Israeli singer makes it to the Eurovison finals

Nadav Guedj, 16,  a French-Israeli singer and the Israeli representative for the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest.has made it to the finals !

Check out his song, Golden boy

"I’m a golden boy

Come here to enjoy

Before I leave

let me show you Tel Aviv."

Methodist Missionary Janet Lahr Lewis: Bias or Blindness?

Janet Lahr Lewis is a missionary with the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church serving in the Middle East as liaison between ecumenical groups.

From her biography:

Focusing on advocacy and activism, Janet's responsibilities are numerous. She is the main contact for VIM teams and United Methodist visitors who wish to follow the recommendation of the General Conference to spend a significant amount of time in the area with local Christians, acting to make those connections with UMC partner organizations.

In an essay entitled “Remember al Nakba too” published this week at the United Methodist Website, Janet has written

“Israel has even gone so far as to destroy archaeological artifacts in an effort to wipe out evidence of non-Jewish cultures, except Roman, throughout history in the region.”

This is a grotesque inaccuracy (in an essay full of gross inaccuracies), and is particularly abhorrent in light of Israel’s painstaking and meticulous efforts at protecting and documenting its rich archaeological legacy.

The Archaeological Survey of Israel was established in 1964 with the goal of creating a  comprehensive archaeological study of the land .  It is one of the largest scientific projects ever undertaken in the country and has lead to the creation of an online database which documents over 15,000 archaeological sites.

During the 50th anniversary of the survey

Dr. Ofer Sion, head of the Antiquities Authority Surveys Department, noted the unusual nature of the archeologists’ ongoing work...

“Sometimes the surveyors rappel into ancient caves, or even scuba dive in the sea to gather information,” he said.

“Without the survey we would know nothing about the history of the country.

”Who would know about the famous site at Gamla, the monastic sites, the ancient life in the desert or the hiding refuges and the story of the zealots and rebels in Judean Desert caves?”

Janet is stationed in the region.   Could it be possible that she has never gone to the Israel Museum, or to any of the myriad of archaeological sites in Israel? 

Could it be possible that she has never picked up a National Geographic to read about the tombs of the early Natufians?

Has she never heard about the magnificent bronzes and ivories of Israel’s Chalcolithic Period? 

Hasn’t she picked up a newspaper or read online about the recent discovery of a cache of coins from the period of Alexander the great? 

Janet Lahr Lewis writes:

 Ironically, there apparently is no written set of standards similar to those in engineering, for example, by which archaeologists can be held accountable.

She’s wrong about that, too

Whether the issue with Janet Lahr Lewis of the United Methodist Church is one of bias or blindness, the end result is the same- a hateful, inaccurate and dishonorable screed. 

“Football should Unite and not divide”

“Football should Unite and not divide”

Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA has met with both Palestinian and Israeli authorities this week in an effort to stop the politicizing of football in the region. Palestinians are attempting to get Israel suspended from the association, and want the matter put to a vote at the upcoming FIFA Congress

Blatter met with the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and President of the Palestinian Football Association  Jibril Al Rajoub and with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the President of the Israel Football Association  Ofer Eini.

“I had constructive meetings with the Palestine political and football authorities," said FIFA President Blatter. "We all agree football should unite not divide. I came on a mission for peace – football should foster peace and leave politics aside. Based on my talks over the last two days, I remain confident, despite the challenging situation, that we should be able to find a solution in the interests of football and all parties involved ahead of the Congress."

Blatter  has spoken out against suspending the Israeli Football Association, saying such a move would set a "dangerous precedent".

"This is not football. That's why I'm on a peace mission."  He has proposed a “peace match” between Palestinian and Israeli teams. Netanyahu welcomed the idea but it was rejected by Rajoub

In the meanwhile, migrant workers in Qatar, building a stadium for FIFA's 2022  World Cup are dying at the rate of 1 every 2 days and the world remains silent.

