Student Events to Promote Coexistence

 Video Of The Week- Historic Abulafia Bakery Promotes Peace - https://tinyurl.com/2dnyka9x 

March 18, 2021,

 For the full article go to https://tinyurl.com/m3b9mx89

 A series of online discussions were held by students to celebrate coexistence between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and counter the movement to boycott the Jewish state.

 Three virtual events in StandWithUS UK’s Peace Week 2021 programme featured leading Israeli and gulf politicians and activists, students from across the UK and representatives from the world of sport.

 Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Fleur Hassan Nahoum, spoke alongside fellow co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council, Thani Al-Shirawi, and Ahdeya Al Sayed, who is president of the Bahrain Journalists Association. The trio reflected on the groundbreaking Abraham Accords and subsequent peace agreements between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE.

 Al Sayed said: “Fake news has led to hatred, curriculums that have melted Israel off the map has led to hatred. You cannot just not recognise a whole country and be in the year 2021 and say that state does not exist.”

 Student leaders also hosted Israeli-Arab influencer, Yoseph Haddad, who spoke about his work as CEO of Together –Vouch for Each Other. He discussed his time in the army, saying: “It’s not a Jewish Defence Force, it’s an Israeli Defence Force. When we say Israel Defence Force, we mean that it defends all of Israeli society.”

 The role of sport in building bridges also came into sharp focus, with high-profile guests discussing how football can be a force for good. Tamar Hay Sagiv, Director of the Peace Education Department at the Peres Centre spoke about coexistence and the significance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. Tamar was joined by Rola Brentlin, Head of Special Projects at Chelsea Football Club, Ronit Glasman, the Head of Marketing at the Israel Football Association and the Peres Centre’s Field Director, an alum of their prestigious programme, Sa’ad Barhoum.

 Barhoum said: “To talk about difficult things, as an Arab, as a Palestinian, and as an Arab-Israeli, wherever. It was the place where we can sit and talk and get out and laugh and everything is okay. It was more than football and I knew I was going to do it till the last day of my life.”

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Dazzling Artifacts found in Dead Sea Cave of Horror

 Video Of The Week -Israeli Arab Destroys U.N.'s "Racist Vaccine" Accusations - https://tinyurl.com/2ey4ppmr

Times Of Israel - For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/4xykux6j

In a stunningly rare discovery, dozens of 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments have been excavated from Judean Desert caves during a daring rescue operation. Most of the newly discovered scroll fragments — the first such finds in 60 years — are Greek translations of the books of Zechariah and Nahum from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, and are written in two scribal hands. Only the name of God is written in Hebrew in the texts.

The fragments from the Prophets have been identified as coming from a larger scroll that was found in the 1950s, in the same “Cave of Horror” in Nahal Hever, which is some 80 meters (260 feet) below a cliff top. According to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release, the cave is “flanked by gorges and can only be reached by rappelling precariously down the sheer cliff.” 

Along with the “new” biblical scroll fragments from the Books of the Minor Prophets, the team excavated a huge 10,500-year-old perfectly preserved woven basket — the oldest complete basket in the world — and a 6,000-year-old mummified skeleton of a child, tucked into its blanket for a final sleep. 

Due to the arid climate of the region, the huge Pre-Pottery Neolithic period basket, woven in a unique style from plant material, was preserved whole. “As far as we know, this is the oldest basket in the world that has been found completely intact and its importance is therefore immense,” said the IAA.

So far, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) and 500 caves have been systematically surveyed by three teams led by IAA archaeologists Oriah Amichai, Hagay Hamer and Haim Cohen. Ganor estimates that about 25 percent of the Judean Desert has not yet been surveyed. Using drones and high-tech rappelling and mountain-climbing gear, archaeologists and a team of volunteers from pre-military academies have been able to access many hitherto “unreachable” caves — some of which hadn’t been entered by a human being for almost two millennia. 

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IDF in Equ.Guinea to Help after Deadly Blasts

 Video Of The Week-Albania Requests Israeli Help after Earthquake https://tinyurl.com/rn56s7p6

Israeli delegation made up primarily of medical personnel; African nation’s hospital system overrun after massive explosions on army base kill 105, injure hundreds

For the full Article go to JUDAH ARI GROSS 11 March 2021 

An Israeli medical delegation landed in Equatorial Guinea on Thursday morning to assist the African country after massive explosions on a military base killed over 100 people and injured hundreds, an Israeli general said.

