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The alleged authoritarian ‘backsliding’ by Israel’s ‘far-right’ government would actually make the country far more democratic.
…criticism of Israel must not cross the line into negation of the state of Israel’s right to exist. Questioning the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, is not legitimate diplomacy, it is antisemitism.
Israel-Alma
@Israel_Alma_org
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Did you want an example of the cynical use of human shields by Palestinian Islamic Jihad ? Here is the location of launch pits with rockets next to a school operating under the auspices of the United Nations... They were destroyed in a surgical strike last night.
11:47 AM · May 13, 2023 //
The Islamic Jihad is deliberately firing rockets at road crossings leading from Israel into Gaza, disrupting the supply of humanitarian goods to the Hamas-controlled territory, Israel’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday. //
guyjones | May 13, 2023 at 9:41 pm
It speaks volumes about the manifest and appalling moral bankruptcy, dishonesty and Jew-hate possessed by American Dhimmi-crats and European, Leftist dhimmis, that when Arab Muslim terrorists callously exploit their civilian population by putting weapons and munitions in their midst, it is Israeli Jews who are blamed if they target these weapons and munitions with the utmost care, unintentionally killing civilians in the process.
Under what rational moral calculus are the Arab Muslim terrorist thugs deemed to be blameless, here?
This is an FAQ about El Al’s recently introduced in-flight zmanim system that uses the KosherJava zmanim code. This FAQ is almost identical to what you will see on El Al flights, but it is slightly expanded and includes links to articles that are not available on the in-flight system.
By: Rabbi Dovid Heber
Published Summer 2007
Refer to attached map
For a further discussion on this topic see Sefer Shaarei Zmanim – Siman 11 here.
There was a time not long ago when kosher food was available only in major Jewish metropolitan areas. Finding kosher certified products on the road was a daunting task. “Kosher Tours” were limited to a few select areas. Today, the Star-K and other kosher symbols appear on thousands of food products. Kosher food is available from Fairbanks to Fiji, and from New Zealand to Norway. Kosher tours are now available to Alaska and Antarctica. With so many north and south destinations easily accessible to kosher consumers, the observant Jew now faces an array of fascinating questions. In parts of Alaska, and other locations north of the Arctic Circle, there are periods of time during the summer when the sun never sets and during the winter when the sun never rises. When does Shabbos begin in the land of the midnight sun? Can one daven Shachris if the sun doesn’t rise? When does Shabbos start and end in Anchorage on a day that does not get dark? A similar question is, when does an astronaut daven and begin and end Shabbos in outer space? A description of the Arctic Circle is necessary to understand the halachos that relate to these unique circumstances.
The Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle (located at 66.56° N Latitude, see map) is an imaginary line that runs through Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, Russia, and Alaska1. From this general area and northward, there are days in the summer when the sun does not set and days in the winter when the sun does not rise.2 For example, in Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world located on the Svalbard Islands north of Norway,3 the sun remains above the horizon from April 20 through August 25. During this time the midnight sun is visible for over four months. Between October 27 and February 15, the sun never peaks above the horizon.4 In Alert, Nunavut in Canada,5 the sun does not set for almost five months of the year. At the North Pole, the sun rises in March and stays up for six months until it sets in September, when it remains below the horizon for six months. At the South Pole6, the sun also stays up for six months (September through March) and stays below the horizon for six months (March through September).
For some of us, few things get the nostalgia flowing like vintage airline advertisements. This one is from Gourmet magazine, of all places, in 1976.
There’s a lot to pull from here…
For starters, looking at the collage of tails, we spy three classic carriers that no longer exist: Sabena, Swissair, and of course Pan Am. Of all the many airlines that have gone out of business, few were more historically significant than these three.
The ad also celebrates the advent of the Boeing 747SP — the short-bodied, long-range 747 variant that debuted in the mid-1970s. This focus on aircraft type is a hallmark of older ads and something rarely seen any more. When was the last time an airline spent advertising dollars to boast about a particular plane? It made sense in the 1970s, when models were vastly different from one another and some, like the 747 or Concorde, were media stars. Nowadays, with jets so tediously similar, carriers don’t bother and passengers couldn’t care less.
