Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday revealed a secret arms depot belonging to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah near Beirut's International Airport, warning of another catastrophic explosion and calling on the Lebanese people to protest against the terror group and its Iranian sponsors.
"We all saw the terrible explosion at Beirut port last month," he said in a pre-recorded statement broadcast to UN delegates, referring to August 4's huge blast that devastated the Lebanese capital.
He pointed to the site of the blast on a map displayed next to his podium. "The explosion happened here. This is the Beirut port. Two hundred people died, thousands of people were injured, and a quarter of a million people were made homeless," he said.
"Now, here is where the next explosion could take place. Right here. This is the Beirut neighborhood of Janah. It's right next to the international airport. And here, Hezbollah is keeping a secret arms depot."
The depot in the city's Janah neighborhood, the prime minister said, is adjacent to a gas company.
"And it's embedded in civilian housing here, [and] civilian housing here," he said, pointing at the map.
He proceeded to display photographs of the entrance of the facility, which he said was a Hezbollah missile factory.
"I say to the people of Janah, you've got to act now. You've got to protest this. Because if this thing explodes, it's another tragedy," Netanyahu said.
"I say to the people of Lebanon, Israel means you no harm. But Iran does. Iran and Hezbollah have deliberately put you and your families in grave danger. And what you should make clear is that what they have done is unacceptable. You should tell them, 'tear these depots down.'" Full text of Netanyahu's address to the 2020 UN General Assembly
Israel's new ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan on Tuesday claimed the international body was at risk of "losing its right to exist" over its unfair treatment of the Jewish state and predicted it could be defunct by the end of the century.
"The UN is risking the loss of whatever relevance and legitimacy it has left. If the organization can't take action against the worst regimes and continues to cling to the Palestinian obsession, in 75 years there will be no UN to mark its birthday, because it will simply lose its right to exist," Erdan wrote in a column for the Israel Hayom daily.
He was referring to the UN's 75th anniversary, which was marked earlier this month. Israeli leaders have taken a hard line against the UN in recent years, accusing it of disproportionately criticizing Israel while ignoring abuses by other countries.
Erdan, who took up the post in August, lashed the United Nations for turning a blind eye to abuses by Iran, and also singled out the secretary-general, Antonio Gutteres, for omitting mention of Israel's normalization deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in his opening speech at the General Assembly last week.
The UN must "rechart its course" and make room for Israel in its institutions, said Erdan. "I will fight for this with all of my power and I believe that if the UN wants to remain relevant, it must treat Israel fairly and in a balanced way."
Erdan's column was published ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN General Assembly Tuesday evening.
Seated in the General Assembly hall, Erdan introduced Netanyahu, and in his opening remarks protested what he said was the failure of the UN "to encourage more countries" to follow the leads of the UAE and Bahrain in making peace with Israel. "Most states are missing this opportunity," Erdan said.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) has released a new campaign ad Tuesday aimed at Jewish voters in swing states which compares US President Donald Trump and his alleged connections to white nationalism to the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany, according to a press release from the organization.
The new ad features parallel images of antisemitic hate and nationalism in Nazi Germany and the Trump administration, suggesting that American Jews have much to fear from a second term. Some of the images include antisemitic graffiti from 1930s Germany along with images of antisemitic graffiti on a modern American synagogue and Jewish cemetery. The narration also reads: "History shows us what happens when leaders use hatred and nationalism to divide their people." The ad ends with an ominous warning: "Hate does not stop itself. It must be stopped. VOTE."
Halie Soifer, JDCA executive director, said in response to its release that "A majority of American Jews feel less safe today than they did four years ago due to the rise of white nationalism and antisemitism under Donald Trump."
"This, coupled with Trump's assault on our democratic institutions, are reminiscent of the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany. President Trump's use of hatred for political purposes has made America less safe for Jews and we are voting accordingly," she added.
"We must vote like our future as a people depends on it - because it does."
Rabin's image among liberal American Jews has been that of the heroic peacemaker. But recently a more extreme current of misozionist sentiment has pushed traditional Jewish liberalism aside, with groups that support BDS and one state, like JVP, IfNotNow, and even Students for Justice in Palestine, capturing the attention of younger Jews in place of J Street and APN. Their explicitly anti-Israel positions are shared by intersectional groups like BLM.
The online journalist who sent the tweet that caused Ocasio-Cortez to drop out of the Rabin event, Alex B. Kane, represents this stream. He was at one point an editor at Mondoweiss, a site that is a sewer of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish writing. Kane is now a contributing writer to Jewish Currents (edited by Peter Beinart), the new flagship publication of the misozionist movement among American Jews.
Ocasio-Cortez simply made a mistake when she agreed to appear at the APN Rabin affair. Her Jewish supporters are clearly in the progressive, intersectionalist camp with Kane and Beinart, IfNotNow and JVP, and not with the liberals of APN or J Street (the geriatric boomers of AIPAC are not even in the running). When her mistake was pointed out to her, she jumped to where she – a leader of the progressive Left – knew that she belonged.
I have often criticized the "liberal" groups on the grounds that their proposed two-state solution is not compatible with Israel's security. But many of their supporters do believe in a Jewish state and disagree with me about the intentions of the Palestinian leadership, the possible effectiveness of technical safeguards, the demographic threat from the Arab population, and so on. I think they are wrong, but not all of them are anti-Israel. On the other hand, most of the progressive groups and individuals are not even trying to hide their desire to see the Jewish state replaced by an Arab state.
I said before that AOC taught a lesson that American Jews should learn, and it's this:
The progressive Left is not on your side, even if you are a died-in-the-wool two-stater, even if you dislike our Prime Minister, or even if you hate "settlements." These people do not want to end the conflict; they would not be satisfied if Netanyahu quit, and a two-state division along the Green Line wouldn't be enough for them. They want to see the PLO/Hamas win and the Jews lose.
This would be terrible for the 7 million Jews of Israel, who would face death or dispersal if the objectives of these people were achieved. But even if you can't get excited by that, do you want a world where you, personally, as a Jew, have no place to go?
A few years ago the idea that American Jews might need a place of refuge was ludicrous. Is it still so unlikely?
Undergraduate students at Columbia University in New York City have voted in favor of a referendum calling on their school to "divest its stocks, funds, and endowment from companies that profit from the State of Israel's apartheid system and military occupation" in the Palestinian territories.
According to Columbia College's student government, "the number of votes in favor of resolution (61.04%) exceeded both the number of votes against and in abstention."
The referendum was an initiative of the "Columbia University Apartheid Divest" (CUAD) student group — a "joint campaign launched by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and Columbia/Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace."
Voting began last Tuesday and ran through Friday — during the Jewish High Holy Days. Shortly before the start of the vote, Columbia's student newspaper issued a statement apologizing for a pro-Israel ad opposing the measure it had run that it called "deeply inappropriate."
