Middle East

BDS, winning round at UIUC, conflates BLM with anti-Israel campaign

By Richard L. Cravatts BOCA RATON, Florida — Led by the virulent anti-Israel, often anti-Semitic group Students for Justice in Palestine, the student government at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently passed a resolution calling on the university to oppose anti-black racism and also to divest from Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Company, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar […]

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Middle East, Richard L. Cravatts, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Coronavirus chaos in Israel

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Coping is a synonym for political management. It’s especially prominent in situations of intense conflict, when competing groups can’t make crisp decisions. It’s marked by doing a bit of this, and a bit of that, without overcoming the conflict. There’s also avoidance and ambiguity. Avoiding the knotty problems, and fashioning

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

5781: A year with great potential

It was only in the past year that a number of Arab countries decided that the failure of the Palestinian Arabs to come to an agreement with Israel was dangerous for those selfsame countries. With an expansionist Shia-Muslim Iran threatening them, two Sunni-Muslim Arab states decided to put their citizens first and ally themselves with the most powerful state in the neighborhood, Israel. No longer would the security of the Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain (by “allying” with Israel) be vetoed by Palestinian Arabs, whose demand is NO normalization with Israelis. [Steve Kramer]

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Middle East, Steve Kramer

What the world wants from the Jews

Less than a month after the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain has also joined the peace train. I am all for it; peace and normalization are always better than war and animosity. But to be honest, I don’t see that the rest of the world is so excited about it, and I think this shows how isolated we are in the world. Despite the fact that Israel has established connections with countries that  were previously enemies, no one is cheering, no one is sounding the festive trumpets. For all our efforts to be accepted, Israel, and Jews (though they may not recognize it), are excluded from the family of nations. [Michael Laitman, Ph.D]

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Lifestyles, Middle East

IPO on YouTube an experience in musical mastery

The past three Sundays, the Israel Philharmonic Chamber Music Series featured some of their leading players: principal oboist, Dudu Carmel, on September 6; principal flutist, Guy Eshed, on September 13 and four principal string players — violinists David Radznisky and Dumitru Pocitari, violist Miriam Hartman and cellist Emanuele Silvestri — with their new conductor, Lahav Shani, at the piano, September 20. All these programs, as well as the first two, August 23 and 30, are still available on YouTube. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Bibi’s ‘Al Chet’s’ should include COVID19 bungling

Now when worship services are curtailed, it seems logical and legitimate to stop the demonstrations. Though it is unlikely that Netanyahu would have shown up at a synagogue on Yom Kippur, he must be grateful to the festival for being liberated him not only from the noise outside his office and his home but, more important, from the implied threat to his tenure. [Rabbi Dow Marmur]

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Middle East

GI Film Festival spotlights a Jewish violinist

When Enlisted Man Stuart Canin boarded a  European-bound U.S. Army transport ship near the end of World War II, he carried with him his barracks bag, rifle, and a violin. Challenged by an officer about what he thought he’d need a violin for, Canin, then a teenager, replied “You Never Know.” He was so right. [Donald H. Harrison, “Our Shtetl San Diego County.”

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Melanie Rubin, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Kosovo – Toward True Independence

Kosovo became the youngest country in Europe when it declared independence in 2008. Sadly though, Kosovo continues to suffer from mounting problems, including a lack of experience in governing, rampant corruption (especially at the top echelons of the national government), dislocation of human and natural resources, bitter political rivalries, and undue influence by foreign powers. Although these problems and others have impeded Kosovo’s progress, the country has tremendous potential if it only mobilizes its human and material resources and establishes a cohesive national agenda aimed at addressing its woes and unraveling the web of problems that have plagued the country from its inception. [Alon Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Alon Ben-Meir, International, Middle East

Chronicler tells of Jewish rescuers during Holocaust

Jews who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust is an extraordinary initial publication of the compiled research of Moshe Gromb. The work is precisely summarized, factual, clinical, telling the stories of 100 of the over 2,000 harrowing stories he has collected. [Jerry Klinger]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Middle East

Zoom, FB, YouTube block Leila Khaled speech to SFSU

Zoom, Facebook and YouTube cancelled use of their platforms Wednesday for the airing of a San Francisco State University sponsored webinar featuring airline hijacker Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, with Zoom citing its obligation to obey U.S. law. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Fourth Yahrzeit for Shimon Peres Observed

The Peres Center for Peace & Innovation on Tuesday hosted the first virtual ceremony of its kind, to commemorate the fourth anniversary since the passing of the Ninth President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres. Participants in the ceremony, attended by  Peres’ three children — Tzvia, Yoni and Chemi —  included Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Prince Hassan of Jordan, Nicolas Sarkozy, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, singer Barbara Streisand and actress and producer Sharon Stone. They were joined by more than 100,000 schoolchildren from across Israel, many at schools proudly named in Peres’ memory. {Press Release from the Peres Center for Peace & Innovation]

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Jewish History, Middle East, Obituaries & memorials, Yoni Peres

A ‘Safe Space’ for Terrorists at San Francisco State

A particularly execrable record for radical anti-Israel, anti-Semitic campus activism is to be found at San Francisco State University, and specifically in the pseudo-academic machinations of Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, director of the school’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED) program. Abdulhadi, who, among other slurs, referred to Zionists as white nationalists during a 2019 UCLA lecture, is embroiled in controversy once again for the upcoming virtual speaking appearance, to be held tomorrow, September 23rd, by Leila Khaled, a terrorist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose resume includes her role in the 1969 hijacking of an Israel-bound plane and her arrest the following year during a failed hijacking of an El Al flight. [Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D]

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Middle East, Richard L. Cravatts, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Whither Palestine?

What is its future of Palestine? Who knows? Both the UAE and Bahrain have aligned themselves to Palestinian interests, but we can wonder how serious that is. European governments still adhere to a two-state solution, but how central are their concerns? American politicians also indicate their adherence to a two-state solution, but where does it sit in their various commitments? [Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East