On Sunday, a series of major blasts — apparently triggered accidentally by munitions — on the Nkoa Ntoma camp in the country’s economic hub Bata devastated buildings at the military compound and houses in surrounding districts.

At least 615 people were injured in the explosions and 105 were killed, according to local authorities.

On Tuesday, Israel announced that it would send a medical delegation to assist the country, whose hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of injuries. The blasts were apparently caused by a fire at a weapons depot, which set off the ordnance being stored there.

According to Maj. Gen. Itzik Turgeman, commander of the IDF Logistics and Technology Directorate, the Israeli team included 67 people, 50 of them from the IDF Medical Corps and seven from the IDF Home Front Command, which is in command of the delegation. The remaining 10 people were civilian medical workers sent by the Health Ministry.

The delegation, which touched down on Thursday morning after leaving late Wednesday night, will not perform search-and-rescue operations in Equatorial Guinea, but will instead focus on providing medical care to the wounded, Turgeman said. “Right now the goal is getting to hospitals as quickly as possible and start to work,” he said.

The IDF Chief Medical Officer, Brig. Gen. Dr. Alon Glasberg, said the medical personnel in the delegation were mostly surgeons and intensive care unit staff.

The Israeli decision to send a delegation came after Spain, Equatorial Guinea’s former colonial power, said an aid plane would leave Madrid on Wednesday with drugs and medical equipment. The United States embassy also said Washington is sending experts to help with damage assessment and reconstruction.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the oil-rich country with an iron fist for 42 years, once again blamed the military for “negligence” in stocking ammunition so close to residential areas. He had previously spoken of stubble-burning by local farmers setting off the tragedy.

State television channel TVGE said more than 60 survivors had been found trapped under debris on Monday, including two children, aged three and four.

TVGE has shown images akin to a war zone, with rescue workers and civilians struggling to remove bodies from smoking ruins. The only Spanish-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa, Equatorial Guinea is one of the most closed-off nations on the continent. Bata is home to 800,000 of the country’s 1.4 million people, most of whom live in poverty despite the country’s oil and gas wealth.

Adding to the difficulty in understanding the full scale of the tragedy, air and sea links have been shut off for weeks due to coronavirus restrictions. Only military and government aircraft have made the trip there since the explosions.

Israel routinely sends medical and search-and-rescue crews to countries struck by natural and man-made disasters. Last December, the IDF sent such a delegation to Honduras after two hurricanes devastated the Central America country.

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EU Gives Millions Supporting War Crimes against Israel

Video Of The Week -Foreign Gov-Funded NGOs Brainwash Israeli Children https://tinyurl.com/3d8sxrje

EU countries gave NIS 50m. to Israeli NGOs supporting war crimes charges 

Foreign governments gave Israeli groups over NIS 185,000,000 in 2017-2019.

By LAHAV HARKOV   MARCH 9, 2021

Foreign governments were major funders of Israeli organizations making the charge that the International Criminal Court should investigate Israel for war crimes, a new report from NGO Monitor revealed this week.

The report, by the research institution focused on nongovernmental organizations and their funding, analyzed the annual financial reports from 2017-2019 of the 35 Israeli NGOs involved in political advocacy that receive foreign government funding. They received a total of NIS 319,466,917 (about $100 million), 58% of which (NIS 185,387,008) came directly or indirectly from foreign governments.

Germany was the largest government donor, providing NIS 43,636,794 ($13 million), followed by the EU and the Netherlands.

The New Israel Fund was the largest private donor, followed by the London-based Sigrid Rausing Trust and billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

A significant amount of the funds went to organizations that supported an ICC investigation against Israel, which was announced last week.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda referred to three B’Tselem documents in her brief in which she argued that the court has jurisdiction over Israel, even though it is not a member of the court and has an independent judiciary.

About half of B’Tselem’s funding, NIS 19,680,303 (about $6 million), in 2017-2019 came from foreign governments, including the EU, Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and others.

A Dutch government document from that period stated that “B’Tselem regularly refers to the [Israeli] Supreme Court as one of the main mechanisms that permits the ongoing occupation and human rights violations by granting judicial legitimacy to Israel’s policies.”

A March 2020 email from left-wing group stated: ”We hope the court will make the right decision to back the Prosecutor’s position and rule: There is jurisdiction and there will be an investigation.” 

