold tradition? Haven’t the more modern movements veered from the path?
The answer is simply that any movement which teaches its children only Torah is a modern aberration.
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BBC Proms radio broadcast pulled after Israel protest

The BBC was forced to pull a live Proms performance of air on Thursday night after a performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was disrupted by protesters.

The Telegraph

The orchestra was due to perform at the prestigious BBC Proms in London despite calls for a boycott of its performance.
But the live broadcast of the performance was pulled from air after protesters interrupted the concert at the Royal Albert Hall, west London.
A BBC spokeswoman confirmed the live broadcast had been taken off air on Radio 3 "as a result of sustained audience disruption".
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The History of Kibbutz in 47 seconds, with music

The Kibbutz from Liron Damir on Vimeo.

The Jordan opportunity

Israel should prepare for day after Abdullah, revive ‘Jordan is Palestine’ option

Ynetnews
by Yoel Meltzer

Should the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN fail to produce any tangible results, current events in Syria may have the unexpected effect of presenting Israel and the region with a very rare opportunity.
 
In addition to Hezbollah possibly losing support from Syria should Assad fall, the ouster of the Syrian dictator could have serious ramifications for the Hashemite regime in Jordan.
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Israeli circumcision skills saving Zulu men

An ancient Jewish religious rite turns out to be a critical weapon in the war against the spread of the HIV virus in South Africa.

ISRAEL21c
by Karin Kloosterman

While San Francisco politicians debate the necessity of the male foreskin removal rite, citing human rights concerns, Zulu King Goodwill Zwelethini of KwaZulu-Natal nods his head. The tribal leader of KwaZulu-Natal, a province of 10 million people in South Africa, recently rescinded a 200-year-old ban on the age-old practice of male circumcision, still conducted in many regions in Africa, after seeing the evidence on the spread of AIDS.

Some estimates suggest than more than half of all HIV infections could be stopped if men are circumcised. Very conservative estimates are one in 10.

"Circumcision is one of the interventions that reduce the risk of transmission," says Maureen Malowany, a medical historian grounded in evidence-based medicine. The Canadian-Israeli woman has started volunteering for the Jerusalem AIDS Project (JAIP), and since March, as the NGO's country coordinator for South Africa, has traveled there twice to help train Zulu medical personnel in the practice of male medical circumcision.
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Ramallah - Report: Israeli Orthodox Rabbi Expresses Support For Palestinian UN Bid

Ramallah - Rabbi Menachem Froman Wednesday supported and expressed his and other Israeli rabbis’ wishes for success to the Palestinian bid to gain full United Nations membership of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital in September, during his meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas.

VosIzNeias.com

Froman said that establishing a Palestinian state benefits the peace process and Israel, as well as working to achieve comprehensive, just peace and stability for the region and the world.
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George Gilder on "The Israel Test," Obama, the Internet...and the Gays?

Official Palestinian Authority Daily Cartoon: All of Israel is "Palestine" and there can be no compromise

Hudson New York
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The Palestinian Authority is telling its people that peace with Israel is not a goal. Instead, the PA says that all of Israel is "Palestine," and that no compromise is acceptable because this principle is "the only red line." This message was expressed by the regular cartoonist, Muhammad Sabaaneh, in the official PA daily.

Published this week, his cartoon displayed a map of all of Israel (excluding the Golan Heights) and the PA areas, with the following text written across the map:

"The only red line"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 21, 2011]

The cartoon is a clear example of the PA's lack of recognition of Israel's right to exist, and sends a message that the PA's real goal is a complete dismantling of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state. This sentiment is implicit in PA ideology but only occasionally is it expressed so explicitly in its controlled media.
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Austria pulls out of 'anti-Israel' Durban III conference

Central European country joins list of 7 countries opposing UN anti-racism event; Swiss government slated to participate.

The Jerusalem Post

BERLIN – Austria does not plan to attend the so-called Durban III antiracism conference, which is slated to take place on September 22 in New York City, a spokesman for Austria’s Foreign Ministry told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg told the Post that “we have no intention of participating in Durban III in September.” Austria has now joined the anti-Durban group of countries, which includes Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Australia, the United States, Canada and Israel.
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Israel and Jerusalem in International Law: The Importance of San Remo

The Unity Coalition for Israel (UCI) and the European Coalition for Israel (ECI) have introduced an ECI film which explains, in historical detail, the legal foundation in international law for the modern State of Israel. The film highlights the key importance of the San Remo Conference following World War I: at San Remo, in 1920, the right of the Jewish state to be re-constituted was incorporated into international law and remains in effect to this day.