Celebrating the referendum's passage, CUAD posted the election results and congratulated itself on "[p]assing divestment by an incredible margin."
It then published a photo of students covering a sculpture in the middle of Columbia's campus with keffiyehs and Palestinian flags.
In response to the vote, Columbia Hillel's Executive Director Brian Cohen told The Algemeiner, "The process and language of this referendum was one-sided. Its reference to an inapplicable UN apartheid resolution was deeply irresponsible."
"At a University committed 'to advanc[ing] knowledge and learning at the highest level' this referendum does the opposite," he added.
A top Canadian Jewish group is calling on the University of Toronto to defy a campaign to install a violently anti-Israel academic at the head of one of its major programs.
The university was considering placing Valentina Azarova at the head of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at its law school.
The apparent decision not to hire Azarova has prompted howls of outrage from anti-Israel activists, who are putting immense pressure on the university to reverse its stance and hire her.
B'nai Brith Canada urged the university over the weekend not to cave to the pressure.
CEO Michael Mostyn said, "Ms. Azarova is seeking a position that requires fairness, honesty, and academic integrity. But her uncompromising activism, in our opinion, would be a defeat for academic freedom on campus."
"Public opinion is changing now that we are presenting the other side of this story for the first time," he asserted. "We expect that this will continue, and that U of T will stand firm against the current lobbying campaign."
Azarova has claimed she does not intend to do "Palestine work" in her new position, but critics claim that this is highly unlikely given her background.
They note that 90% of her academic work is on the Palestinian issue, with a stridently anti-Israel bias. She has also participated in platforms with aggressively pro-Palestinian positions, such as the hate site Electronic Intifada.
StandWithUs sent a letter on Thursday to Tufts University's president and the dean of its dental school expressing concern about a third-year dental student over his history of antisemitic tweets.
In its letter to Anthony Monaco and Nadeem Karimbux, StandWithUs wrote that Adam Elayan's tweets, which date back as far as 2012 and have since been removed from Twitter, "should raise immediate concern," and that "these apparent sentiments are egregious for a student aspiring to provide dental-health services to the public, and to Jewish or Israeli patients in particular."
StandWithUs warned that "Elayan's online posts present an apparent obsession with conveying hatred for Jews, relaying antisemitic tropes about Jews and posturing about a desire to harm Jews physically."
In a 2014 tweet, Elayan reportedly posted: "I will f—in cremate you Jewish b–ch."
In another tweet that year, he reportedly posted, "LEMME F— THIS YAHOOD [Jewish] B–CHES UP YO."
He also reportedly that year tweeted, "YAHOOD [Jews] RIGGED THE GAME."
In 2015, Elayan reportedly posted tweets that included "Can't stand the yahood [Jews] here"; "Talk is cheap, it's like all of y'all grew up in a Jewish home"; "Hate how Israel currency is all coins stupid Yahood [Jewish] f—s"; and "The only difference between Jews and Muslims is that Jews never like to spend money and Muslims never have any money to spend."
StandWithUs also expressed alarm about Elayan expressing "hatred of Zionism, which is a core part of Jewish identity," citing tweets including "Every certain trait I hate about people stems from the average personality of Zionists"; "I do not refer to Zionists as human beings. They are of primitive standards, comparable to the Neanderthal"; and, "They steal your whole country, that's a Zionist."
Chicago-based @AMPalestine activist Leena Yousef gave her view on when there would be peace in the Middle East: "its forever unfortunately. Palestinians will fight the Jews until 'blood reaches knees.'"https://t.co/R8IDGMyshwpic.twitter.com/uIXdRqQFsZ
In two consecutive articles, published on September 16th and 17th, Independent Arabia's West Bank correspondent Khalil Mousa misrepresented both Israeli and US positions towards negotiations with the Palestinians and the future of the Palestinian Authority.
Although he was made aware of at least one of the falsehoods in the first article via CAMERA Arabic's twitter account (he liked our tweet on the matter only to unlike it later – see screenshot), so far Mousa and his editors failed to correct even that specific detail despite our subsequent request.
In his September 16th article, entitled "Palestinians rely on a Biden victory in the American elections to improve their condition", Mousa mentioned that US president Donald Trump: "moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, and recognized it as the 'united capital of Israel'".
In fact, as we have shown before, the US never recognized a united Jerusalem as Israel's capital, as it considers the municipal borders of Jerusalem – as well as its permanent status – a matter dependent on the future results of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. This was made clear in a statement issued by the State Department on its official website.
As mentioned, Mousa liked our tweet that informed him of the falsehood, only to unlike it later on once we posted a request to correct it:
Previously we reviewed BBC Radio 4's framing of the signing of the Abraham Accords on September 15th in Washington. This post will examine coverage of the same event on BBC World Service radio's flagship news and current affairs programme 'Newshour'.
That day's earlier edition of the programme (from 14:06 here) included the report by Tom Bateman that had already been aired that morning on BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme in which he claimed that "the Gulf deal brings a glimmer of deliverance for Mr Netanyahu" in relation to a "crisis at home".
Bateman also repeated what has been one of the BBC's main talking points ever since this story began:
Bateman: "But for Palestinians the Gulf countries' deal with Israel is a betrayal. They think it breaks years of Arab solidarity over their hopes for an end to military occupation. Countries in the region had offered formal ties with Israel only once Palestinian statehood was achieved."
Listeners to that programme also heard an interview by Frank Gardner with the UAE minister Anwar Gargash, a filmed version of which appeared on the BBC News website.
The later edition of 'Newshour' on that day had the signing of the accords as its top story, with presenter Tim Franks indulging in speculation during his introduction (from 00:11 here). [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
Franks: "And we've got one big story today. It comes out of Washington. The dignitaries on the sun-bathed terrace of the White House a few hours ago appeared to be hoping that today's images will be reproduced for years to come; a sharper definition replay of that grainier footage from decades ago; the then Israeli prime minister under the benign grin of the then US president shaking hands with, in turn, the president of Egypt or the king of Jordan. Today, with Donald Trump presiding, it was the turn of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to appear smiling side by side with the foreign minister of the UAE, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, and the foreign minister of Bahrain, Abdullatif bin Rashid, as they signed diplomatic agreements. Watching all this with frustration, if not fury and despair, were the Palestinians."
Like BBC Radio 4, 'Newshour' managed to cover this topic extensively, but without any contribution from any Israeli official involved in the story. Having downplayed the importance of the Abraham Accords by describing them as "less of a breakthrough than a reflection of existing reality", Franks did however conduct an interview with former Israeli MK Einat Wilf, whom he told:
Franks: "You are keeping millions of Palestinians under occupation. This doesn't move the dial at all on that."
When Wilf stated that the Palestinians "will need to share the land with the sovereign Jewish state", Franks inaccurately claimed that the Palestinians had already agreed to do just that, wrongly insisting that "they've made that clear since 1988".