With that in mind, notice that every tail in that panel except for one features a 747. The single exception is the Aeroflot image, which shows an Ilyushin IL-62. These were the days when you could be at Kennedy Airport and watch ten or more 747s take off in a row.
And, of course, the whole premise of the ad — Iran Air showcasing a new link between Tehran and New York — is itself striking. How things change. Iran in 1976 was still three years away from its revolution, and the country’s national carrier was a regular visitor to New York.
Neither did they shy away from including an El Al tail (top row, third one in) up there with the others. This implies that El Al offered a connecting service to Tehran from New York, presumably via Tel Aviv, which is maybe the most remarkable aspect of the entire page.
Zelensky married a non-Jewish woman who was baptized, and he and his wife baptized their two children in the Greek Orthodox tradition, according to press reports. Boleslav Kapulkin, the spokesman for Chabad Lubavitch in Odessa, Ukraine, was even under the impression that Zelensky himself had converted to Christianity. Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, went further. He attested that Zelensky is “a Ukrainian with Jewish ancestry; he’s not a member of the Jewish community, he’s not religious, doesn’t keep Jewish traditions and never speaks of himself as a Jew.”
There’s a long-running and complex debate over what constitutes Jewish identity. But there’s no question that Zelensky’s life choices have been inimical to the survival of the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. //
He also slammed, of all nations, lo and behold, Israel for refusing to arm Ukraine. (Israel hasn’t armed Russia either.) Now there is reporting that Zelensky is pushing the White House to pressure Israel.
Worse still, Ukraine, under Zelensky, has been rather hostile to Israel at the United Nations, the international forum where the Jewish state has been under sustained assault for decades. According to UN Watch, in a total of 122 resolutions involving Israel, Ukraine has voted against Israel in 95 and abstained in 27. That means it did not vote in favor of Israel once. Yet Zelensky continues to make demands of the Jewish state, which must deal with a Russian presence in neighboring Syria, where Israel conducts counterterrorism operations against Islamic extremists. //
So what are we to make of the enthusiasm for Zelensky the “Jewish hero,” and, moreover, the fact that it’s predominantly on the left? The answer is simple. Zelensky represents not Judaism as it has been known for thousands of years, but the left’s own brand of Judaism. The progressive brand of religion demotes the “outmoded” pillars of authentic faith — custom, tradition, ritual, faith, community, and family. //
The left has long wanted Judeo-Christian civilization erased from the face of the planet. From that perspective, it’s easy to see why so many liberals and progressives cheer on an individual wholly detached from anything resembling revealed religion. Sure, Zelensky is a hero to many. If anything, he’s a hero who’s a Jew — not a “Jewish hero.” That’s a distinction worth making.
The journalists “were ordered not to report on Gazans killed by misfired Palestinian rockets or the military capabilities of Palestinian terror groups, and were told to blame Israel for the recent escalation” //
The Hamas’s media guidelines, issued under thinly veiled threats, were “aimed at imposing the Islamic militant group’s narrative on media coverage of the conflict by implicitly threatening Palestinian reporters and translators who live under its heavy-handed rule,” The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Hamas later “retracted” the guidelines after its details were leaked to the media. Still, the terrorist group has sent a clear message to foreign media outlets that wish to operate within the territory under its control. “Even if the rules are officially withdrawn, Hamas has still signaled its expectations, which could have a chilling effect on critical coverage,” the AP noted. //
Out of more than 1,100 rockets fired by PIJ and other terrorist groups last week, a large number of them landed inside Gaza itself — accounting for most of the civilian deaths during the conflict. “Approximately 20% of all Islamic Jihad rocket launches landed within the Gaza Strip, resulting in many injuries and fatalities of Gazan residents,” the IDF said in a statement obtained by the Legal Insurrection on Sunday.