B’Tselem decided earlier this year to label Israel an apartheid state.

Yesh Din received 91% of its funding – NIS 14,560,839 or $4.3m. – from foreign governments.

In 2018, the Netherlands gave Yesh Din a grant to ensure that the “issue of impunity of [Israeli security forces personnel] in cases of offenses committed against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Jerusalem remains on [the] international agenda.”

On Jan 30, 2020, a statement from Yesh Din claimed that “the State of Israel is unable or unwilling to take resolute action in keeping with its legal duties to eradicate violence and harm to Palestinians and their property,” adding that “The international community, which shares in the responsibility for protecting the rights of Palestinians living under occupation, has an obligation to intervene and take action.”

Other organizations taking similar positions include Adalah, which received 49.665% of its donations, amounting to NIS 5,800,767 ($1.7m.), from foreign governments, and Breaking the Silence, which is 55.61% foreign government-funded (NIS 12,125,833 – $3.6m.).

The New Israel Fund provided B’Tselem, Yesh Atid and Adalah with NIS 4,063,396 ($1.2m.) in 2017-2019, telling Makor Rishon last month that it “can no longer 100% support” a “resolute statement that Israel has an independent judiciary that investigates itself without bias.”

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1,800 former Israeli generals, "Do Not return to JCPOA"

 Video Of The Week -Interesting Facts About Israeli Arabs - https://tinyurl.com/djve3wje

For the full article go to JNS - https://tinyurl.com/3uhsufrx

The 2015 Iran deal poses an “existential threat to the Jewish state,” warns the Habithonistim group, and returning to it would push Israel and its Sunni allies into a “dangerous corner,” potentially igniting a nuclear arms race.

(March 1, 2021 / JNS) A group of 1,800 retired Israeli generals, officers and Mossad operatives have written a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him not to return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

In the March 1 letter, the group, which goes by the name “Habithonistim,” states that it has watched “with great concern” as the Biden administration seeks to return to the “flawed principles” of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“From a strict security perspective, [rejoining the accord] represents an existential threat to the Jewish state. It would also work against your administration’s stated goal of stabilizing the Middle East,” states the letter.

“Such [an] action would push Israel and Sunni allies into a dangerous corner and potentially ignite a massive nuclear arms race,” it continues.

Former President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA in May 2018, reimposing sanctions and adding even harsh ones on Tehran. Biden has indicated that he wants to rejoin the accord if Iran returns to full compliance, however, Iran has demanded that all sanctions be lifted first.

Habithonistim was founded in 2020 by a group of retired Israeli generals with the aim of securing the Jewish state and has since grown into a national movement of almost 2,000 former servicemen and women. The group said in a statement that they felt it was important to share their perspective with “the new American commander-in-chief.”

The JCPOA, the letter states, granted the Iranian regime a “safe path” to acquiring a large nuclear arsenal. Even those limitations the deal did impose have either expired or will be “sunsetting shortly,” it adds.

“What is needed is not to succumb to the false brinkmanship and nuclear blackmail of Iran, and to use the maximum pressure sanctions to demand Iran accept a more effective deal that will not include sunset clauses, and will guarantee that Iran shall never have the capability to produce nuclear weapons. 

A deal that dismantles the military nuclear facilities, provides for real inspections anywhere anytime, limits enrichment for a very long time or prevents it and takes care of delivery systems (ballistic missiles),” says the letter.

Habithonistim director IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, who initiated the letter, said that those suggesting the JCPOA was beneficial to Israel’s security were “out of touch and politically motivated.”

“Iran must be held accountable for its global aggression and must never be allowed to attain a nuclear bomb,” he added.

The letter concludes by stating: “President Biden, your 40-year history as a public servant has clearly demonstrated that Israel’s security is something you take seriously. 

The Iranian regime [seems] to be expecting a deal as favorable to them as the original JCPOA. You have a unique opportunity to [disabuse] them of that fallacy by negotiating a deal that protects Israel, the Middle East and the United State of America from an empowered and nuclear-armed Iran.”

Republicans in both houses of Congress introduced a resolution opposing any move by Biden and his administration to lift sanctions against Iran.

The resolution followed a letter sent to Biden last week by 15 Republican members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, stating: “Regime demands for sanctions relief as a prerequisite for the administration’s proposed bilateral negotiations are not made in good faith.”

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