California Senate Resolution condemning antisemitism passes unanimously

Finally, some good news for beleaguered Jewish students in California. Its a symbolic gesture, but its a start. 

State Senator  Jeff Stone’s (Califonia's 28th district: Temecula)  resolution SCR condemning anti-Semitism and racism has passed unanimously. The bi-partisan resolution was coauthored by Senators  Joel Anderson,  Patricia Bates,  Tom Berryhill,  Marty Block, Ted Gaines,  Holly Mitchell, Richard Roth,  Andy Vidak, and Lois Wolk.

Senator Stone’s resolution condemning anti-Semitism and racism passes unanimously 5.14.15 from CA Senate Republican Caucus on Vimeo.

Read the full text of SCR 35  here . The history of the resolution can be found here

Air bnb in Gaza

Poor impoverished Gaza.

Thousands left homeless from the war.

Children living in cardboard boxes.

Heartbreaking.

That what they tell us anyway.

(Its all Israel's fault. Its always Israel's fault.) 

I have a practical suggestion for all those haters out there- do you want to help Gaza's homeless children?

For a mere $75 dollars a day,  you can rent them an apartment in Gaza.

Meet Gaza Airbnb

Yes. Really.

To the "human rights" activists of the world:

Protesting at the Israel consulate or at a Jewish heritage fair will get you nowhere. But for a mere $75 dollars a day you can make a difference in the life of a child.

This  lovely 2 bedroom penthouse apartment overlooking the Mediterranean Sea is available now. It has an open floor plan with views from every window, a washer-dryer, a large kitchen with custom tile and granite.

For $1200 a month- a child in Gaza can be safe and warm and dry.  You can put your time, energy and money to work making a practical difference for the people of Gaza.

Or not.

You could choose instead to spend hundreds of thousands on bus ads and billboards in the United States. You could spend millions on useless flotillas. You could pay hundreds of thousands of dollars financing attorneys to harass pro-Israel activists.

It will just confirm that your "activism" has never been about helping the Palestinian people or building a Palestinian state. Its always been about destroying the Jewish state.

(We knew that anyway)

Swastika found at Drexel University

A Jewish student at Drexel University discovered a swastika and the word “Jew” written near an Israeli flag displayed outside his dorm room earlier this week.

From the Jewish Exponent:

“I was deeply distressed to learn of an incident that occurred in one of our residence halls, in which a student was targeted on the basis of religion with the posting of a hate symbol,” Drexel president John Fry said in a statement to the Drexel community after the student found the vandalism on May 12. “Whether this malicious act was a hate crime or just blatant ignorance, it is unacceptable and incompatible with the ethos of our University.”

According to the AMCHA initiative,  swastikas have been found on at least 14 campuses so far this year including:

Stanford
Northwestern
The University of Missouri
Framingham State University
Farleigh Dickinson
Northeastern
Tufts
SUNY Purchase College
UC-Berkeley
George Washington University
Vanderbilt
CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Cleveland State University
UC-Davis

Now Drexel  joins that ignoble list.

Looking for an Apartment in Gaza?

In spite of evidence to the contrary, anti-Israel advocates are still claiming that Gaza has been unable to rebuild following the 2014 war with Israel. The repeated claim is that thousands remain homeless, and that Gaza is under rubble.

NGO Gisha has claimed that not a single home has been rebuilt  Yet since August, over 62,000 tons of construction supplies have entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Forty-three thousand Gazans have purchased material to rebuild their homes.

This clip on youtube  is advertising  vacant apartments in Gaza City.


They are spacious, with large balconies and spectacular views

If thousands were still homeless in Gaza,  would there even be a need to advertise vacant apartments on youtube?

Infernal Israeli baby-washing

The Israel haters must be bawling like a baby right now.

Nothing upsets them more than having Israel (and Israelis) portrayed as ...normal.  Everything that involves the Zionist entity must, in their eyes, be seen through the prism of the “occupation”.
Any act must be viewed through the lens of this conflict.  It’s a one-dimensional, deeply cynical and very biased viewpoint.