EU Signs Landmark Natural Gas Deal With Israel
“Israeli gas is expected to be sent to liquefaction plants in Egypt, then shipped north to markets in Europe.” //
Biden Admin Tried to Kill Europe-Israel Gas Pipeline Deal
The agreement allowing supply of Israeli gas was reached despite Biden administration’s efforts to kill a similar pipeline deal. Just weeks ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden State Department pulled the U.S. support away from the EastMed pipeline designed to deliver Israeli gas to the European market — reversing a Trump White House decision.
“Washington no longer supports the proposed EastMed gas pipeline from Israel to Europe, according to a Jerusalem diplomatic source,” the Israeli TV channel i24News reported January 19. “The Biden administration reportedly informed Israeli, Greek, and Cypriot officials in recent weeks of its change in attitude,” the news outlet added.
The Biden White House decision emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin as he was amassing troops along the Ukrainian border, and further consolidated Moscow’s stranglehold on the Europe’s energy supply. It was only the shock of the Russia military offensive on the Europe’s eastern flank which forced the policymakers in Washington and Brussels to rethink energy security and look for ways to reduce dependence on Kremlin.
The Biden administration has initiated steps that undermine former President Donald Trump’s decision to establish the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, media reports suggest.
The Biden State Department has set up a separate diplomatic office for the Palestinians in Jerusalem. With this move, “Washington is reversing a Trump administration policy on U.S.-Palestinian relations ahead of President Joe Biden’s possible visit to Israel” set to take place in July, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
The Biden administration’s decision seeks to rollback President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel. The Washington Free Beacon, citing former U.S. diplomats, described the Biden administration’s move as “the first step to walking back the United States’ historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.” //
Senator Bill Hagerty
@SenatorHagerty
I unequivocally oppose this plan. It's inconsistent with the full & faithful implementation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 & suggests the Admin is again trying to undermine America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal & undivided capital.
dailymail.co.uk
Biden reverses Trump by beefing up diplomatic mission to Palestinians
6:05 PM · Jun 10, 2022
they’re looking for power, and they’re trying to get it all via Cloward-Piven:
The Cloward-Piven Strategy: Orchestrating A Crisis So Government Can “Solve” It
https://conduitforaction.org/the-cloward-piven-strategy-orchestrating-a-crisis-so-government-can-solve-it/
A very prominent American diplomat told me that you must be doing something right when China gets upset. So don’t worry about China getting upset at you. When they get upset at you, that means you are doing something right.”
Israeli health officials recently reported the country’s first case of polio in over 30 years.
An unvaccinated child, 4, from Jerusalem, contracted the highly transmissible virus, making it the first polio case in Israel since 1988, the Israeli Health Ministry said Sunday. //
Most people infected with poliovirus (about 72 out of 100) are asymptomatic. Approximately 1 out of 4 people with poliovirus infection will develop flu-like symptoms, and about 1 out of 500 infected will develop more serious health effects.
Sewage testing in Jerusalem indicates a potential for many asymptomatic cases. A new vaccine campaign is being implemented. //
The recently reported case was identified in a child who was 3 years and 9 months old and showed symptoms of paralysis, said Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the WHO.
He said this was an isolated case of a vaccine-derived poliovirus, a mutated form of the virus that can be fostered by the oral vaccine used in many countries and can cause paralysis when spread over a period of time between unvaccinated children.
“It is definitely not a wild poliovirus, imported from Pakistan or Afghanistan,” Mr. Rosenbauer said in an email, referring to the main and most dangerous form of the virus. “That we know for certain. But more needs to be found out, in terms of where or how this strain emerged, and whether it is circulating.” //
simpsonson | March 9, 2022 at 8:13 pm
Is it possible that this case (and others potentially) is a result of terrorist biowarfare as payback for Israel making Jerusalem its capital?
Milhouse in reply to bart simpsonson. | March 9, 2022 at 10:33 pm
Very very unlikely. This particular case is a weird variant that seems to have mutated from the oral vaccine. This cannot happen to the injected vaccine, which is why in most first-world countries that is now used instead of the oral one; but in Israel, because of its proximity to areas where polio still exists, both varieties are used — the shot in infancy, and then the oral as a booster in mid-childhood.