Nothing to see here, just a @Channel4News presenter retweeting a spurious article in one of the most antisemitic rags in the world today. Nope, nothing to see! https://t.co/qTN8IT5bUP
A bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday announced the launch of an inter-parliamentary task force to combat online anti-Semitism.
"As social media posts do not stop at international borders, members of the national legislatures of the United States, Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom have come together across party lines" to form the coalition, Democratic House member Ted Deutch's office said in a statement.
Deutch will be joined on the task force by fellow Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, along with Chris Smith and Mario Diaz-Balart from the Republican party. From outside the US, Blue and White MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh will represent Israel, MPs Anthony Housefather and Marty Mortantz will represent Canada, MPs Josh Burns and Dave Sharma will represent Australia and MPs Andrew Percy and Alex Sobel will represent the United Kingdom.
Deutch's office said the goals of the task force would include "establishing consistent messaging and policy from legislatures around the world in order to hold social media platforms, including Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Google, accountable."
The congressman told the Jewish Insider that the idea for the inter-parliamentary group was born at the World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem earlier this year. Deutch said he left the gathering feeling "compelled to move forward" with more action to monitor social media sites, which he felt weren't doing enough to combat the phenomenon.
The task force will also seek to adopt transparent policies regarding hate speech, and to raise awareness of online anti-Semitism in particular, the statement from his office said.
A top Australian Jewish group criticized a major bookstore chain for selling a violently antisemitic tome penned by Martin Luther, the founder of Protestant Christianity.
The Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) called the book On the Jews and Their Lies a "depraved" work that "dehumanizes and demonizes Jews," and expressed astonishment that the Dymocks chain was selling it.
The book was written by Luther in 1543, after the medieval Jews' refusal to convert to his new form of Christianity sent him into a rage.
In the book, Luther called the Jews "liars and bloodhounds," "poisonous envenomed worms" and "our plague, our pestilence, our misfortune."
He said that synagogues should be burned and encouraged the murder of Jews, writing, "We are at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord. We are at fault in not slaying them."
The book was a major inspiration for the Nazis, who saw Luther's Jew-hatred as a precursor of their own antisemitism.
In addition, the version being sold by Dymocks contains a forward by the late antisemitic pastor, Texe Marrs, who referred to Jews as a "synagogue of Satan" and an "evil cabal" that was "responsible for virtually all wars and bloodshed on the face of the planet."
Dr. Dvir Abramovich — chairman of the ADC — said in a statement, "This notorious antisemitic tract by a rabid and violent Jew-hater, which called for the murder of rabbis and promoted a program of extermination, served as a blueprint for Hitler's Final Solution. It should not be sold by any bookstore."
"Why in the world is Dymocks sanitizing, mainstreaming, and putting out the welcome mat to a disgusting manifesto, dripping with poison, that fomented genocide against the Jewish people and which inspired the Nazis?" he asked.
President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday condemned the daubing of a neon-yellow swastika on a car in the United Kingdom a day earlier, during Judaism's holiest day.
"This is the shocking sight of rising Antisemitism — a swastika sprayed on a car on Yom Kippur in Britain yesterday. Words of condemnation are not enough. We need Holocaust education and remembrance so governments and societies everywhere actively challenge this threat to Jews," he tweeted, along with a photo of the vandalism.
The incident took place in Bristol's Kingswood neighborhood. It's unclear who was responsible.
Local police said they are investigating.
A local Jewish resident, Nick Bayne, who lives across the street from the targeted car, tweeted that he was sickened by the anti-Semitic display.
"We woke up to our neighbor's car tagged with a giant neon Swastika. It's Yom Kippur, and this makes me sick both as a Jew and as a human," he wrote.
"This is the holiest day of the #Jewish year, and to have a swastika suddenly appear RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM OUR FLAT, in #Bristol of all places, is absolutely harrowing. My wife is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and this causes deep upset and anxiety."
New Israeli platform IMPROVATE recently held a first-of-its-kind "food security" conference, aiming to connect Israeli technology companies with African countries to tackle the challenge of feeding the continent's rapidly growing population. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair opened the conference, which was attended by dozens of agricultural ministers from African nations.
"Food security is a huge challenge, and it was a challenge before Covid-19, which has just deepened that challenge," said Blair at the event. "This is a huge opportunity to use technology to help lives, to improve lives, to save lives, to improve the quality of agriculture in Africa, to help Africa fulfill its potential as a major source of food, not just for Africans, but for the world. … This is something that is transformative, groundbreaking, and will change the world."
In total, 10 leading Israeli companies presented solutions to the ministers pertaining to some of the challenges faced in specific nations. These included Netafim, a water supply and drip irrigation company; NextFerm, which offers food security through natural fermentation proteins; and Milkey, which helps increase dairy production.
The companies heard about the challenges faced by each nation from the agriculture ministers of five African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland).
"During periods of crisis, people tend to focus on the problem, on its causes, and on who is to blame," said IMPROVATE founder and chair Irina Nevzlin. "But the important thing is to understand the source of the problem, and we believe in the need for a platform that enables leaders and companies to focus on the solutions to problems."
Four Israeli universities are listed in PitchBook's 2020 ranking of 50 leading global undergraduate programs.
In the ranking, Tel Aviv University is situated at 8th place, unchanged from last year, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology ranks 12th, up two places from the 2019 listing, Hebrew University of Jerusalem ranks 32nd, up two places vs last year, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev ranks 46th, up three places from 2019.
The 2020 ranking is for the university programs that produce the most entrepreneurs who go on to obtain venture funding.
Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) nabbed first, second and third place respectively, followed by Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania. All of these top five have maintained their 2019 rankings.
For the ranking, PitchBook tracked founders of companies that received a first round of venture funding between January 1, 2006, and August 31, 2020. All rankings are based on data solely within that timeframe, PitchBook said in a statement.
The undergraduate programs at Tel Aviv University have helped create 807 founders, who have set up 673 companies and raised a total of $16.1 billion in the relevant period, the statement said.
The programs at the Technion have generated 602 founders, who have set up 509 companies and raised a total of $12.4 billion.
Researchers at Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have developed a new wearable device that can predict the onset of upcoming seizures. The device will be licensed for further development by NeuroHelp, a startup founded by BGN Technologies, which serves as the tech transfer company of BGU.
The device, called Epiness, uses machine learning algorithms to detect and predict upcoming seizures, sending a warning message directly to the user's smartphone. It does this by monitoring EEG-based brain activity which causes epileptic fits, while filtering noise that is not related to such a risk.
"Epileptic seizures expose epilepsy patients to various preventable hazards, including falls, burns and other injuries," said Dr. Oren Shriki, the Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences at BGU and NeuroHelp's scientific founder. "Unfortunately, currently there are no seizure-predicting devices that can alert patients and allow them to prepare for upcoming seizures. We are therefore very excited that the machine-learning algorithms that we developed enable accurate prediction of impending seizures up to one hour prior to their occurrence."