Cue: The infernal  Israel “Baby-washing”

Some very sweet  photos of Hebrew University Professor Sydney Engelberg have gone viral.

Prof. Engelberg’s class is open to his students children. It’s a deeply sensitive and yes, feminist gesture, coming from a father of four, and grandfather of 5.

During Prof Engelberg’s class, the young son of one of his students began to cry. Engelberg picked up the child and continued on with his lecture. A student snapped a photo, and Prof. Engelberg became this week’s darling of social media. The photos have been liked over 50,000 times on Facebook, and this simple gesture has been discussed across the web.

When a baby started crying in his class, Professor Sydney Engelberg simply picked it up and carried on teaching

When A Student’s Baby Started Crying In Class, This Professor Did The Most Awesome Thing

Professor Sydney Engelberg Has Best Response To Student's Crying Baby

Simple Photo of Man Holding Baby Sparks Important Parenting Conversation

The BDS cru will be condemning this as "baby-washing" any minute now

Greenstar food Coop says no to BDS

After repeated failures in Brooklyn, Sacramento, Davis and elsewhere, JVP has spared no expense in attempting revive the moribund movement to pressure food coops to boycott Israeli products.

The Greenstar Food Coop of Ithaca, New York has been their focus for the last few months, under fire for daring to sell Sabra hummus, Tribe hummus, and Israeli peppers.

After being called out and exposed for their vitriolic rhetoric and shockingly insensitive imagery the boycott promoters (then using the name Central NY Committee for Justice in Palestine – CNYCJP) rebranded themselves as the Ithaca Committee for Justice in Palestine, and finally as Ithaca Food Justice for Palestine Campaign. 

Fortunately for the forces of truth and justice, the good folks at Legal Insurrection have been all over this.

• Sick: BDS groups spread photoshop of Concentration Camp inmates holding anti-Israel signs
• The next big anti-Israel food fight? GreenStar Coop (Ithaca)
• Ithaca (NY) anti-Israel group starts food co-op boycott drive with Sabra Hummus blood libel
• GreenStar boycott group trainer hurls “Israel-firster” slur at Schumer

From Legal Insurrection

The Ithaca Coalition for Unity and Cooperation in the Middle East, a bi-partisan, multi-denominational group formed to fight the boycott attempt submitted extensive papers to the GreenStar Council challenging the referendum as contrary to GreenStar’s Bylaws in that the referendum, among other things, (1) did not comply with GreenStar’s referendum Petition requirements because the wording was changed after the petitions were signed and was false and misleading; (2) violated the NY State Human Rights Law which prohibits boycotts based on national original; (3) was economically irresponsible in that it would damage GreenStar’s brand and cause economic loss in light of widespread community opposition; and (4) violated GreenStar’s own anti-discrimination policies.

The divestment initiative was rejected  unanimously by the GreenStar Council based on the NY State Human Rights law prohibition of boycotts based on national origin.

Just in time for International Hummus day.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin: University of California must fight back against anti-Semitic acts

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a faculty member at the University of California, Santa Cruz is the founder of AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization that combats anti-Semitism on college campuses. Nominated as a Jewish Community hero, Ms. Rossman has a well earned reputation are a fierce and tireless protector of civil rights of Jewish students, on California campuses and throughout the country

Documenting anti-Semitic incidents in the UC System, she writes in the San Jose Mercury News:

It's not hard to connect the dots. On campuses where anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns have been promoted, anti-Semitism has increased and Jewish students report feeling emotionally and physically harassed, threatened, unsafe, and targeted for anti-Jewish bigotry.

The University of California is no exception. Just in the past few months:

At UC Berkeley, in the wake of a contentious BDS campaign, the message "Zionists should be sent to the gas chamber" was found scrawled on a bathroom wall. This past month, a Jewish student leader reported, "We still find anti-Semitic slogans written on bathrooms. A lot of students find swastikas and come to me," and he added that many Jewish students are frightened.

