Prepared for the Conference of Presidents | |
| DAILY ALERT |
Thursday, August 30, 2018 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
In remarks captured on video in 2010 at the time of the Mavi Marmara incident, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London that "[British MPs] all turned up with a pre-prepared script. I'm sure our friend Ron Prosor (the Israeli ambassador) wrote it." Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said: "Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories cast Jews as sinister manipulators, pulling the strings and subverting democracy. Without any evidence, Jeremy Corbyn seems to have visions of the Jewish state literally putting words into many of our politicians' mouths." (Daily Mail-UK) See also My First Encounter with Jeremy Corbyn - Amb. Ron Prosor On Tuesday I learned that - according to Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn - as well as being Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom between 2007 and 2011, I was also chief speechwriter for senior MPs in the British Parliament. According to Corbyn, the Israeli ambassador forces legislators to do his bidding. I met Jeremy Corbyn for the first time in 2008. He was spearheading a demonstration in front of the Israeli Embassy in London that was replete with Hamas and Hizbullah flags. He was vocal in his opposition to Israel's efforts to defend itself, insisting that the rocket attacks on Israeli communities at the time were a result of the "occupation" of Gaza, despite the fact that Israel had left Gaza several years earlier. The writer holds the Abba Eban Chair of International Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. (Israel Hayom) Former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam Al-Majali told Jordan Today TV on August 18, 2018: "The Arabs do not have any power. If we ever have military power, will we let them [Israel] keep Haifa? We'll take it. If tomorrow, we become stronger and can take Haifa by force, will we really decline just because we have an agreement with them?" (MEMRI) On August 9, an organization that promotes religious freedom in Iran reported that a court in Boushehr had sentenced two Christian converts and ten other Iranians to one year in prison for "propagating against the Islamic Republic in favor of Christianity." There are an estimated 350,000 Christians in Iran. Non-Muslims have been barred from all influential positions in state organs since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Blasphemy and apostasy remain capital offences. (Fox News) U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said Wednesday during a conference call with the American Jewish Congress: "There's no schedule [for the rollout of the U.S. peace plan]....It's not imminent. There are some rumors that we might present something at the UN. It's not going to happen." (Jewish Insider) CyberGym, backed by the Israel Electric Corp., opened a training center in Tokyo this month to teach companies and institutions how to protect themselves online. CyberGym has a presence in eight countries, and since late last year it has set up sites in Australia and New York, with a new site to open in South Africa in September. (Nikkei Asian Review-Japan) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar said Wednesday that if the ceasefire talks break down, Hamas would fire hundreds of rockets at Israel. "What the resistance launched in 51 days in the last war [in 2014], it can launch in five minutes during any [future] Israel aggression....Hamas could set off rocket warning sirens in the Tel Aviv region for six months straight." (Times of Israel) In May, the Israeli Cabinet decided on an unprecedented investment in Arab east Jerusalem - $550 million over five years, of which $125 million would go to education. (Ha'aretz) In 2016, Majic 100 radio host and Ottowa Senators announcer Stu Schwartz was diagnosed with leukemia and given three months to find a bone marrow donor. Israeli David Levi, 50, had undergone a swab test during his service in the IDF and his results were listed with the non-profit organization Ezer Mizion, which found the match that saved Schwartz's life. Ezer Mizion maintains the largest international Jewish bone marrow registry in the world. (Jerusalem Post) Two Israeli gynecologists spent two weeks in Myanmar this month helping local doctors at a hospital in Pindaya. On their first day, doctors Michal Dishi-Galitzky and Ronit Almog from Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital saved two lives. (Times of Israel) With at least 28 school shootings in the U.S. in 2018, hundreds of parents have bought their children a made-in-Israel Switchblade bulletproof backpack. In addition to protecting the wearer's back, a rip cord releases a protective bulletproof vest to slide over the wearer's head for frontal protection. (Jerusalem Post) Medial EarlySign, an Israeli startup, has developed machine learning-based software that analyzes standard blood test results to identify patients at high risk of colon cancer. Medial EarlySign taps into the databases of healthcare organizations to analyze the blood patterns of patients afflicted with colon cancer. The company is working on finding blood patterns for other illnesses including flu, diabetes and hypertension. (Times of Israel) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The U.S. contributes $350 million annually to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) out of a $1.2 billion budget. Earlier this year, the U.S. slashed its contribution to UNRWA by half. The U.S. supported UNRWA for decades, even though it knew the agency is a disruptive organ that harms the prospects for peace and keeps the Palestinians locked in a trap of dependency. UNRWA encourages Palestinians to dream that someday they will resettle in Israel - a significant obstacle to achieving peace. The U.S., along with other Western powers, has continued to sustain UNRWA all these years as a means of appeasing the Arab world. An American decision to withdraw from UNRWA would signify that the U.S. believes the dispute is not territorial but existential. By addressing the core ethos of the Palestinians - that the entire land is theirs, and therefore all refugees should be entitled to "return" - the U.S. could make an invaluable contribution to the prospects for future peace. This would be the first time the Palestinians pay a price for their intransigence. Up to now, they have been encouraged to harden their position every time they refuse a peace deal offered to them by Israel. Pulling U.S. funding from UNRWA will break this twisted logic. An American decision to stop supporting UNRWA would show that the U.S. understands that the "refugee problem" is a political disguise for the Palestinians' real aim, which is to dismantle the State of Israel entirely. (BESA Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) The Palestinian Authority repeatedly declares that it is determined to keep paying salaries to terrorists, as well as to the families of terrorists who died while performing terror attacks. In the PA's 2018 budget, this amounts to $355 million, nearly half of the foreign aid the PA expects in 2018. The PA has long proven itself not to be a potential partner for peace through its hate indoctrination and incitement. There is no reason to worry about the fate of the PA. It will survive at least until Abbas leaves and if it falls, then it is going to happen because of internal power struggles. Security cooperation will probably continue because it benefits the PA in its struggle against Hamas. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and Sander Gerber are fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. (Times of Israel) Observations: U.S. Seeks Global Consensus to Counter the Threat of a Revolutionary Iran - Brian Hook (Foundation for Defense of Democracies) Brian Hook, who leads the State Department's Iran Action Group, told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington on Tuesday:
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