In Line with U.S. Antiboycott Laws to Protect Israel
July 13, 2011
Eli E. Hertz
The Antiboycott laws under the U.S. Export Administration Act of 1979 [as amended in August 1999] were written specifically to protect Israel from the Arab League and other Moslem countries.On Monday, July 11, 2011 the Knesset [the Israeli Parliament] passed an Antiboycott law against those who promote and call to boycott Israel.Israel's Attorney-General claims that the Israeli boycott laws' border on unconstitutionality. A look at the U.S. Antiboycott laws objectives, should be helpful in defending the Israeli law.
"The [U.S.] Antiboycott laws discourage, and in some circumstances, prohibit U.S. companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel sponsored by the Arab League, and certain Moslem countries, including complying with certain requests for information designed to verify compliance with the boycott. Compliance with such requests may be prohibited by the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and may be reportable to the Bureau."
The U.S. Laws Prohibits among others:
"Agreements to refuse or actual refusal to do business with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.
"Agreements to discriminate or actual discrimination against other persons based on race, religion, sex, national origin or nationality.
"Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about business relationships with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.
"Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about the race, religion, sex, or national origin of another person."Acting against the U.S. laws is considered a criminal behavior and carry with it penalties of up to $1 million and 20 years imprisonment per violation.
For the entire U.S. Antiboycott Compliance text see: http://www.blogger.com/www.bis.doc.gov/complianceandenforcement/antiboycottcompliance.htm#boycottlawshttp://law.justia.com/cfr/title48/48-4.0.4.34.40.2.1.10.html
United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC) and lead a 145-person joint, coalition and interagency team. The 16 US-DoD personnel assigned to the USSC form the heart of this unique organization and we work with nine international partners of which Canada and the United Kingdom play critical leadership roles. These DOD members are assigned to the State Department and State pays all the bills except for salaries; my boss is the Secretary of State. We live in the region with our headquarters in Jerusalem.
program funding is separate from the $2.994B in direct assistance to the State of Israel that Congress approved for FY 2011
Jack Saadeh, head of Pal-Mark, one of the major hotel and restaurant suppliers in the West Bank, opened a cosmopolitan new café, Jasmine, in the Al-Tira section of Ramallah. Since May, the café has been bustling. Pal-Mark increased its profits by about 25 percent in 2010, said Saadeh, attributing the growth to Fayyad’s government.
He, however, faces the most difficulty distributing goods internally within the West Bank. “The checkpoints and access roads we must use to bypass settlements slow down the process,” Saadeh told IRIN, and “prices of basic commodities are inflated by the flat sales tax set by Israel.”
The Palestinian economy is growing but remains unsustainable, with large sections of the population still unemployed and trapped by rising poverty, says a new report by the International Monetary Fund...Still, the IMF is upbeat. “The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is now able to conduct sound economic policies expected of a future Palestinian state,” it said.
Hadassah Hospital of Har Hatzofim has become a frequent target of Arab attackers, director Professor Tzvi Stern told MKs in a meeting held Tuesday. Forty-three violent attacks have been reported in 2011 alone, he said. “They throw rocks at the hospital from roofs of houses in the neighborhood and use slings [to launch rocks] as well. Patients have choked due to tear gas, a doctor fainted, a nurse was injured by a rock,” he said. “The hospital guards wear bulletproof vests and helmets; the medical staff are afraid to travel to the hospital at night.”
...In the lead-up to the debate MK Afu Agbariya protested the assumption of Arab involvement, leading MK Aryeh Eldad to sarcastically propose Eskimo involvement.
Shabbat boundary rock with Hebrew etching discovered
An ancient rock inscription of the word “Shabbat” was uncovered near
Lake Kinneret this week – the first and only discovery of a stone
Shabbat boundary in Hebrew. The etching in the Lower Galilee community of Timrat appears to date from the Roman or Byzantine period.
...Mordechai Aviam, head of the Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret College...“This is the first time we’ve found a Shabbat boundary inscription in Hebrew,” he said. “The letters are so clear that there is no doubt that the word is ‘Shabbat.’”
Aviam said Jews living in the area in the Roman or Byzantine era (1st - 7th centuries CE) likely used the stone to denote bounds within which Jews could travel on Shabbat. The Lower Galilee of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages had a Jewish majority – many of the Talmudic sages bore toponyms indicative of Galilee communities.
A prominent Long Island Jewish leader was caught with his dreidel out in a string of sordid sex tapes, according to sensational Manhattan court records. Rabbi Avraham Rabinowich -- who leads the wealthy, Conservative Bellmore Jewish Center and is vice president of the Long Island Board of Rabbis -- allegedly made appointments with prostitutes on the Sabbath shortly after services. He was then caught on camera in a hotel room enjoying some hard-core, commandment-breaking action, according to blockbuster court papers filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
...[the] estranged wife, Amora, a respected psychologist, got wind of the tawdry tricks while they were going through a bitter custody battle, she said. She managed to have Rabinowich secretly filmed with a call girl and entered the photographic evidence into the record of the bitter custody case. "Since when are prostitutes kosher?" Amora Rabinowich told The Post. "He was coming to court claiming he was this pious individual, but he was using the phone on the Sabbath to meet prostitutes. "And what kind of rabbi is he? He didn't even take these prostitutes to the mikvah [Jewish ritual cleansing bath] first. "What is he doing, praying or laying?"
Rabbi Ila'i said: If a person is tempted by his evil urge [note: yetzer is usually connotative of a sexual charcater] he should go to a city where he is not known, dress in black clothes, cover his head in black, and do what his heart desires so that G-d's name will not be desecrated.
...the person is bidden to first delay his intended actions by going to a city where he is not known. This lengthy trip will serve as a cooling off period. He is then told to dress humbly which should further serve as a reminder of what he should be doing compared to what he plans on doing. Rather than offering carte blanche permission to sin, the Talmud is suggesting a form of indirect rebuke to prevent the person from sinning [see Rashi in the name of Rav Hai Gaon and Chiddushei HaRan; Tosafot, Kiddushin 40a]. The desecration of G-d's name is a subterfuge to convince this sick individual to follow the path to health.
Malcolm Taub, a former lawyer for the rabbi, blasted Amora, saying, "This is a very sick woman . . . This man has gone through hell with this woman."
According to papers filed by Amora, the rabbi wound up arranging a romp through a madam who really was one of his wife's private eyes...He was eventually filmed with the hooker at the low-rent Pam Am Hotel in Queens on March 18, 2006, the court papers claimed. A second woman in the photo was the private eye, Amora Rabinowich said.
Fear ruled Labour's media mindset – not principle
We in Labour were cowed from reforming the media – but the Press Complaints Commission can still work, given teeth
...no issue of priority or principle was involved. We simply chose to be cowed because we were too fearful to do otherwise...politicians [need] to ensure that it is not primarily they who are protected from the "feral beast", but the public. This requires not statutory regulation but a robust, independent process to enable individuals to make right the falsehoods that slip through, or slander that sometimes gets pumped out by news rooms in the name of "press freedom".
There is now consensus that the vehicle for self-regulation, the Press Complaints Commission, is not fit for purpose...Let me offer five simple ideas to ensure that the PCC or its successor better reflects the public interest by strengthening its independence and investigatory powers.
First, follow the money...The funding of the PCC needs to be administered by a genuinely independent body...Second, re-write the code...to re-draw and monitor a new, tougher code. Third, readers' editors. If newspapers really believe in self-regulation, they won't have a problem with ensuring that readers' editors are given prominent positions within their organisations and clear powers to correct published stories...
Fourth, pre-publication intervention. When an individual realises that a newspaper is preparing to publish something that is wrong or unjustifiably intrusive, the PCC may currently contact the paper on the individual's behalf. This needs strengthening...
Fifth, digitise the process. Technology has shone a much brighter light on the nooks and crannies of public life. Public bodies should be much more open about media inquiries. Media organisations should be obliged to publish online the extent to which they check stories and the full response they receive...
The unusually heavy barrage suggests the US has no intention of halting its drone programme despite tensions with Pakistan
Three suspected US missile strikes in north-western Pakistan in less than 12 hours have killed at least 38 alleged militants, an unusually heavy barrage at a time when relations between the two countries are badly strained, Pakistani intelligence officials said...
...In the latest strike, suspected US missiles hit a house in Dremala village in the South Waziristan tribal area early on Tuesday, killing at least eight alleged militants, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. Two other officials put the death toll from the strike at 13...Before dawn on Tuesday, suspected US missiles hit a house in the Shawal area of North Waziristan, killing 10 alleged militants...Late on Monday, suspected US missiles hit a house in Gorvak village in North Waziristan, killing at least 20 alleged militants...The US refuses to publicly acknowledge the covert CIA drone programme in Pakistan...
"Those who support criminal sanctions on mistaken – even abhorrent, even offensive – ideas, give weapons to their enemies. The struggle against those who support boycotts must be waged in the field of public discourse. This is not easy. The falsehood industry is working overtime. But we must be grateful that it is far from victory. The achievements of the boycotters are negligible. But part of the Israeli Right seems intent on strengthening them."
It does not make organizing boycotts something that would be adjudicated in Israeli criminal court. Rather it creates “legal standing” for those injured by such boycotts, so that they will have the right to go to court to sue the boycott organizers. This is far less problematic from a civil liberties point of view than criminalizing the boycotters. It means that
enterprises operating in the West Bank could sue those leftist groups
promoting boycotts for compensation for damages caused to them. As one example, the AHAVA cosmetics firm has been targeted by the boycott Hitlerjugend, who claim they take minerals from the West Bank, although I think they are counting the Dead Sea, much of it in pre-1967 Israel, as the West Bank. All in all, the bill is a major blow against Israel’s treasonous Left. The Israeli Left is chanting in unison the mantra that Israelis are allowed to boycott cottage cheese but not West Bank enterprises. Well, they are boycotting cottage cheese because they think its price too high, and they are welcome to boycott AHAVA cosmetics for the same reason. The problem is that they are seeking to demolish any Israeli business that so much as hires a single settler to do work for it, and their economic aggression is based on political radicalism, not consumerism.
[MK] Mr. Elkin, the sponsor of the legislation, said that its principal importance was “the fact that the calls to boycott the State of Israel increasingly have come from within our own midst, and that makes it hard to wage a battle against a boycott in the world.”
“For years now there have been laws in the United States that come with fines and prison sentences for anyone who calls for a boycott of Israel, and yet the Israeli who persuades American companies to boycott us is completely exempt. That is ludicrous,” Mr. Elkin was quoted as saying in the popular Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
He was referring to a federal law in the United States that forbids Americans from complying with, furthering or supporting a boycott of a country that is friendly to the United States.
In defiance of the law, Peace Now launched a new campaign calling for the boycott of wine and olive oil produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank
Refugees to their homes in occupied Palestine known as “Israel”...Activists will name the Flotilla as, “Ship your luggage, Return to Palestine”...The ultimate direction is...[the] Israeli sea ports of Haifa and Ashkelon...the refugees will implement the Right of Return as stated through International law.So, all of Israel is "occupied Palestine". No room for territorial compromise nor a two-state solution.
One of the oddities of life in Jerusalem is that everyone knows where the future border will run between the Palestinian East and the Israeli West—despite the tiresome insistence of the Israeli government that the city will never again be divided. For example, north of the Old City the line will correspond more or less to what is now called Road Number One, a four-lane road that runs roughly north to south until it reaches the Walls of the Old City, where it turns sharply west just before the Damascus Gate. I drive this road several times a week on the way up to my office at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, and the dividing line between Palestinian and Israeli neighborhoods couldn’t be more clear. On the left side of the road, heading north, are the ultra-orthodox neighborhoods Me’a Shearim and Beit Yisra’el; across the street, on the right side of the road, is the well-known Palestinian neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah and the principal Palestinian shopping street, Salah ed-Din.
...sadly, it looks very much as if the current wave of racist hysteria is only gaining strength in Israel. Moreover, as is usually the case with modern nationalism, the political center and the more moderate right show no signs of attempting to hold back the tide [that is a lie]. Indeed, a number of members of the government, which is in any case dominated by settler parties, regularly contribute to the inflammatory rhetoric. What’s left of the old Israeli left is fragmented, diminished, and politically ineffectual.
Something quite new is under way in Palestine...
A Mediterranean variant of Gandhian-style mass protest has by now taken root among Palestinian communities in several parts of the West Bank: Ma’asara, Nabi Saleh, Dir Kadis, Na’alin, and Bil’in, to mention only a few. There is by now a clear awareness among many that non-violent resistance is far more likely to be effective against the Israeli occupation than violence; and these days the humane principles of Gandhi and Martin Luther King are frequently and clearly articulated in Arabic by grass-roots Palestinian leaders.and
Non-violent resistance is also the official policy of the Palestinian government in Ramallah.
No one would claim that all Palestinian factions have renounced violence, but spokesmen for the government in Ramallah have argued, with some justice, that the recent Fatah-Hamas rapprochement reflects a recognition by Hamas that they have failed and that the non-violent strategy of the moderates is working.
Here, then, is the other future for Jerusalem, the alternative to the settlers’ program. On one side, we have a violent, mystically charged racism with its vision of brute domination of one people by another, and of an endgame of perpetual disenfranchisement and dispossession. On the other side, we have the prospect of a free Palestine, with its capital in East Jerusalem, the end of the Occupation, and the realistic hope of an agreement based on compromise and mutuality, an agreement whose details are by now common knowledge and broadly acceptable to a majority on both sides of the Green Line (it is one of the paradoxes of Israeli politics that Israelis consistently elect governments far to the right of their own positions, while polls continue to show that about two-thirds of Israelis support an agreement along the lines everyone knows are feasible). You’d think it would be an easy choice.
Centuries after the Spanish Inquisition led to the forced conversion of Jews to Catholicism, an ultra-orthodox rabbinical court in Israel has issued a religious ruling that recognizes descendants from the insular island of Majorca as Jews.
The opinion focused narrowly on the Majorcan community of about 20,000 people known as chuetas...The religious court in Israel, led for more than 40 years by Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, sent another rabbi to the island in May to explore its warren of streets where a synagogue once stood and to examine the family trees of some of the chuetas who trace lineage back 500 years.
...said Rabbi Israel Wiesel, a judge from Israel who explored the community in Palma, roaming the street where, for generations, many chueta families have operated jewelry stores. “Unlike other Marranos in Spain and Portugal, who lost their line of history,” he said, “this particular community is unique and kept the pure line of history for the last 700 years, which means they are Jewish.”
In May, the regional government of the Balearic Islands became the first to create a memorial ceremony for Jewish descendants, marking the deaths of 37 people who were executed in 1691 by the Inquisition, and expressing regrets for persecution that chueta families suffered through the centuries.
Shavei Israel, a private group that offers support and religious training for Jewish descendants in Spain and Portugal, had been pressing for the recognition for years. The result, according to its founder, Michael Freund, is that now “they no longer need to live in between worlds. We have succeeded in opening the door for them to come home.”...
The increasing settler expansion and violence in the West Bank is a misguided attempt to change the facts on the ground.
...Israeli settlers are intent on changing the facts on the ground...Palestinians face intimidation and humiliation on a daily basis as homes are demolished to make way for new settlements...The government continues to confiscate land from Palestinians without cause, most recently 20 hectares near Ramallah to retroactively "legalise" a settlement outpost. The settlement boundaries are demarcating the future Israeli state in the minds of the Netanyahu government...Any lasting Arab-Israeli peace depends, at a minimum, on a viable Palestinian state that includes the land these settlements have squatted on...The best case will be for the settlements to be willingly abandoned...expanding settlements and settler violence is not just a ticking clock, but a timebomb.Did you notice how all the wrongs that Arabs have done and continue to do is worked into the editorial - but as a Jewish 'crime'?
Why do the programs of the Jerusalem US Consulate General ignore and discriminate Jewish residents of the territories under the jurisdiction of the CG as regards programs for democracy, sport, culture, science, etc.
Example: "Applicants must be a Palestinian resident in Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, or the West Bank"
see: http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/fellowships.html
The political context has shifted abruptly against the flotilla organizers: The Hamas role in organizing the flotillas has become harder to ignore -indeed, Hamas has ceased even to deny it. Few European governments wish to act as Hamas’ powder monkey. Even Turkey -which last year looked the other way as violent men assembled aboard the Mavi Marmara en route to Israel - has redirected its policy. Turkey has accepted the UN report that confirms that Israel acted lawfully in stopping the 2010 flotilla attempt. The two countries are now jointly working to craft a statement that, according to one witty observer, “will sound like an apology in Turkish, but not in Hebrew.”
The best to be said for this picture is that it does give a good color view of some rural areas of Israel, where most of it was shot. And it also gives some good views of Miss Loren, who looks pretty snappy in the tight-fitting shorts and sweater — ...
“We have to make progress on settlements,” Mr Obama said. “Settlements have to be stopped.”
...was initiated when religious squabbles over holy places in the Ottoman towns of Jerusalem and Bethlehem prompted Russia to march troops into present-day Romania, threatening the partition of Ottoman lands. In response, the Ottoman Empire declared war, and Britain and France rallied to its defense. The devastating combat around the Black Sea proved unbearable for Russia: two-thirds of the soldiers killed in the war were Russian. After losing Sevastopol, Russia accepted a humiliating peace.
The Crimean War was the first major war to be covered by professional foreign correspondents, who reported on the disastrous blundering of commanders and the horrors of medical treatment at the battlefront. Today, we remember fragmentary stories: the charge of the Light Brigade, symbolizing the blundering; Florence Nightingale, for the medical treatment. But the real war has faded away, eclipsed by the two vastly worse world wars that were to come.
Still, the Crimean War — in which three-quarters of a million soldiers and untold multitudes of civilians perished — shattered almost four decades of European peace. It inflamed Russia’s rivalry with the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans, providing the tinder for World War I. And by thwarting Russian’s ambitions in Europe, it made possible the fatal rise of Germany.
In “The Crimean War: A History,” Orlando Figes restores the conflict — which predated the American Civil War by eight years — as “a major turning point” in European and Middle Eastern history. He argues forcefully that it was “the earliest example of a truly modern war — fought with new industrial technologies, modern rifles, steamships and railways, novel forms of logistics and communication like the telegraph, important innovations in military medicine and war reporters and photographers directly on the scene.” The ferocious yearlong siege of Sevastopol “was a precursor of the industrialized trench warfare” of World War I.
Today, the Cabinet will decide on the demarcation of Israel's exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean Sea. This boundary will delineate the area in which the state enjoys exclusive economic rights, including the right to exploit the sea's natural resources. The area that we are talking about borders on Lebanon and Cyprus to the north. The outline that Lebanon submitted to the UN is significantly further south than the line Israel is proposing. It also conflicts with the line that we have agreed upon with Cyprus and, what is more significant in my eyes, it conflicts with the line that Lebanon itself agreed upon with Cyprus in 2007. Our goal is to determine Israel's position regarding its maritime border, in keeping with the principles of international maritime law.
...Last August, Lebanon submitted to the United Nations its version of where the maritime border should be - the exclusive economic zone. In November, it submitted its version of its western border, with Cyprus.
The Lebanese proposal does not include the large Tamar and Leviathan gas prospects, operated by Delek Energy and U.S. company Noble Energy. But the National Infrastructure Ministry found that the proposal contains reserves with a potential value in the billions of dollars.
The Lebanese also sent their version to the United States, which conducted an expert review and endorsed the document. A senior Foreign Ministry official told Haaretz that the American diplomat in charge of the issue was Frederic Hof, who was responsible for Syria and Lebanon under the former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Hof has kept the Israel-Lebanon brief despite Mitchell's resignation two months ago.
In April, Hof began shuttling between Beirut and Jerusalem. A senior administration official told Haaretz that Hof's main goal was to prevent the border from becoming a source of tension between Israel and Lebanon, which could give Hezbollah a pretext for targeting Israeli gas installations.
Beyond the political and diplomatic interest, the United States has an economic interest in keeping the parties calm, not least because American companies are involved in the search for gas an oil in Israel, Lebanon and Cyprus. Hof told his counterparts in Jerusalem that Israel should cooperate with setting the maritime border to prevent the creation of an "underwater Shaba Farms," referring to a contested area on the Israel-Lebanon border.
The Foreign Ministry official said Israel had asked the Americans to relay a warning to Lebanon on the matter. Foreign Ministry officials told Hof that Israel would not allow a provocation on the matter or an attack on Israeli gas installations. They said Israel would consider such an attack an attack on its sovereign territory and would retaliate "strongly" against Lebanon.
Hof responded by suggesting that Israel submit to the United Nations its own outlook on the border and try to launch a dialogue. Hof asked Israel not to turn the issue into a political spat but to see it as an economic and technical matter that could benefit all parties.
Israel rejected indirect talks via the United Nations, calling on Lebanon to begin negotiations on all border issues, not just the maritime border. The foreign and infrastructure ministries believe that Lebanon is claiming vast offshore territories that belong to Israel under international law.
"It's important to provide the UN with the Israeli version of the border as soon as possible, to react to Lebanon's unilateral move," a senior Foreign Ministry official told Haaretz. "Not responding could be interpreted as a tacit agreement. We must act fast to ensure Israel's economic rights in these areas."
Israel has become even more concerned about the positioning of the border after learning recently that a Norwegian company has begun searching for gas in the area. The search is due to be completed within months, and the Lebanese government hopes to use the findings to license international energy companies to probe areas that could be in Israel's exclusive economic zone.
In The Israel Boycotts Wars, Firing (And Downing) New Shots
Conservative movement’s Men’s Clubs calls off boycott of several Scottish distilleries
That was the message last week from Rabbi Charles Simon just two weeks after he suggested that his fellow Conservative rabbis and their men’s clubs consider a counter-boycott against the Scottish municipality of West Dumbartonshire. The action came in response to the municipal council’s decision to bar its public libraries from buying books by Israeli authors.
Rabbi Simon, executive director of the Conservative movement’s Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, said he had also “suggested to our constituency that they write to the three scotch distributors” that have part of their operations in the municipality. Among the three distilleries named were Morrison Bowmore, Loch Lomond and Chivas Brothers.
...Rabbi Simon said he does not believe that any of the distilleries lost business from the counter-boycott, and he pronounced the whole thing a success.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” he said. “It was not about the scotch but the council. We made a big statement. It was bigger than I anticipated. Hopefully the council will now reconsider its naïve if well-intended act.”
Asked why he was calling off the lobbying campaign, Rabbi Simon replied: “Prolonging this won’t make any difference. Maybe there has been enough pressure on the council that it will reconsider. That’s the best we could hope for.”
onto Chulent, a weekly gathering of young, alienated Orthodox and formerly Orthodox Jews in Manhattan [i blogger here about it; and about Gitty]. She had no idea that she was about to embark on one of the most improbable movies of her career.
Four years later she is sending DVDs of her feature-length motion picture “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish” to film festivals, agents and famous literary figures...In Annenberg’s retelling of Romeo and Juliet, the character of Friar Laurence is transformed into Rabbi Laurence. Instead of coming upon what he assumes is a deceased Juliet in a tomb, Romeo lays eyes on her in a tahara shtibl.
It seems incongruous, at times, to hear Yiddish coming out of actors’ mouths as we see Shakespearean English in the subtitles on the screen. About 65% of the movie is in Yiddish.
The film not only includes the traditional Shakespearean story line — altered so that Hasidic sects resembling Satmar and Lubavitch substitute for the warring Montague and Capulet clans — but a story within a story: A substantial portion of the plot mirrors the real-life misadventures of its two stars, young Hasidim who left their communities and ended up on the wrong side of the law before they ended up in front of the camera. Neither had ever watched a movie before, let alone acted in one, before they left the Satmar orbit.
There has been plenty of drama for real in Annenberg’s life during the last year. She not only finished “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish” but underwent cancer surgery and buried her mother. The night her mother died, Weiss and Zafir showed up, the director recalled. “They prayed and prayed and prayed,” she said. “And it helped me a lot.”
The film was finished just days before its first public screening, in front of a sellout crowd at the Berlin Jewish Film Festival on May 2. Annenberg, Weiss and Zafir were on hand when the movie won the festival’s Audience Favorite award.
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival rejected “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish,” but the film was solicited for upcoming Jewish film festivals in England, Australia and Boston.
Ilan Hartuv, who was one of the [Entebber] hostages, is taking this opportunity to shatter a widely accepted myth regarding an event related to the hijacking: the claim that the terrorists separated Jews from non-Jews, in a way reminiscent of Nazi selections in the extermination camps.
"There was no selection applied to Jews: Entebbe was not Auschwitz," says Hartuv in an interview with Haaretz.
Hartuv, 83, a retired Foreign Ministry employee, was on the flight accompanying his mother, Dora Bloch, to a family gathering in Paris. Bloch, who was 73 at the time, took ill during the hijacking and was hospitalized in Entebbe when the IDF operation took place. She was then murdered by agents of Ugandan ruler Idi Amin in retaliation for the mission.
"The terrorists separated the Israelis from the non-Israelis," says Hartuv, one of the unofficial leaders of the hostages, and the official translator from English to Hebrew in talks with Amin, who visited the hostages a number of times. "The separation was done based on passports and ID cards. There was no selection of Jews versus non-Jews."
On the third day of the hijacking, the hijackers demanded that all the Israelis, including those with dual citizenship (Israeli and foreign ), assemble in the transit hall of Entebbe airport. They were joined by the plane's crew members, led by the French captain, Michel Bacos. The rest of the passengers, carrying non-Israeli passports, were transferred to another hall. Later they were freed and flown to Paris.
"Many of the freed hostages were Jewish," Hartuv explains. "In the talks my friends and I conducted with some of the terrorists, they told us explicitly: We're not against the Jews, only against Israel. It is true that the female German terrorist acted like a Nazi. She yelled and threatened to kill us all the time. But some of her friends acted differently toward us
Escalating tensions between settlers and Palestinians today recall the first days of the second intifada
He is known rightly as a trusted partner and an honest interlocutor, as they say in diplo-speak, and that’s why President Obama relied on him so heavily these past 2.5 years and why we are now sending Dan on this critical new mission... the United States has remained committed to Israel’s security and success. President Obama has upheld and strengthened that commitment.
...Dan Shapiro first visited Israel when he was four years old. He was there with his parents during the Yom Kippur War. He saw civilians hiding in bomb shelters and he watched brave young men and women going off to defend their country. Over the years, he returned time and time again. At Hebrew University during the first intifada, Dan and his classmates spent many hours discussing how Israelis and Palestinians could one day live in peace, side-by-side. Dan has seen firsthand that the status quo is unsustainable.
Back in Washington, Dan has become one of the most respected voices on Middle East affairs and a champion for the U.S.-Israel relationship. He spent years in the Senate, first with Senator Feinstein and then with Senator Bill Nelson...Dan emerged as a real leader and helped enact new sanctions on Syria and to designate Hezbollah’s satellite television operation as a foreign terrorist organization. Since 2009, Dan has counseled the President and worked closely with me
...we know that Dan has a big job ahead of him, but he is someone we have every confidence in. We are, frankly, sorry to lose him. We are not happy about sending him to Israel, although we’re thrilled for him and looking forward to visiting him and Julie. But it is with enormous confidence that we ask Dan to represent our country and the Obama Administration, and help us write a new chapter in the enduring partnership between United States and Israel. God bless you, Dan. (Applause.)
https://twitter.com/#!/ibnezra/status/89287602993242112
@ibnezraJoseph Dana
Most of the israelis in terminal began chanting 'go to syria' you are pieces of shit' when the pale flag was raised #airflotilla
https://twitter.com/#!/ibnezra/status/89286675246759936
@ibnezraJoseph Dana
Recap: three protesters raised palestinian flags at the airport. They were attacked by ppl in the terminal as police arrested them
Israel expropriates Palestinian land in order to legalize West Bank settlement
Move is Netanyahu government's first confiscation of land in the territories.
For the first time in three years, the state has confiscated uncultivated land in the West Bank. The land will be used to legalize a nearby settlement outpost. Last week, acting on orders from the government, the Civil Administration declared 189 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian village of Karyut to be state land, so as to retroactively legalize houses and a road in the Hayovel neighborhood of the settlement of Eli. This would seem to violate Israel's long-standing commitment to the United States not to expropriate Palestinian lands for settlement expansion.
An Ottoman land law dating from 1858 allows uncultivated land to be declared state land. This law, which is still in force in the West Bank, is what was used to carry out the expropriation. According to last Sunday's decree, the lands in question belong to the village of Karyut. Hayovel was built on these lands in 1998 as a temporary outpost, and later permanent houses and an access road were built. A 2005 report on the outposts by attorney Talia Sasson concluded that Hayovel was built on private Palestinian land.
After the Peace Now and Yesh Din organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice against the construction in 2005 and 2009, the Civil Administration reviewed the land's legal status. Since Jordan, which ruled the West Bank from 1948-67, had never registered them in its land registry, the Civil Administration reclassified them as under review. This meant that any place that was still cultivated in the late 1990s would remain private land, but the rest could be declared state land...
ART. 5.
The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.
ART. 6.
The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
Asked to respond to Danon's criticism, Birthright's vice president of international marketing, Doron Karni, told Anglo File the organization is a "non-political educational project" and "that participants tour the sites inside and outside the Green Line that have significant and appropriate educational value, provided there are no security issues."
A Taglit-Birthright tour visiting Israel in early July made a stop in a city that most of these groups have studiously avoided: Hebron. And this stop has raised questions about whether Birthright can travel beyond the so-called Green Line into the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with differing answers from American and Israeli Birthright officials.
...a video posted by the website Coteret showed a few dozen young Birthright participants hanging out on the stone steps leading up to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city...But according to the “safety and security” page on the Birthright website, Hebron falls outside the acceptable parameters of locations the groups are allowed to visit: “Our tours do not travel to or through areas of the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem, other than the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.”
Reached for comment by the Forward, Gideon Mark, the Israeli-based CEO of Birthright, pointed to a parenthetical caveat added to the prohibition: “Changes are possible when permitted by the security authorities.” Mark said...he could recall no other Birthright group visiting Hebron...“Out of the 750 groups that we have this year, only one went,” Mark said. “If this is possible, everything is possible. But practically, this is the proportion of groups until today.” Asked why more groups don’t visit the West Bank, Mark said, referring to the many trip providers of Birthright: “You have to ask them. Trip organizers submit proposals. We see if there is some rationale, and we submit it to the security services.”
But Robert Aronson, head of the Birthright Israel Foundation, the enterprise’s American arm, did not share Mark’s opinion of what was permitted under Birthright rules. In an e-mail message to the Forward, Aronson stated simply that the trip was “clearly against Birthright policy.” Attempts to reach Aronson by phone for further comment were unsuccessful.
Elder of Ziyon critiques a recent essay by Robert Lifton in Huffington Post. I have not read Lifton's piece, but Elder makes an excellent point well worth emphasizing:^
Lifton uses the straw man that Thomas Friedman, Jeffrey Goldberg and others use: that the only choice is between Israel annexing the entire West Bank and Israel giving up the entire West Bank (with minor land swaps.) Yet this is not even close to true.
The concept of a Palestinian Arab state is not identical to the demand that Israel withdraw from all the crucial lands needed for defensible borders and to to maintain a Jewish presense in historically and religiously significant areas.
When Palestinian Arabs insist that the two are congruent, the Western reaction should be that, in that case, the demand for an independent state must not be all that important to the Palestinian Arabs.
But what this view means is that there's no real point to negotiations. It's the "everyone knows" what a peace agreement will look like. But if the final agreement is foreordained, what penalty is there for bad faith on the part of the Palestinians?
But the worst part is that this makes Israel's legitimacy dependent on the say so of the Palestinians. As long as the Palestinians claim that they're "legitimate aspirations" are not fulfilled by Israeli concessions, Israel's legitimacy is questionable. The idea that any nation's legitimacy should be dependent on the whims of its enemy is beyond absurd.
The anger at Israelis who support Palestinian independence resembles the treatment of whites who supported the black civil rights movement.No wonder for she completed her Ph.D. at Princeton University and her dissertation was 'Revolution in Motion: Human Mobility and the Transformation of the South, 1861-1865', on the political, social and cultural impact of human mobility in shaping the history of the American South during the Civil War. She's pro-Democratic Party.
We, the Jews who live in Israel, participate each day, each hour, in the denial of basic rights to Palestinian citizens, in the perpetuation of the settlements and the occupation. We're in a similar position to that of many whites in the United States in the 1960s...The march supporting the Palestinian declaration of independence is a golden opportunity for change. It's the moment we can say to ourselves, to our Palestinian neighbors and the entire world that we too can be freed from the chains of hatred, fear and the racism that grips the State of Israel...Taking part in a solidarity march is a similar choice to the one of the whites who joined the march from Selma. It is the choice to take a stand, in real time, on the right side of history.
Most vital Palestinian goals and the main problems confronting Palestinians today:
The largest percentage (48%) believes that the first most vital Palestinian goal should be to end Israeli occupation in the areas occupied in 1967 and build a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. By contrast, 26% believe the first most vital goal should be to obtain the right of return of refugees to their 1948 towns and villages, 15% believe that it should be to build a pious or moral individual and a religious society, one that applies all Islamic teachings, and 11% believe that the first and most vital goal should be to establish a democratic political system that respects freedoms and rights of Palestinians.
The largest percentage (40%) believes that the second most vital Palestinian goal should be to obtain the right of return of refugees to their 1948 towns and villages. 25% believe that the second goal should be to end Israeli occupation in the areas occupied in 1967 and build a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital, 19% believe that the second goal should be to establish a democratic political system that respects freedoms and rights of Palestinians, and 16% believe the second most vital goal should be to build a pious or moral individual and a religious society, one that applies all Islamic teachings.