At UC Davis, in the days leading up to an anti-Israel divestment vote, the university's Hillel House was defaced with "grout out the Jews." Less than two days following the vote, large swastikas were spray-painted on a UC Davis Jewish fraternity. Several Jewish students reported feeling unsafe, one writing: "I no longer feel as though UC Davis is a completely safe environment for Jewish students or a place where I can feel free to express my support for Israel."

At UCLA, shortly after the student government approved an anti-Israel divestment resolution, four student senators who sponsored that resolution brazenly argued that a candidate for the student judicial board was not eligible simply because she was a Jew. According to one Jewish student leader, "People say that being anti-Israel is not the same as being anti-Semitic. The problem is the anti-Israel culture in which we are singling out only the Jewish state creates an environment where it is OK to single out Jewish students."

At UC Santa Barbara, after three years of divisive anti-Israel divestment campaigns, large flyers blaming Jews for 9/11 were posted on campus. At a student senate meeting this past month, a Jewish student shared: "For the first time in my life, I felt that my identity, an unchangeable part of who I am, was under attack and my entire existence as a Jew was being questioned. No one in this room can look at this past year's incidents and tell me that anti-Semitism doesn't exist. ... I'm scared for my safety."

In response to this alarming increase in anti-Semitism, student leaders at UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara have approved resolutions condemning anti-Semitism.  It’s a start, but its not enough.

Read Tammi Benjamin-Rossmans' recommendations here

BDS rears its ugly head (again) at the Park Slope Food Coop

BDS has reared its ugly head again at the Park Slope Food Coop,  promoting a Sodastream boycott with a rather Orwellian twist of language. How can you not marvel at the twisted  mental and moral gymnastics required to call the boycott  " food justice"  for "people of color",  when the reality is exactly  the opposite?

 The Sodastream boycott has already cost 950 Arabs their jobs and their livelihoods.

From the Park Slope BDS Facebook Page. The timing was particularly interesting, as Sodatsream is scheduled to move to a new factory later this month.

The coop meeting was characterized by all the vitriol we've come to associate with BDS inserting its ugliness into our beloved neighborhood institutions and  civic organizations. This time, it was the aftermath that made it particularly special.

Writing in the Independent, a local BDS hole blamed the failure of BDS at the Park Slope Food Coop on (you guessed it) the Jews.

From the New York Daily News:

The fact that some people spoke up stridently against the boycott didn't sit well with BDS proponent Ann Schneider, who lamented in a post at the Indypendent:

"I talked to my friend, another long-time member, Carol Lipton. She reminded me that the Coop had a membership drive in the 90's and reached out to Borough Park, rather than Red Hook, Sunset Park or Brooklyn's Chinatown.

"While we have worked for four decades to create a community based on cooperation, equality, diversity, organic farming and sustainability, ‘we've incorporated members whose core values are the antithesis of ours, except for the common denominator of concern for healthful and cheap food,' Lipton said."

In other words: Those damn Borough Park Jews ruined everything.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to see the dark core of anti-Semitism in the heart of the BDS movement

Israel is for Lovers.

Think of it as Birthright for Honeymooners.

Honeymoon Israel is a private 501c3  offering highly subsidized, 9-day trips to Israel for couples 25-40, with opportunities for social action, fun and adventure.  It is completely inclusive and open to LGBT and interfaith couples. Spaces are filling up quickly- in Los Angeles, 85 couples applied for 20 spots.

Check out the itinerary from the Phoenix trip. 

From the website of Honeymoon Israel

Honeymoon Israel's agenda is for you to have fun, experience all that Israel has to offer and meet other young couples from your community. 

Our organization's agenda is to expand the definition of Jewish life in America and to offer enjoyable experiences for couples to connect with one another and to the Jewish community in whatever way works for them. Honeymoon Israel does not have a specific agenda or prescription for this but rather seeks to support couples in their own exploration and to foster the organic development of community.