According to Dr. Shriki, NeuroHelp is already developing a prototype that will be assessed in clinical trials later this year. The algorithm has reached a 97% accuracy rate and is expected to help meet some of the unmet medical needs in identifying upcoming onsets.
Epilepsy is a chronic non-communicable disease that affects more than 65 million people around the world. It is mostly characterized by seizures that can lead to loss of consciousness. They vary in frequency and can occur up to several times a day in severe cases.
In a fortuitous turn of events, the Israel Film Archive uploaded its extensive library online just as lockdown was looming. Considering that we exhausted all our sourdough baking skills last time around, this is very welcome news indeed.
The Jerusalem Cinematheque's Israel Film Archive features Israeli cinema all the way from the late 19th century to the present day – that's some 30,000 titles, recorded on two million meters of film, which showcase 4,500 hours of productions made in Israel.
This is now available on a new platform available in English. Many of the films can be viewed for free; others require a one-time payment.
The project took off in 2015, setting up the first advanced professional lab transforming film reels into digital formats at international standards. Disintegrating film reels, many of which contained the only copy of a particular film, were archived in 4K-quality digital files – saving them from oblivion. Disintegrating film reels are now archived in 4K-quality digital files. Photo by Bar Mayer
Visitors to the website can choose between two sections. The first is "The Artistic View," which enables a search for feature and documentary films made in Israel from 1928 to the present day. These include, for example, the 1980s cult movie "Summertime Blues," the award-winning "Noodle" from 2007 and even one film filed under the topic of "Erotica," called "Love Life," also from 2007.
"The Historical View" section contains thousands of pieces of diverse archival materials such as clips showing "An Outstanding Waiter Competition" from 1958, the laying of the cornerstone for the coastal city of Netanya in 1929 and children playing at summer camp in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in 1945.
Members of a German bikers club staged a vigil outside the main synagogue in Munich on Monday pledging to protect the city's Jewish community as it held services for Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
About 70 people — including 20 leather and denim-clad bikers from the "Kuhle Wampe" club — gathered outside the synagogue on Jakobsplatz to mark the first anniversary of the attack by a neo-Nazi gunman on a synagogue in the city of Halle in which two people were murdered.
The club, which actively campaigns against racism and antisemitism, was first launched in the 1970s by bikers who opposed the nationalist and right-wing tendencies that dominated the scene at the time.
Oliver Westermann, a biker who initiated the vigil, told the assembled crowd, "We're here to protect the synagogue."
Other members of the club held up a white banner bearing the words "Together for Our Synagogue" in Hebrew.
Other speakers at the event included Charlotte Knobloch — the head of the Munich Jewish community — who recalled her enthusiasm when Westermann suggested the vigil a few weeks ago.
Praising the bikers' for their commitment, Knobloch said that "the name 'Yom Kippur' has sat heavily in our hearts since Halle."
A Melbourne, Australia, pilot took to the skies with three chickens Sunday to carry out a pre-Yom Kippur ritual that was otherwise off-limits for that city's locked-down Jews.
Kapparot, practiced by some Orthodox Jews, involves swinging a live chicken over one's head three times and reciting a prayer to transfer sins to the bird. The chicken is then slaughtered and donated to the poor. (Learn more about the ritual, which many animal rights activists have sought to curtail.)
This year, with large gatherings off-limits because of the coronavirus pandemic, those who practice the ritual have struggled with how to carry it out. A Brooklyn organization is offering to deliver chickens to people's homes. (A picture in a New York Times story about low rates of mask-wearing in Brooklyn's Orthodox neighborhoods showed a man holding a live chicken, with no explanation of why.) In Israel, where the government has imposed stringent rules meant to reduce sky-high COVID-19 infections, kapparot is among the permitted reasons for travel.
In Melbourne, the entire city is locked down. So an enterprising philanthropist with access to an airplane decided to conduct a symbolic version above the heads of all of Melbourne's Jews, by flying with chickens in circles over the city.
The hourlong, low-altitude flight was reported by the website Dan's Deals, a popular budget travel site run by an Orthodox Jew who lives in Cleveland. The site showed the flight's path over the city, with a dense set of circles over the city's heavily Jewish neighborhoods, including Caulfield and St. Kilda.
Over the course of Yom Kippur, UH Muslim volunteers staffed all of our Jerusalem ambulances to let their Jewish cohorts focus on the holiday and prayer.
On October 6, 1973 — Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Egypt/Syria launched a coordinated attack against Israel. Aided by 9 Arab states, 1,400 Syrian tanks, 600,000 Egyptian soldiers, & 2,000 tanks and 550 aircraft.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Sounds reasonable. Who can be against democracy in the Arab world?
Except that the organization, founded and run by anti-Israel activists like Juan Cole, Sari Bashi and Sarah Leah Whitson, is very selective as to which non-democratic nations they want to pressure:
As a US-based organization, DAWN focuses its research and advocacy on MENA governments with close ties to the United States and the military, diplomatic, and economic support that the US provides these governments, as that is where we have the greatest responsibility.
We believe that we can have the most impact by convincing the US government and other international entities, including businesses, to uphold their human rights obligations by ending support for abusive and undemocratic governments in the region.
Oh. So they only care about human rights in Arab nations that are allied with the US, so they can pressure the US to withhold aid and arms to those nations, while the other nations can go ahead and deny human rights all they want.
Specifically, the nations that are funded by Iran are off limits to this group.
So, what is the desired effect of DAWN's advocacy? It is to create a Middle East that is dominated by Iran!
That sounds like a human rights paradise! I mean, human rights in Syria and Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon and Iraq and under Houthi rule in Yemen is the envy of other Arabs!
And by sheer coincidence, the Arab nations in DAWN's crosshairs are also those that are somewhat allied with Israel. Imagine that.
It is no surprise that DAWN associates itself with the late Jamal Khashoggi, who also was feted as a pro-democracy activist when in fact he supported the violent Muslim Brotherhood brand of Islamism and Hamas terror.
These people will insist that they care about human rights, but it doesn't take much to see that their agenda is quite the opposite.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
The question of why people hate Jews has been around as long as Jews have been around. But the New York Times only gives a single answer:
"The only motive for these crimes is the origin, real or presumed, of these people; their Judaism," Galina Elbaz, a lawyer representing the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, said at the trial.
"It's the conspiracy-minded idea that originated with the far right, the idea that Jews have a grip on power," she said.
I cannot find Ms. Elbaz' full testimony at the trial, but the head of her organization, the Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme writes about the trial on their website, and what they have to say sounds nothing like the tiny part quoted by the NYT:
My purpose was to remind people that LICRA stands alongside the victims of this anti-Semitic crime. The assassin Amedy Coulibaly had said during the attack "You are the two things I hate the most in the world. You are Jewish and French." Universalism wants all French people to be Jews when there is an anti-Semitic attack. When a Jew is affected, it is the Republic, the whole of France, which is damaged. This process must be a moment of awakening. I would like us to be able to say loud and clear: today we are all Jews and French.