The most serious problem confronting Palestinian society today is the spread of poverty and unemployment in the eyes of 36% of the public while 30% believe that it is the continuation of occupation and settlement activities, 18% believe it to be the corruption in some public institutions, and 11% believe it to be the siege and the closure of the Gaza border crossings. Only 2% mentioned the absence of national unity due to the West Bank-Gaza Strip split which was mentioned by 28% in our previous poll in March 2011. It is clear that the signing of the reconciliation agreement and the belief of the majority that the agreement will indeed be implemented has removed this issue from among the list of main problems as perceived by the public.
Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL)
Director of the Kenyon Institute, Jerusalem
The CBRL is currently looking for a new Director at the Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem. The CBRL conducts research in the social sciences and humanities in the Levant as supported by the British Academy. The successful candidate will be a senior/experienced university academic conducting research in a relevant subject within Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories. The CBRL is keen that its research personnel should maintain strong links with universities in the UK. Applicants are therefore encouraged to propose ways in which they might maintain a connection during their period of appointment with a UK university department. The closing date for completed applications and references is 15 August 2011.
UK Office, CBRL
10 Carlton House Terrace
London, SW1Y 5AH
England
http://www.cbrl.org.uk/
The Palestinians aim to win two-thirds support in the 192-member General Assembly at the United Nations — or 129 countries — and are now about 13 countries short of their target.
The assembly's decisions aren't legally binding.
Turner’s celebration of the Fourth of July this year included observance of the town’s 225th anniversary. This beautiful town on the west bank of the Androscoggin River has a proud history, as well as a fascinating period of settlement in the century before its formal incorporation.
Police on Wednesday began boosting their presence in and around the main international arrivals area at Terminal 3, with regular units and Special Patrol Units mobilized. By Thursday afternoon, the full police deployment will be in effect. "The main aim is to prevent sporadic incidents," the spokesman added. The majority of the flights carrying activists are due to arrive from Europe. "We are aware that the whole point of the protesters is to create a media buzz aimed at embarrassing the State of Israel," said Cmdr. Bentsi Sao, head of the central police district in which the airport is located.
...anyone found "disrupting the peace, or attacking police or Interior Ministry officials" will be arrested, he warned.
...Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a meeting with police commissioner Insp.-Gen. Yochanan Danino and Interior Ministry representatives at the airport. "I've ordered all agencies to act with determination to prevent provocations, and also to try and prevent unnecessary confrontations," the premier said...
SHILOH, West Bank (JTA) -- Yisrael Medad remembers when just eight families lived in the red-roofed homes in this Jewish settlement deep in the hills of the West Bank.
Now some 2,500 Israelis live here, and Shiloh has playgrounds, schools and a yeshiva. The red-roofed homes sprawl over several hills, and new homes continue to be built. At the bottom of the hill is the archaeological excavation of the biblical Shiloh, where the tabernacle is believed to have been built. Shiloh is often cited as one of the settlements likely to be uprooted under any final peace deal with the Palestinians. It is relatively isolated, about 28 miles north of Jerusalem, and halfway between the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Nablus.
But with little movement in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Shiloh is not likely to disappear anytime soon. And even in the long term, any discussion of dismantling Jewish settlements in the West Bank is haunted by Israel’s experience six years ago this summer, when the removal of some 9,000 settlers from their homes in the Gaza Strip was followed by a Hamas takeover of Gaza and rocket attacks against Israel. “The expulsion from Gaza should serve as a warning for any withdrawal from Judea and Samaria,” said Hamutal Cohen of the Committee for the Residents of Gush Katif, which was the largest bloc of Jewish settlements in Gaza. “The government totally failed with 9,000 settlers. How can they manage with tens of thousands?”
...Yossi Klein Halevi, a journalist and a fellow at Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute, says support for Jewish settlers in the West Bank has gone mainstream in a way that support for settlements in Gaza never did. “Two generations have grown up in Israel who see the settlements not only as part of Israel but as the heart of Israel,” Halevi told JTA. “Any withdrawal from the West Bank would involve mass refusal of soldiers to follow orders, and I am deeply worried about the ability of the army to continue to be an effective fighting force.”
Halevi estimates that Jewish settlers and their supporters make up 40 percent of some combat units; an Israeli army spokesman said the IDF does not release figures “on such a sensitive subject.” Orthodox men, who constitute a wellspring of support for the settlements, continue to volunteer for combat units in large numbers.
...It’s not clear whether Jews who live in settlements like Shiloh would have the option of staying on under Palestinian sovereignty or whether they would want to remain. Some Palestinian officials, including Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, have welcomed the idea, but PA President Mahmoud Abbas has expressed reservations.
“If a Palestinian state is created and my security could be ensured, I would definitely choose to stay,” said Medad of Shiloh, who has lived in the settlement since 1981.
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