In collaboration with local partners, Honeymoon Israel works with individual couples and groups of couples to explore Jewish life and values, but Honeymoon Israel is not affiliated with or promoting any specific institutions. 

From the Washington Jewish Week

“Our goal is to reach couples for whom the experience will have the greatest impact – couples who haven’t figured out how to have a Jewish family,” said Avi Rubel, a Washington native who created Honeymoon Israel with Michael Wise, a former executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Buffalo.

A San Francisco trip is in the works. 

Who is Behind NoTaxDollarsToIsrael.com ?

The bus wars continue.  Spotted in San Francisco today

NoTaxDollarsToIsrael.com is run by Paul Larudee of the Free Palestine Movement. Paul is a proud member of Jewish Voice for Peace  and  was personally invited to Gaza by Hamas.  He has been involved in a variety of assaults on Israel's borders and sovereignty, including  the Global march to Jerusalem, and various flotillas

NGO Monitor has assembled a factsheet  highlighting the extremist rhetoric of Paul Larudee

From the NGO Monitor Factsheet

The domain ‘NoTaxDollarstoIsrael.com’ is registered to Paul Larudee who is also the website’s administrator.

Larudee’s extremism includes the promotion of antisemitic themes, rationalization and justification of terrorism, and meeting with and receiving a medal of honor from leaders of Hamas.  Hamas is listed as terrorist organizations by the EU, the US, the UK, Canada, and many other countries.

Larudee has written of Jewish/Zionist “control” over US “media” and “government”:
In his article Strangler Fig Nation, Larudee’s main theme is that Israel, through the American Jewish community, is a “parasite” 1  feeding off the host/victim nation – the United States – by “controlling” key U.S. institutions. The article includes the following points (links in the original):

“the Israel Lobby has grown with few constraints, fed by its domination of the American Jewish community, extensive control of publishing and the media, the establishment and control of strategic think tanks that provide governmental advisers, and by a well-coordinated and lavishly funded political campaign machine.”

 “Israel now controls US policy in the Middle East.”

  “Israel has thus constructed a strangler fig network of roots and vines that is feeding itself from the resources of world’s most powerful nation while gradually starving that nation… if a strangler fig is allowed to thrive, its host will wither and die, and only its form will remain as an empty shell for as long as the parasite continues to survive.”

Larudee linked the phrase “domination of the American Jewish establishment” to the website of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR). IHR is described by the Anti-Defamation League as “the world's single most important outlet for Holocaust-denial propaganda.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the IHR’s “real purpose is to promote Holocaust denial and defend Nazism.”

In an interview on official Iranian media outlet Press TV Larudee “noted that the Western media is controlled by pro-Zionist propagandists and this is why the international community does not react to the Israeli crimes.”

In another Press TV interview (Dec 1, 2013) Larudee said, “Well, any non-Jew is a threat to Israel. So they need to be gotten rid of one way or another.”

In another Press TV interview (July 6, 2014) Larudee said, “I think I can say with confidence that the United States will defend its citizens to the extent that it is permitted to do so by the Israeli government. The United States never goes any farther than Israel is willing to accept.”
Larudee has expressed support for terrorism, euphemistically called “armed resistance”:

In an interview on the Berkeley, California radio station KPFA, Larudee said:

“Although we 2 are totally dedicated to non-violence, we recognize that not everybody that we work with in the Palestinian community is necessarily devoted to non-violence. And under international law, it is permitted for oppressed and occupied peoples to resist using armed resistance. This is permitted and we recognize their right to do so.”

The latest bus ads on MUNI are just another ugly, inaccurate attempt to demonize Israel by enablers of terror and anti-Semitism hiding behind the veneer of "Peace activism'

Read NGO Monitor's full report on Paul Larduee here

Israeli field Hospital in Nepal to return Home

After 10 days, the Israeli field hospital in quake ravaged Nepal is packing up and heading back to Israel on Monday.