I also wanted to remind you that, from the experience we have acquired at LICRA since 1927, in particular at the Barbie, Touvier, Papon, and Merah trials, and at the trials of the Tutsi genocidaires, it is that hate crime is not based on small reasons. The hand of the anti-Semite who kills is supported by a multitude of complicit hands, a mechanism in which everyone has their share of responsibility in the final act that is committed or in the fact of not having prevented it. If one of the links is missing then the pursued victim is annihilated.
Based on this and other articles on the LICRA website, it is clear that they understand that antisemitism is not strictly a right-wing phenomenon. In fact, it has nothing to do with Right or Left.
Islamist antisemitism may have borrowed from the tropes of an all-powerful Jewish cabal running the world, but that is hardly only a far-Right idea. There is cross-pollination of antisemitic ideas between all antisemitic movements, whether they are Nation of Islam or Arab or Muslim or Black Hebrew or white nationalist or socialist.
One of the founding documents of Soviet "anti-Zionism," Yuri Ivanov's "Beware: Zionism," is based on the exact same antisemitic lie of a cabal of rich Jews (mostly Rothschilds) who are pulling the strings of capitalism and the media. While Ivanov insists he has nothing against Jews, he sure spends a lot of time railing against the "wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie" who are behind Zionism.
Clearly the idea of an all-powerful Jewish conspiracy that holds the reigns of power is not only a right-wing belief, and it animated Leftist "anti-Zionism" from its inception.
Assuming that Elbaz' testimony about the root causes of antisemitism was longer than one sentence, the New York Times chose to cherry pick her answer to the titular question to only blame the Right for antisemitism - even Islamist Jew-hatred.
Politicizing antisemitism in that way is contemptible.
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Yom Kippur 5691 fell on a Thursday – October 2, 1930. The next day's edition of The Palestine Bulletin, the forerunner of this newspaper, informed its readers on page one that "an incident took place last evening when a young Jewish enthusiast desired to have the ram's horn blown contrary to the temporary regulations issued last year.... Mr. [Julius] Jacobs argued with the youth and tried to persuade him to visit the synagogue nearby.... This he refused to do, and he was accordingly placed under arrest. One hour later he was released." But let us go back two years to a previous Yom Kippur, which fell on September 24, 1928, to understand the event.
According to a memorandum by Leopold H. Amery, the colonial secretary, issued on November 19, titled "The Western or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem," what happened was that without "prior consultation with the proper officers of government as to the arrangements for the services at the Wall," Jews had affixed a mechitza (partition) to the pavement adjoining the Wall, and, among "other innovations," additional petrol lamps, a number of mats and an ark "much larger than was customary" were brought to the site.
Incidentally, the mechitza itself was put up by the Radzymin Rebbe, Aharon Menachem Mendel Gutterman (1860-1934), head of the Meir Baal Haness charity, who was visiting at the time.
Called to the area, Inspector Douglas Duff and the district commissioner of Jerusalem, Edward Keith-Roach, requested of the chief Ashkenazi gabbai, Rabbi Noah Baruch Glaszstein, that evening to have the screen removed. It did not happen.
The following day, as Duff relates in his book Bailing with a Teaspoon, he and other policemen came down from Mount Scopus. They removed the partition as Jewish women hit them with their parasols. After tearing down the partition, a Jewish man clung to it as Duff and his men pushed through the angry crowd. Duff tossed the partition, along with the man still clinging to it, a distance from the Wall. According to Davar of September 28, an American Jewish woman was injured in the melee.
One may be tempted to think Sigurd Neubauer's new book on Israel's relations with Arab Gulf states was doomed to become antiquated even before it came out.
The official publication date for "The Gulf Region and Israel: Old Struggles, New Alliances" was September 1 — two weeks after the United Arab Emirates surprisingly announced that it had agreed to normalize relations with Israel, and two weeks before both countries signed a historic peace agreement at the White House lawn. In between, Bahrain also agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
But the dizzying pace of developments in the region is actually good news for him, the Washington-based Middle East analyst said in an email interview this week, because it sheds new light on a lesser-known aspect of the Israel-Gulf alliance: Jerusalem's quiet but crucial role as a regional peacemaker.
"While the UAE-Israel relationship has been strategic in nature for over a decade, the timing of the accords is of significant geopolitical value," he said, as they came after "Israel had established itself as a peacemaker in the Gulf after it had helped stabilize intra-Gulf disputes, including between Qatar and its immediate neighbors — the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain — and between the UAE and Oman."
Israel took "decisive steps" to maintain a balance of power between the region's rival Arab states to prevent Iran from taking advantage of the Gulf crisis, he posited.
In 2017, Qatar was accused by four Arab states of supporting Hamas and other terrorist groups. They imposed a choking blockade on the small country, but Israel threw Doha "a diplomatic lifeline" by cooperating on aid for the Gaza Strip, Neubauer argued. "In this context, Qatar's motivation for cooperating with Israel — to help alleviate Gaza's precarious humanitarian situation — is not motivated by fear of Iran per se but by the threat posed by its own neighbors."
Jerusalem letting Qatar give money to needy Gazans "changed the narrative in Washington away from Qatar supporting Hamas to one that focused on its leveraging its relationship with Hamas to get all the parties to cooperate in support of the Trump administration's peace plan," Neubauer previously argued in a piece for Foreign Policy in August.
The New York Times offered readers a signal of what the post-James Bennet, post-Bari Weiss opinion and editorial pages would look like with an op-ed and podcast by Peter Beinart proposing the elimination of the Jewish state of Israel and its replacement with a country Beinart calls "Israel-Palestine," "a Jewish home that is also, equally, a Palestinian home," "a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state."
With its reaction to the peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the Times is doubling down on the anti-Zionism of Beinart and his internal champion at the Times, senior opinion editor Max Strasser.
The Times published an op-ed piece by Diana Buttu, a Canadian-born champion of the Orwellian-named "One Democratic State Campaign." As recently as May, Buttu compared Israel to the Ku Klux Klan, "Just as we would think it unfathomable to dialogue with the KKK, or to accommodate the KKK, so too we must stop coddling Israeli settler-colonialism."
Under the Times headline, "The U.A.E-Israel Flight Is Nothing To Celebrate," Buttu wrote, "Rather than continuing to press for a two-state solution, the P.L.O. should instead press for equal rights. … Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders should aim to provide a workable strategy for achieving our rights rather than working to appease Israel, and the international donor community, by adopting an anti-apartheid strategy."
The Buttu article follows the Beinart-Strasser line, that Zionism is South Africa-style racist apartheid and a one-state solution is preferable to a Jewish state and a Palestinian-Arab state.