Russians are worried, she said, not only about external isolation, but that a new Iron Curtain is about to be imposed internally by the Putin regime. She thinks a lot about the ancient Jewish question: When is it time to go? New events that feel old: If you’re looking for a possible summary of Jewish life, that’s one.
Nixon would play a pivotal role in protecting the Jewish state, as Nixon recognized that the defeat of Israel was unthinkable for US interests. Nixon went to Congress to request authorization for emergency aid for Israel despite the Gulf States announcing a price increase of seventy percent in the wake of the Arab assault. After Nixon went to Congress for authorization, the Gulf States responded vigorously, announcing a total boycott of the United States, causing the oil shock of 1973.
The Gulf States’ retaliation simply served to further entrench the opposition of many who had fought to slow or halt the shipment of weapons to the Israelis (the former being represented by Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Kissinger, the latter being represented by Secretary of Defense Schlesinger). Nixon hit the roof when he learned that Kissinger was delaying the airlift because of a concern that it would offend the Russians. Despite the opposition of his national security and foreign policy brain trust, Nixon ordered the airlift, saying, “We are going to get blamed just as much for three planes as for three hundred,” and later in exasperation at the slow start of US support, said “Use every [plane] we have—everything that will fly.”
Finally, after several days of internal politicking amongst the upper echelons of the Administration, Nixon got his airlift: “Operation Nickel Grass.” Over the course of the airlift 567 missions were flown, delivering over 22,000 tons of supplies, and an additional 90,000 tons were delivered to Israel by sea. Later in her life, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir would admit that upon hearing of the airlift during a cabinet meeting, she began to cry.
Nixon’s loyalty drove him to save a US ally from the threat of utter destruction despite the real risk of economic crisis, and political cost to himself. To borrow the phrase from the Kennedy clan, Nixon’s decision to aid Israel was a true “profile in courage.”
https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/amnesty-apartheid-analysis/
The publication breaks no new ground and is not meaningfully different from the discredited Human Rights Watch (HRW) and B’Tselem reports from 2021 – yet Amnesty says they took over four years to produce it.
Like many previous NGO publications, Amnesty’s report manipulates and distorts international law, Israeli policy, and events on the ground, as well as denies the Jewish people their right to sovereign equality and self-determination.
Thus, Amnesty’s report can be considered antisemitic according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which notes that: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
Likewise, Amnesty’s report criminalizes Israeli laws and practices designed to safeguard Jewish identity – such as the Law of Return – which are enshrined under international law and parallel the practices of many nation-states.
In these attacks, Israeli policies are artificially framed as attempts to preserve “Jewish domination” – an antisemitic trope and refrain throughout the publication. Amnesty’s overarching argument is that everything Israel does is nefarious, whether it promotes peace or Palestinian self-detemination, improves the lives of Palestinians or minority groups in Israel, or if mandated by international law. //
The New York-based civil rights group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) also condemned the anti-Israel report:
We have reviewed Amnesty International UK’s upcoming report on Israel and strongly condemn it as an effort to demonize Israel and undermine its legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state. In an environment of rising anti-Jewish hate, this type of report is not only inaccurate but also irresponsible and likely will lead to intensified antisemitism around the world.
This new report goes beyond criticizing Israeli policies and actions to painting Israel’s very creation as illegitimate, immoral, and faulted. Amnesty International’s allegations that Israel’s crimes go back to the sin of its creation in 1948, serve to present the Jewish and democratic state as singularly illegitimate at its foundational roots. Such a hateful characterization not only delegitimizes the Israeli state enterprise and the Jewish right to self-determination in its historic homeland, but also undermines the vision of a mutually negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will provide security, dignity, and self-determination to both peoples. //
יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad
@YosephHaddad
How dare you claim that I, an Arab-Israeli who served along with Jewish soldiers in the IDF and managed hundreds of Jewish employees, live under an apartheid regime? How can you say Samer Haj-Yehia lives in an apartheid regime when he is the head of the biggest bank in Israel?
5:02 AM · Feb 1, 2022
“We reject expressions like apartheid or a one-sided focusing of criticism on Israel. That is not helpful to solving the conflict in the Middle East,” German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Christopher Burger said on Wednesday.
The German response to Amnesty’s report is similar to the stance taken by the United States. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nideson rejected the biased report, calling its claims “absurd.”
On Tuesday, Amnesty International’s UK office issued a 300-page report, calling Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, a “regime of oppression and domination.” The lengthy report, which took Amnesty years to compile, is replete with antisemitic libels and old lies propagated by Palestinian terrorist organizations, the review of the document shows. //
On Tuesday, the Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor reviewed the Amnesty report and found that it “manipulates and distorts international law, Israeli policy, and events on the ground, as well as denies the Jewish people their right to sovereign equality and self-determination.”
The NGO Monitor concluded that the report “can be considered antisemitic according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which notes that: ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.'”
While focusing on Israel, where Arab and other monitories enjoy equal citizenship rights, Amnesty maliciously turns a blind eye to Iran, Syria, and other tyrannical regimes next door that carry out massacres against their people.
In an interview with the Times of Israel, Amnesty officials refused to use the ‘apartheid’ framework for China, a Communist regime that holds millions of Buddhists ethnic Tibetans and Muslim Uyghurs in concentration and slave labor camps.
According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) survey, “84% of Christians are satisfied with their life: 24% answered “very satisfied” and 60% were “satisfied”.”
Consider these suggestions for strengthening legislation that combats the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic movement, consistent with First Amendment rights //
But many states are fighting back. Thirty-five of them have passed anti-BDS laws, resolutions or executive orders opposing boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions against Israel. Some are modeled on anti-boycott legislation the United States passed back in the 1970s to counteract the Arab boycott. U.S. law forbids taxpayers from participating in a foreign boycott of Israel. //
Anti-Israel groups have targeted anti-BDS laws for extermination. In the course of litigation, they have shone a spotlight on the laws’ strengths and weaknesses. Here are some suggestions for strengthening anti-BDS legislation consistent with First Amendment rights.
One thing is for sure. The Iron Dome is definitely good at protecting Israel, but it’s even better at getting evil to expose itself.
El Al was among the first to buy the gigantic jumbo with its iconic hump, and went on to break the record for most people on a flight, bringing 1,088 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. This is the story of El Al 001, the flight that made the Jewish world smaller //
For Israelis, the landing of the first El Al Boeing 747 at Lod (later Ben-Gurion) Airport on July 2, 1971, symbolized the opening up of the small and beleaguered country to the wider world. For many Diaspora Jews, it would mean that, for the first time, a visit to Zion didn’t have to involve emigrating there. El Al flight LY001 became the first direct non-stop link between the Jewish state and New York, the greatest Jewish city in the world.
But today the jumbo jet is simply too big and thirsty for the economics of mass air travel in the 21st century. No other machine did more to make the world smaller for so many people. But that world is now too small for the 747.
On Sunday, El-Al's last-ever 747 flight took the sky, drawing a huge Jumbo. It is expected to land at Ben-Gurion Airport later this afternoon, officially ending its service. //
Contracts were signed and El Al became one of the Boeing 747’s 27 launch customers. Today, it is one of only five of those original operators still flying jumbo jets. //
The 747 opened up an age in which rapidly increasing numbers of people could contemplate traveling thousands of miles to distant countries, safely and within mere hours, for work or pleasure. We are still in that age. Some 80 percent of the world’s population has yet to fly, but just last year around 100 million people boarded a plane for the first time. The 747 influenced our lives in ways we now take for granted. //
Fear of flights with empty seats proved unfounded. Throughout its service in El Al, the 747 was invariably, and infamously, packed. In fact, few airlines have succeeded in squeezing as many passengers inside. But even at full capacity, the 747 offered some unique advantages for the company’s clientele. No other aircraft had such wide spaces around the emergency exits — perfect for gathering a minyan (prayer quorum of at least 10 men) at any time of day or night, or for Jewish Agency officials to go through immigration procedures with new olim. For hundreds of thousands of future Israelis (like this writer), boarding an El Al 747 was their first introduction to life in their new homeland.