“Today the IDF completed its mission in Nepal. The mission consisted of 260 search and rescue and medical personnel and 95 tons of humanitarian and medical supplies,” said IDF Spokesperson Lt. Col Peter Lerner.

The 60-bed field hospital was set up in Katmandu. Over 16,000 people were injured and nearly 8,000 perished in the 7.8 quake. 

The field hospital treated over 1,600 patients since it was set up.

90 operations were performed on Nepal victims of the quake. 8 babies were born, including two c-sections.

Nepal's Urban Development Minister Narayan Khadka expressed the Nepal government's gratitude declared."Let me express our sincere gratitude to the government of Israel and to the people of Israel for helping us in times of very critical hours for Nepal."

More Home Demolitions in Israel

If Mondoweiss or the Electronic Intifada  reported this, the headline would scream

"Israel displaces indigenous inhabitants"

or perhaps

"Israel bird-washes ethnic cleansing"

or even

"Activists cry 'Fowl play'  as Israel deliberately removes children from their family home"

From the Times of Israel

Fights at Israel’s main international airport were brought to a halt for half an hour on Tuesday by a falcon’s nest, home to five baby birds, which set up camp in a control tower.

The nest was constructed on a navigational antenna at Ben Gurion Airport by a pair of falcons that successfully hatched  five birds, Channel 2 reported.

Airport authorities launched an operation to remove the nest amid concerns the birds would disrupt flights. Officials clambered up the 15-meter-high tower where they discovered five nestlings in the makeshift twig home.

As the worried adult birds circled overhead, the baby falcons were carefully removed and taken to the nearby Ramat Gan Safari for a check-up at the veterinary clinic.

Each bird was fitted with a harmless metal tag ring on one of its legs, which can be used for future identification of the animal. The falcons, famous for their ability to dive at high speed to snatch their prey, are to be raised at the safari and then eventually returned to the wild once they can fend for themselves.

Since the young birds needed to be moved a considerable distance from the nest’s location, there was no way to ensure that the parents would be able to find them.

Matti Friedman on the Breaking the Silence report

Matti Friedman on "Breaking the Silence"

I’ve been asked a few times about the “Breaking the Silence” report that is currently being played up by the international press, as is any report that fits the narrative of Israelis as war criminals. (Contradictory reports, like the recent one I posted here from two US military experts, are not considered news.) I hope that most intelligent people have stopped taking international press coverage of Israel too seriously. But there are a few things that are important to understand.

1. War is awful and people come back feeling upset about things they’ve seen and done. Some observers are reliable, and others aren’t. Some of the things described in the report no doubt happened as they were described. Others didn’t. Infantrymen at the bottom of the hierarchy often don’t understand what they’re seeing, or the reasons for what they’re doing, and I’m speaking from experience. Things that make no sense to a private, sergeant, or lieutenant sometimes (but by no means always) make more sense if you go a few notches up the command chain. Young soldiers tend not to understand this, certainly not at the time and not immediately afterward. For example, open-fire regulations at a particular time could seem too aggressive given your limited understanding of where you are. If you have all of the information at your disposal – and no soldier does – you might understand why. A target shelled for reasons unknown to you might have been shelled for good reason after all. Or not. You don’t know, and in many cases (but not all) it’s a mistake to think you do. Drawing broad conclusions about Israeli military practice from “testimonies” of this kind is irresponsible.

2. Professional journalists looking at this report, and at similar reports, should be asking (but aren't, of course): Compared to what? IDF open-fire regulations are lax – compared to what? Civilian casualty rates are high – compared to what? Compared to the U.S. in Fallujah? The British in Northern Ireland? The Canadians in Helmand Province? “Lax” and “high” are relative terms. If Israel is being compared to other countries in similar situations, we need to know what the comparison is. Otherwise, beyond the details of individual instances the broad criticism is meaningless.

3. Breaking the Silence is described as an organization of Israeli veterans trying to expose Israelis to the nature of service in the occupied territories, in order to have a political impact on Israeli society. That's what it was a long time ago, and it once had an important role to play. But now it's something else. Today, like B’Tselem and others, it's a group funded in large part by European money which serves mainly to provide international reporters with the lurid examples of Israeli malfeasance that they crave. They are not speaking to Israelis, but are rather exploiting Israelis' uniquely talkative and transparent nature in order to defame them.

There is actually a fairly straightforward solution to this problem. Any group genuinely fighting for the character of Israeli society should do so in Hebrew, which is the language that Israelis speak. If you're expending a great deal of energy and money translating your materials into English and speaking to foreign reporters, as we’re seeing Breaking the Silence do right now, I think it's fair to ask what, exactly, you're up to. How is speaking to the international press supposed to swing Israelis in your direction? Of course it has the opposite effect.

As long as this state of affairs continues, Israelis will be correct in identifying this group and its sister organizations as people paid by foreigners to say things that a lot of foreigners want to hear Israelis say. And Israelis will continue to live without the strong left that we need – one that comes from Israel, is part of Israel, and is concerned with bettering our society, not with posturing for an audience abroad whose hostile obsession with us has nothing to do with us at all.

Read more about the new Breaking the Silence report here:

Breaking the Silence: A Middleman For Anonymous Sources

California Community colleges reject BDS

The largest educational system in the United States -the California Community College System- has said no to BDS.

During their semi-annual meeting on May 3rd, the General Assembly of the Student Senate of California Community Colleges (GASSCCC) voted against divestment with a final vote of 25 in favor, 44 opposed, and six abstentions.

Over 2.1 million students are represented by the General Assembly of the Student Senate of California Community Colleges.

The California Community colleges join the University of Toledo, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, UC Santa Barbara, Princeton and the University of New Mexico- all of whom have defeated anti-Israel resolutions in the past few weeks.

15 seconds to Run

The IDF  Homefront Command  has  released an updated version of its rocket alert map on Sunday, showing people how long they have in a given area to seek shelter from rocket attacks.

The new map is based on lessons drawn from the 2014 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Lt.-Col. Tal Michaelovich, head of public information at the Home Front Command, told The Jerusalem Post. It is part of a new public campaign designed to improve awareness among civilians during emergencies

A new spin on the water Libel: Gideon Levy lies in Haaretz

Gideon Levy writes, from behind a paywall in Haaretz

There are no swimming pools in the Gaza Strip because, among other things, there’s not enough water. Nor enough electricity; it’s only supplied six to eight hours a day. 

He's wrong, of course. 

Gaza has an Olympic sized swimming pool , opened in the As-Sadaka club  to much fanfare in 2010

Many hotels in Gaza also have swimming pools, including the Arcmed Al Mashtal

And the Commodore Gaza

There is a swimming pool in Asda City

There are even swimming pools in private homes, in Gaza, including this one featured at booking.com

Faced with incontrovertible evidence of the error of his statement, what will Gideon Levy and Haaretz do? Likely nothing.  When faced with an opportunity to demonize Israel, no lie is too big, or too small to spread. 

Work Accident. Hamas terrorist killed in Tunnel collapse

Hamas continues to divert critical humanitarian supplies into replacing its network of terror tunnels, showing disregard not only for the ordinary citizens of Gaza, but for its own operatives that toil in the tunnels.

Hundreds have been reported killed in construction of  the Hamas network of tunnels, including children as young as 16. The Institute for Palestine Studies reported in 2012 that  160 had died within the tunnels since 2007  In August 2014, Al-Jazeera reported that figure to be as high as 400. The latest causality occurred today.  According to the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades Nihad Awad Khalif  30, of Beit Lahiya  in the collapse of what was described as a "tunnel resistance project."

Nihad Khalif, killed in collapse of Hamas Terror Tunnel