Biden's career as vice president was not any better for Israel. The Obama administration oversaw the lowest point in the US-Israel relations since Israel's establishment in 1948. Biden was party to regular leaks of Israeli intelligence and political attacks targeting Israel on the global stage. In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the US to mend relations. The prime minister was taken in and out of the White House through a side door with no official media related to the visit.
Biden also worked to pass the Iran nuclear deal, which Israel heavily opposed. There are reports that in a 2014 meeting, Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli fighter jets should they target facilities in Iran. Biden does not get to run on the Obama-Biden record and play coy to these events. It is no coincidence that a month before Netanyahu addressed the House of Representatives, the Obama administration decided to declassify a 386-page report on Israeli nuclear capabilities. The report left details on France, Italy and other NATO nations' programs blacked out.
During Netanyahu's stay in Washington to address Congress, the White House declined to meet with Netanyahu. The White House claimed this was standard policy due to Netanyahu nearing an election. During the same period, Biden and secretary of state John Kerry traveled to Munich to meet with Labor leader Isaac Herzog, Netanyahu's opponent in the election.
To paint a clear picture of how Biden sees Israel, he once gave a speech on how Israel was damaging peace negotiations in the region hours after a terrorist killed 21 people in a Jerusalem bus bombing.
Biden views Israel as a prop; he has no real care for the country or its security. If he did care, he would not have sat by as the Obama administration pursued policies the Israelis warned would put their safety in danger.
We should reject Biden's rhetoric and look at his record. With nearly 50 years to reflect on, Biden does not get to tell us what a Biden administration would look like; we have already seen it.
When @JoeBiden compared President @realDonaldTrump to the Nazi Goebbels he desecrated the memory of six million Jews who were murdered bc of ppl like Goebbels!
It's an insult to my mother's family who were all murdered at Auschwitz!
Brian Reeves, director of development and external relations for Peace Now Israel, urged Ocasio-Cortez to reconsider. "Are you really going to boycott us and all our work with Palestinians to support human rights and an end to the conflict, just because Rabin wasn't a flawless idle [sic] after 5 decades of conflict?"
The reason we should even care about AOC's cancellation is what it says about her and the Palestinian activists who opposed her participation in a Rabin memorial.
As Einat Wilf, a former MK and co-author of "The War of Return" wrote, what AOC did was prove once again that no matter what Israel does, it will never be enough for the people who oppose the existence of the Jewish state.
"A myth reigns that assassination of Rabin in 1995 killed peace. It sounds good. It is completely wrong," Wilf wrote. "Palestinians rejected far better offers made after. The AOC debacle proves yet again that Israel can never do enough because 'no Israel' is the goal."
Sadly, that is the feeling from the AOC affair. If she knew anything about history, she would know Rabin as a man of peace who paid with his life in the fight to advance it. He was shot just after participating in a peace rally and the blood-soaked words of the "Song for Peace" which he had in his pocket at the time, are a testament to that legacy.
It is true that he fought as a soldier to defend his country against great odds but recognized, as his granddaughter Rothman wrote, that peace has to be made with enemies.
AOC's failure to understand this is a stain on her and the progressive movement that supports her. Her decision does not advance justice or peace. It prevents it.
The Biden campaign accused progressive firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) of undermining the Democratic Party by pulling out of an upcoming event meant to honor Israeli peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin.
A Biden campaign associate called Ocasio-Cortez's decision "problematic" and told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that "if she agrees [to participate in the event] and then pulls out, she's creating problems for her own party."
Ocasio-Cortez was scheduled to participate in an Oct. 20 event sponsored by the dovish Americans for Peace Now that will memorialize the former Israeli prime minister, who was assassinated in 1995 for his efforts to foster peace with the Palestinians.
Ocasio-Cortez withdrew from the event late last week after anti-Israel activists called out her participation in an event honoring an Israeli leader.
The incident is just the latest flashpoint between Biden's campaign and far-left Democrats who object to the former vice president's pro-Israel policies. Ocasio-Cortez and her allies in Congress have tried to push the Democratic Party to adopt policies many see as anti-Israel, including lending support to the Israel boycott movement.
This is an absolutely stunning admission about the IHRA definition in Owen Jones' book, but lacking any moral explanation for years of Corbyn's and Milne's activism clearly violating an internationally agreed definition of antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/j5xNWYFcEa
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israeli hospitals should be prepared to treat some 1,500 coronavirus patients in serious condition by the end of the week as Israel's infection rates continued to climb.
According to Channel 12 news, Netanyahu believes the national lockdown could be extended to last for around a month in an attempt to contain the surging outbreak.
Netanyahu held a series of discussions ahead of the start of Yom Kippur on Sunday evening and asked the relevant government ministries and authorities to urgently prepare plans to be presented this week when the so-called coronavirus cabinet convenes on Wednesday.
In a statement released by his office on Monday evening, Netanyahu set out a numbered list of items to be discussed, with the health system preparing to treat 1,500 gravely ill patients by Thursday, October 1 at the top of the list.
The number of seriously ill COVID-19 patients currently stands at 763, as of Monday evening, according to the Health Ministry.
The coronavirus cabinet will also discuss setting goals and indicators for a gradual emergence from Israel's second national lockdown, progress in vaccines and the purchase and use of rapid COVID-19 tests.
Ministers will discuss the status of the country's enforcement of the regulations, as well as increasing fines and sanctions for those found violating restrictions.
The Health Ministry said Monday night that 33 people died from COVID-19 over Yom Kippur, raising the national death toll to 1,499.
There were 763 patients in serious condition, with 208 people on ventilators. Additionally there were 287 people in moderate condition.
There were 3,426 new coronavirus infections confirmed Sunday, with 25,204 tests carried out. Testing levels, and therefore the number of new cases, were lower due to the eve of Yom Kippur.
However, a notably high 14.2% of tests came back positive.
Israel had a total of 233,118 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, with 66,639 active cases.
Health Ministry deputy director-general Itamar Grotto told Channel 12 news on Monday evening that he believed that the two weeks remaining in the national lockdown would not be enough to lower the numbers of patients to a manageable level, and that it would need to be extended.
"I believe that if we take the right steps in the health system and the public keeps to the regulations, wears masks and maintains social distancing, working together we could be [where we need to be with infections levels] in a month," Grotto said.
Over the past two days, officers handed nearly 4,000 fines to those found in violation of the coronavirus restrictions, the police reported on Monday evening after Yom Kippur. Israel is in the midst of a second national lockdown, with restrictions on movement and activity tightened as of Friday.
A majority of the fines, 2,789, were issued to people found outside their residence for a "prohibited" purpose, police said, violating a rule to travel from home only for essential needs.
Over 900 fines were handed to people for not wearing masks, and 44 for violating quarantine orders. Some 60 fines were issued to people found at the beach, or a place of business that was prohibited from operating.
There was no specific mention of any synagogues found to be violating regulations pertaining to the number of worshipers inside.
The police said that its officers will continue to "work with the authorities and other law enforcement agencies to stop the spread of the coronavirus to protect the public and its health."
The police called on the public to heed instructions as part of the national effort to battle the spread of the coronavirus in Israel.
Coronavirus infection rates have increased at "an alarming rate" in several New York neighborhoods, particularly among the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, city health authorities warned Sunday, threatening to sanction certain schools if they fail to comply with anti-virus regulations.
Although the Big Apple has touted that it kept its infection rate under one percent for more than a month, six neighborhoods in Brooklyn and two in Queens have seen their rates spike, surpassing five to six percent in Midwood and Gravesend.
The increase coincides with the Jewish High Holidays, the most holy days in the Jewish calendar, that culminate Monday with Yom Kippur.
"These areas account for over 23 percent of new cases citywide… despite representing just under seven percent of the city's overall population," New York city health services said in a press release.
They added that the data showed an increase in hospitalized patients in two Brooklyn hospitals, and at least one hospital in Queens.
The increase has raised fears of a second wave in New York, which reported a record 23,800 Covid-19 fatalities when the epidemic peaked in the spring.
On Friday, health authorities organized a press conference in one of the most affected Brooklyn neighborhoods, Borough Park.
"This may be the most precarious position with Covid-19 we have experienced in months," said health commissioner Dave Chokshi, urging people to wear face masks and respect social distancing measures.
But he and his colleagues were booed by at least two people in the crowd, including an Orthodox Jewish radio host known for his anti-mask stance, Heshy Tischler, video from NBC showed.
Egypt is upset with the Palestinian Authority leadership for reportedly undercutting Cairo's role as a main player in the Palestinian arena, particularly with regards to ending the Fatah-Hamas rivalry, Palestinian sources said on Monday.
The Egyptians are also said to be disturbed by the recent rapprochement between the PA, Qatar and Turkey.
The PA leadership, on the other hand, is reported to be "disappointed" with the Egyptians for supporting the recent normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The Palestinians have accused the two Gulf states of "stabbing the Palestinian people in the back" and "betraying al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem and the Palestinian issue."
The Egyptians, over the decade, have acted as the main peacemakers between Fatah and Hamas. They have also played a key role in arranging ceasefires between Israel and Hamas.
The Fatah-Hamas dispute reached its peak in 2007, when Hamas overthrew the PA regime and violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. Since 2009, Egypt has sponsored five reconciliation agreements between Fatah and Hamas, none of which was ever fully implemented.
Abbas has already damaged the Palestinians' relations with some Arab countries by condemning the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for signing peace treaties with Israel.... Now it appears that the Palestinians are also headed toward ruining their relations with Egypt because of Abbas's decision to make peace with Hamas and appease Iran, Turkey and Qatar.
"Qatar has provided Hamas with more than a billion dollars since 2012... Qatar did not provide these funds out of a humanitarian standpoint and to help the residents of the Gaza Strip. The Qataris did so to help Hamas and its leaders and to enable Qatar to establish a foothold in the region." — Egyptian writer Hashem al-Fahkrani, Al-Youm7.com, September 21, 2020.
"Those who believe that Hamas's first goal is to resist Israel are mistaken. Its first and only goal is to receive money. Hamas's slogan is: Loyalty to anyone who pays the most." — Hashem al-Fahkrani.
Yet, the Palestinian leadership and the international community appear distinctly indifferent the looming danger of this newest axis of evil. For them, the only fate worse than death is normalization between the Arabs and Israel. Abbas has once again pegged his hopes and those of his people on entities that would obstruct the Palestinians and destroy Israel.
A recent publication from Saif al-Islam — the same militant group who spearheaded this summer's incendiary-laden balloon campaign — show their fighters operating inside of an attack tunnel somewhere under #Gaza. pic.twitter.com/ghvWroMx2S
Three years after the US refused to back an independence referendum in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and sided with Baghdad the Americans may be relocating what is left of their personnel in Iraq to the Kurdish region near the city of Erbil. This is because the US has now thrown down the gauntlet with Iranian-backed groups in Iraq: Stop the attacks on US forces and installations, or the US will leave the embassy.
In the last week Iraq has been roiled by more attacks on the US. After the White House warned Iran against its ballistic missile threats, Iran sought to pressure the US through emphasizing US setbacks at the UN. Russia and China joined Tehran in mocking Washington. At the same time the head of Iran's IRGC Aerospace unit, Amir Hajizadeh, said that Iran had a robust indigenous production line of missiles. Iran has shown more and more local missiles off in recent years, alongside drones and other weapons, including new unmanned military vehicles.
On September 23 and 24 the US upped their patrols in Syria with a new shipment of six Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Meanwhile Iran sought to put its hands on eastern Iraq near the Kurdistan region in the north, ostensibly to stop smuggling. The US, flexing its muscles, said that for the first time in two and a half years it conducted airstrikes from a 5th Fleet aircraft carrier, in support of anti-ISIS operations.
Elliot Abrams, US Special Envoy for Iran issues, said the US would announce new sanctions on Iran. In Iraq the Iraqi leadership, including Muqtada al-Sadr, condemned recent attacks on a British diplomatic convoy. Hadi al-Amiri's Fatah Alliance, which is close to Iran, also said it opposed the attack. But there were more rocket and explosive (IED) attacks anyway in the works.
Saudi Arabia said on Monday it had taken down a terrorist cell this month that had received training from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, arresting 10 people and seizing weapons and explosives.
The spokesman for the presidency of state security said in a statement on state media that three of those arrested had been trained in Iran while the rest were "linked to the cell in various roles."
Cell members "received military and field training, including on how to make explosives, inside Revolutionary Guards sites in Iran" for several weeks in late 2017, he said.
The statement said weapons and explosives were confiscated at two locations, a house and a farm, in the Gulf Arab state, the world's largest oil exporter and a key US ally.
Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran are locked in several proxy wars in the region, including in Yemen. Riyadh has blamed Iran for an unprecedented missile and drone attack on the kingdom's oil facilities last year, a charge Tehran denies.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Sunday unveiled a new naval ballistic missile with a potential range of over 700 kilometers (430 miles), local media reported, following months of tensions with arch-enemy the United States.
The missile, dubbed "Zolfaghar Basir", is the naval variant of the surface-to-surface Zolfaghar ballistic missile, according to Tasnim news agency.
Its range is more than twice that of the Islamic republic's other naval missiles, including the "Hormuz-2", with a range of 300 kilometers, which Tehran said it successfully tested in March 2017.
Tasnim did not specify whether or not the new missile has been tested yet.
Images published by Tasnim showed the Zolfaghar Basir installed on a launcher truck during the inauguration of Tehran's National Aerospace Park on Sunday.
"This exhibition shows the comprehensive plan of the deterrent power of the (Islamic republic's) system," Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami said at the inauguration, according to Tasnim.
Iran's Guards used the Zolfaghar in 2017 and 2018 against the Islamic State group in Syria in retaliation for terrorist attacks carried out in the country.
The missile was also used in January to target bases in Iraq housing US troops, according to IRNA news agency, days after the US killed Iran's top general Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad.
Darryl Danchelo Osenga will no long become the official poet of Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands, after his past comments dismissing the severity of the Holocaust caused a firestorm.
City officials said they had discussed some of Osenga's past statements with him before appointing him city poet and he had distanced himself from them, according to Algemeen Dagblad, a Dutch newspaper. But after HE was appointed, advocacy groups raised concerns about a 2012 song that called the Holocaust a "cover up for dumb sheep" and a "joke" compared to slavery.
Two days after announcing Osenga's appointment, Haarlem withdrew it.
"After the appointment was announced, new quotes from Darryl Danchelo Osenga emerged that are at odds with values that the municipality of Haarlem stands for," the city said in a statement, according to the newspaper.
Osenga, who performs as Insayno, posted a statement on his Facebook page Friday lamenting his loss of the honor and reporting that he was receiving death threats because of the criticism. "Every person makes jokes they thought were funny but in the end they weren't," he wrote. (h/t Zvi)
An Arab club has for the first time signed an Israeli footballer, Diaa Sabia, less than two weeks after the UAE normalized ties with the Jewish state.
Sabia, a 27-year-old Israeli Arab attacking midfielder with China's Guangzhou R&F, signed a two-year contract with Dubai's Al-Nasr, the club said in a statement Sunday.
The transfer reportedly cost more than 2.5 million euros ($2.9 million).
"Al-Nasr has completed the procedures with Diaa Sabai … in a contract that extends for two seasons after he successfully passed medical examinations this morning," it said in a statement.
Al-Nasr tweeted footage of Sabia wearing the number 9 jersey, dribbling and shooting in the emirate's Al-Maktoum Stadium.
Sabia's move comes after the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a member, signed a US-brokered accord to normalize ties with Israel on September 15, the first such deal with a Gulf nation.
Sabia — who is of Palestinian origin — was born in northern Israel and rose through the ranks of a youth club before moving to Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2012.
Bahrain's dwindling community of less than 50 Jews has been offered a new lease on life in the wake of the signing of this month's historic Abraham Accords, with many in Israel anxious to reconnect to their homeland.
Most forfeited their passports when making aliyah, so exact, current numbers are unclear. The Jewish Agency has only two formal registrations but numbers are certainly far higher than that. Munir Akirav, 35, is one of a small number of Jews of Bahraini origin living in Israel, born in Givatayim. His mother and her family left Bahrain in 1970.
"My personal connection to Bahrain is based on stories, pictures, videos, from my mother's family," he says. "The connection is one of nostalgia and longing for a time of which you were never apart. So, for me it's a very, very strong feeling," explains the accountant and credit analyst. When he heard the news of the Abraham Accords, overcoming decades of political annexation of Israel, he said he "jumped for joy."
That feeling of nostalgia has manifested in many ways over the years, including feeling sadness that his friends could return to the lands of their ancestors, reconnect and learn more about their origins, as like Poland and Germany, but he could not. Before the accord, his return "home" was never an option, but now, that has all changed. He now has a Bahraini flag proudly waving outside his family's home and longs for the day he will get to walk the streets of Manama.
Earlier this month, the government approved a decision allowing 2,000 members of the remaining Jewish community in Ethiopia to immigrate to Israel.
Every Jewish immigrant from Ethiopia who finally realizes his or her dream to enter the Promised Land and reunite with loved ones represents the end of a long struggle for that individual. And during these most difficult times this is especially true. But this decision leaves behind thousands more members of the community who were promised on countless occasions by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they would be granted permission to immigrate by the end of 2020. Their future still remains in question.
It also means that their families in Israel from whom they are separated are faced with an inhumane quandary: Will their child/sibling/parent be included in the "coveted list" of 2,000 immigrants or will yet another year go by of unbearable longing? This harrowing question that many of the families are facing this holiday season – "who will enter and who will be left behind," from the 'Unetaneh Tokef' poem recited on the High Holy Days – is a question that no Israeli or Jew should ever be forced to ask.
One such individual is 22-year-old Gelagay Alemayehu. Alemayehu immigrated to Israel in 2012 with nine of his siblings and his parents, while two of his siblings were left behind. Like many other Ethiopian Jews, the two siblings were promised that in a short time they too would make aliyah. More than eight years have passed and the Alemayehu family is still waiting for that promise to be realized.
Alemayehu served in an elite reconnaissance unit in the IDF. He reported to reserve duty this month and will return again next month. He is a decorated soldier and received citations of excellence during his service. His sister in Ethiopia recently underwent surgery and she remains quite ill, due to the lack of treatment options available in Ethiopia.
An upbeat gospel-inspired tune from South Africa that pays tribute to the city of Jerusalem and inspired a viral dance challenge has now been endorsed by the country's president.
"Jerusalema," by local musician Master KG, features singer Nomcebo Zikode, and was released on YouTube in November 2019. According to news channel News24, the song, which was recorded in the Zulu language, went viral earlier this year after the #JerusalemaDanceChallenge started trending on social media.
On Heritage Day, September 24, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged South Africans to do the "Jerusalema" dance challenge to celebrate the "diverse heritage of our nation." The song was also performed by American singer Janet Jackson and Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo.
So far, the music video for the song has been viewed more than 157 million times.
Fans in countries around the world – including Spain, Italy, France, Jamaica and Canada – filmed themselves doing pre-set dance moves to the song and uploaded the clips onto social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitter and Instagram.
On September 8, the music app Shazam announced on Instagram that "Jerusalema" was the most "Shazamed" song in the world.
"It is so wonderful to see the love from all over the world," said Master KG."I used to dream of such moments when I was still underground and starting to make music."
Israel spent the Yom Kippur fast day in lockdown due to the high number of patients.
People were asked to refrain from going to synagogue or to pray in open spaces in small groups of no more than 20 people and reports after the holiday revealed that the public largely adhered to those guidelines.
With the massive spike in COVID-19 infections in the ultra-Orthodox community, concerns were high that mass synagogue attendance over Yom Kippur would exacerbate the epidemic in that sector.
According to Benny Rabinowitz, a prominent ultra-Orthodox journalist and commentator, some synagogues were operating but with drastically fewer worshipers than usual, adding that many elderly people stayed at home entirely to avoid exposure to the disease.
Yaakov Veeder, a member of the Bnei Brak municipal council for the Likud party acknowledged that there had been many prayer services held outdoors, saying it was "not a normal Yom Kippur," in that respect.
He said however that although synagogues that had remained open tried to implement a capsule system, parents struggled to control children from breaking the capsules.
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