In April, 2010, upon the 90th anniversary of the San Remo Conference, Eli Hertz writes,

Reaffirming the importance of the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920 - which included the Balfour Declaration in its entirety - in shaping the map of the modern Middle East, as agreed upon by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States acting as an observer), and later approved unanimously by the League of Nations; the Resolution remains irrevocable, legally binding and valid to this day.

He goes on to write,

Jews are in the Land of Israel as of right and not on sufferance. It is important to point out that political right to self-determination as a polity for Arabs, was guaranteed by the same League of Nations in four other mandates - in Lebanon and Syria [The French Mandate], Iraq, and later Trans-Jordan [The British Mandate].

The film can be seen here.

Source: CAMERA Snapshots

Is BDS campaign working?

It's working in ways the organizers have not intended it to. As it affects primarily commodities (agricultural products, natural resources) it is facilitating Israel's restructuring to high tech economy; which is virtually impossible to boycott (Israel is already producing products that have no competition and the trend will intensity). One other unintended consequence: reduction in demand for low quality labor, and therefore the need for foreign workers and Palestinians. Palestinians are the ones who will really suffer from this boycott as it picks up. As for the Jews: it's a reincarnation of the old prohibition for the Jews to work in agriculture. New form - old substance: we will handle this. If not for the message they are sending I would join the picket lines.
Here is the article:

Anti-Israel boycotters increasingly successful in strangling economy of Jewish state: More than 20 organizations in Europe in 13 countries endorse boycott of Agrexco, Israel’s leading flower exporter

Ynetnews
by Giulio Meotti

Many Israeli agricultural products have been recently targeted by the Israel boycott campaign: tomatoes, peppers, citrus fruit, carrots, melons, strawberries and celery. But the flowers have been the primary obsession of the divestment movement, which wants to strangle the Israeli economy.

Agrexco, Israel’s leading flower exporter, has recently declared bankruptcy, partially due to the global boycott of its produce, according to some reports. More than 20 organizations in Europe in 13 countries endorsed a boycott of Agrexco.
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Coming to a theater near you... Jerusalem in 3D

MAX extravaganza with bird's eye views of the capital city to be screened for next 5-10 years on 35 screens around world.

JPost
by Melanie Lidman

Jerusalem is a city that likes to think of itself as the center of the world and as larger than life. Starting in 2013, it will be larger than life – and 3D – at movie theaters in 35 countries.

Swooping over the Old City, with bird’s eye views in eyepopping 3D projected onto a giant screen, JERUSALEM: IMAX 3D is not your typical documentary about Israel’s ancient capital.
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Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D from JerusalemGiantScreen on Vimeo.

IDF rescues Palestinians during mortar attack on Erez Crossing

Several mortar shells hit the Erez Crossing, just as three Palestinian women and two infants were crossing back into the Gaza Strip after receiving medical treatment in Israel.

On Thursday night (August 25th), the terror organizations from the Gaza Strip continued launching rockets and mortar shells towards Israel.

During the attack several mortar shells hit the Erez Crossing, just as three Palestinian women and two infants were crossing back into the Gaza Strip after receiving medical treatment in Israel, causing damage to the crossing's infrastructure and an electrical shutdown. The power outage disabled gates at the crossing. Two of the women passed through safely but a third woman, along with her infant daughter, got caught between two disabled gates while rockets were falling.

The commander of the Erez crossing and another security officer rescued the woman and her daughter. All of the Palestinian women were brought to a protected shelter at the crossing where they were given a meal for the end of the daily Ramadan fast.

The squad of terrorists that fired a mortar shell hitting the Erez Crossing was targeted shortly afterwards by an IAF aircraft, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Erez Crossing damaged by mortar fire 

Terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip have fired over 15 rockets and mortars at Israel on Thursday, causing severe damage to the Erez Crossing.

The Erez Crossing is used for the movement of Palestinians and foreign staff members of international organizations in and out of the Gaza Strip. It should be noted that this is the second time this week the Erez Crossing has been hit by mortar shells and rockets. Despite rocket attacks from Gaza, the Erez crossing continued to operate in recent days, allowing for the passage of Palestinian medical patients and staff members of international organizations. The supply crossings into Gaza continued to operate, delivering over 150 truckloads of goods and food.

Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs