Apple to expand Palestinian R&D center

Since 2018, Apple has been operating an R&D center in the Palestinian city of Rawabi, the US tech giant has revealed. Apple's announcement followed a meeting between Apple SVP hardware technologies Johny Srouji, the most senior Israeli in the Apple hierarchy, and President Isaac Herzog. According to the announcement, Apple's Palestinian R&D center, which has been successfully meeting its goals while operating under the radar, will expand its operations in the Palestinian Authority in the coming years.

In a snub to the BDS campaign, Apple is not the only company that works with an Israeli company, which is the development contractor of choice for US tech corporations operating in Israel, seeking a way to find talented tech workers in the Palestinian Authority.

The setting up of Apple's Rawabi R &D center has involved Palestinian-American billionaire Bashar Masri, who founded Rawabi with assistance from Qatar, to fulfil his vision of providing high standard housing for young Palestinians, at an average price of $100,000 per home. Masri is also a member of the Israeli company board of directors and is behind the Siraj Palestine Fund, which has raised $90 million for investment in the Palestinian Authority. "Our work with Apple provides major careers and high salaries for more Palestinians every year," Masri said in Apple's announcement.

According to Srouji, a Haifa born Israeli Arab and Technion graduate, who has been based in the US in recent decades, Apple's Rawabi R&D center expresses the commitment of the company to its values of social diversity and inclusivity in its workforce. "We have found a way to put emphasis on a substantive and important issue in the Middle East," Srouji said. "We know that in order for substantial change to become sustainable, it must have business logic, so that locating talented employees in places like the Palestinian Authority, enlarges our network of quality engineers."

More on this at https://tinyurl.com/yu4hueye

HAMAS seeking "Shalit deal 2"

 Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas released a video on Tuesday purporting to show an Israeli citizen being held captive in the Gaza Strip, the first such images of the man since his capture seven years ago.

The move appeared to be a Hamas bid to pressure Israel for a prisoner swap as Egyptian-mediated negotiations between the sides on such a deal have lagged.

 

Hamas seeks a ‘Shalit Deal 2’ for the return of two missing Israeli civilians and the bodies of two IDF soldiers. What is known besides Hamas’s overall goal of the release of hundreds of security prisoners;

The bottom line is that they are seeking to replicate the deal when Gilad Shalit was released in exchange for 1000 terrorists in Israeli jails.

 

It demands an “entry fee” to even engage in negotiations in the form of the release of 50 security prisoners arrested during “Operation Brother’s Keeper,” conducted in the West Bank following the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three Israeli teens.

Hamas’s demand for “entry fees” was first reported by Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat several months ago, and has now been confirmed for the first time by an Israeli official.

Jerusalem has rejected Hamas’s demand to release prisoners as a precondition to begin the negotiations.

South African Criticizes Israel's Apartheid Label

Even South Africans understand what a lie is promoted 

by UN organisations in their criticism of Israel.

 

Stand Up Against Anti-Semitism

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer has called on Jews in the United States and everywhere to “stand up, unafraid” and combat anti-Semitism.

“Challenge those people who are doing it and demand that their governments challenge it,” Dermer said in this week’s Wine with Adam. “If they are afraid to speak up or they are waiting for other people to do it, that’s not going to work.”

Dermer and host Adam Bellos enjoy a glass of 2018 Shiloh Cabernet Sauvignon over a conversation about anti-Semitism, Israeli politics, Iran and the Jewish future.

The former ambassador noted that anti-Semitism is thousands of years old, something he said Jews today tend to forget. Hate against Jews existed long before the founding of the Jewish state, he said.

Anti-Semites are “lighting the fuse” of a 2,500-year-old powder keg, “and they have to be held accountable,” said Dermer. “It’s different for blacks, for gays, for women, for anyone else. For Jews, it’s open season and the only way you’re going to put an end to this is to hold them accountable. Somebody has to pay a price for making these statements,” he added.

‘Israel has to be very strong’

The difference today is that the Jewish people have Israel, said Dermer, though he admitted that just as Israel is not the cause of anti-Semitism, neither is it some miracle cure. However, he added, ensuring a strong and powerful Jewish state—making Israel an economic and military power—will lead to better diplomatic relations.

After Israel’s victories in the Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Egyptians desired peace, he noted.

“If you can’t beat them, let’s join them,” he quipped. “That’s why you heard the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] say, for as long as I can remember, that no one makes alliances with the weak, and that Israel has to be very strong.”

Moreover, making dangerous concessions not only does not bring peace but “actually makes Israel a worse ally,” he said.

The younger generation of Jews should be grateful that they are living in a time when there is a sovereign Jewish state, he added.

“We had 100 generations that dreamed of it, and only the last three had the privilege to live in it. I think we take it for granted. … It’s hard for people when they’ve been born into something to realize how unique it is.”

 

Extermination of Christian Africans by Islamists unworthy of global news.

Very recently three atrocities happened on the African continent which went unreported by mainstream media.

Those affected who have been treated with utter contempt are fearful of the next atrocity. They live in the knowledge that the international organizations established to protect them have totally ignored their plight and they are treated like human excrement.

Mainstream media is far too obsessed with other less important issues than the mass slaughter of black Africans. Such atrocities do not suit their current agenda nor the agenda of the establishment. How can this be especially in the era of Black Lives Matter? Indigenous black African lives, or deaths, clearly do not matter when the assassins are Muslims.

On June 6, in Owo, southwest Nigeria, Muslims attacked congregants at prayer in a Catholic church. Scores were killed, others lay dying and have since died. Among the dead were infants, children, mothers and the elderly. They were gunned down and thereafter hacked to death. Such attacks are common in Nigeria and thousands of innocent black civilians, mainly Christian church goers, women and children are selected for random execution by armed Muslims.

On May 30, in the northern rural village of Solhan, Burkina Faso, over 160 black African villagers were slaughtered by Muslims. The perpetrators of the slaughter were again a mix of black and brown Caucasian Muslims. The racial, and religious dynamics regarding victims and assassins replicate Nigeria’s experiences.

On May 3 over 70 villagers were butchered by Muslims in the village of Kodyel, Komamandjari province, Burkina Faso.

Other countries in the Sahel such as Mauritania, Niger and Mali have experienced numerous, similar atrocities.

None of these three recent atrocities were reported on mainstream television or radio news in, for example, the United Kingdom. A review of other Western tv and radio channels proved similarly consistent. Any reports were hidden among various other Africa centric news items on websites appearing on average for 36 hours. Unfortunately, this is the norm. The extermination of Christian and non-Muslim Africans by Islamists is unworthy of global news.

Church leaders of all denominations have remained silent. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other church leaders have been particularly outspoken on this issue but alas silent on the Muslim murders on black Africans. The UK church has its priorities wrong and its leaders remind me of the church leaders during the Nazi era who kept quiet as Jews, gays, Roma, Communists and the physically and mentally disabled were transported to the gas chambers.

Surely the United Nations would establish an investigation by one of their various bodies or councils to discuss the continuous attacks including the most recent on these defenseless, helpless African civilians? And what about Amnesty International and War On Want – both too rabidly obsessed with demonizing the only Jewish State which paradoxically is a multiracial, free society. No, nothing, absolutely nothing. No Human Rights Council, no NGO, nothing from the Organization of African Unity.

Compare these and previous barbarities committed by Islamists on black, non-Muslim Africans with the recent, unfortunate death of a Palestinian journalist or indeed the death of George Floyd. The saturation media attention on these two events was global, viral, excessive, biased, unending, and commented upon by every recognizable media outlet numerous times. To morally decent folk it makes no sense.

This does not explain nor should be used as an excuse for the silence of the Church, politicians – especially black politicians and the United Nations on the events in Africa. Unless of course they mimic mainstream media – which they do.

There is undoubtedly an agenda within mainstream global media supported by the United Nations, to unfairly focus on the only Jewish State in the world. There is a rabid obsession only to highlight Israel as the bad guy and the Palestinians as victims which is ironic and perverse. Why? Well both Palestinian Charters, the Palestinian National Council Charter of 1968 and the Palestinian Hamas Charter of 1988 Muppet Nazi ideology in demanding Jew extermination. There is global silence on these Hitlerite documents which have indoctrinated three generations of Palestinian children. By continuing with this agenda, global victims of Islamists remain ignored. The world is silent and indigenous, non-Muslim black Africans will continue to be butchered by Islamists.

 

For the full report go to https://tinyurl.com/5n8zsd3e

It's a Dog's Life - saving terror attacks

 

A dog by the name of Tzayid (Hebrew for ‘hunter’) thwarted a shooting attack in the Israeli town of Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion in Judea, Arutz-7 reported.

The IDF cleared the information for publication Thursday afternoon.

The hero dog belonged to the Israel Dog Unit (IDU), a nonprofit that trains and supplies security dogs in vulnerable locations throughout Israel.

“The IDU saves lives in Israel through the use of specially trained service dogs in coordination with the IDF, Israeli police, ZAKA, and the Israeli Fire Department,” its website explains.

According to the IDU, several terrorists coming from the direction of a Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Beit Fair began firing towards Migdal Oz. The town’s security chief, accompanied by Tzayid, immediately went to investigate.

Tzayid chased the assailants, who had tried to flee, but the dog caught up with them. They were then detained until the IDF arrived to take them into custody.

There were no injuries.

“We are proud to work with the chief of security for Migdal Oz, and proud of Tzayid, one of our eldest security dogs,” said an IDF spokesperson.

The IDU stationed Tzayid in Migdal Oz after a Palestinian terrorist murdered 18-year-old yeshiva student Dvir Sorek near Migdal Oz three years ago.

What Israel Really Stands for According to an Israeli Arab

 Yosef Haddad, a Arab, born and raised in the country of Israel, explains to the Irish government what Israel really stands for:

Israel stands for religious, secular, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, LGBTQ, and disabled residents.

Israel stands for the rule of law, where a Supreme Court Judge is an Israeli Arab, and where a previous Arab Supreme Court Judge, Salim Joubran sent a Jewish president and a Jewish prime minister to prison when they committed crimes.

Where an IDF soldier who shot a terrorist in violation of the code of conduct is convicted and sent to prison.

Israel stands for freedom of expression, where members of the government can openly criticise their state, including in Arabic, in the halls of the parliament.

Where thousands of Israelis can protest against the government or against legislation they oppose without fear of arrest or murder.

Israel stands for free speech, where the press can, and does, openly criticise the government without fear of arrest and persecution – unlike in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel stands for humanity, where the IDF itself launched a hospital for the sole purpose of providing humanitarian aid and treatment to Syrians injured in the Syrian Civil War, despite the fact that Syria is an enemy country.

It stands for providing humanitarian aid to Gaza even when Hamas bombs their own humanitarian aid convoy which occurred in May 2021.

It stands for granting tens of thousands of work permits to Palestinians who work every day within Israeli borders for a much higher salary than they would ever earn in the Palestinian territories.

It stands for forming new alliances with Arab states across the region for the benefit of both peoples such as the Abraham Accords.

It stands for granting full citizenship to the Arabs who remained, like my family.

It stands for taking chances and painful sacrifices for peace over and over again, even when it ends with over 15,000 rockets being fired at our civilians from Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It stands for spending billions of dollars to build the Iron Dome defensive system to protect Arab and Jewish lives while Hamas is spending millions of dollars on rockets and tunnels

It stands for continuing to provide emergency medical treatment to Palestinians knowing that some of them have abused such permits to carry out terrorist activity in the past.

It stands for Arab doctors and nurses saving the lives of Jewish patients in hospitals, and Jewish doctors and nurses saving the lives of Arab patients.

It stands for the Arabs and Jews who stand side by side every day as citizens of the state of Israel.

 Israel stands for life.

The UN Commission of Inquiry: An Exercise in Historical Revisionism

 

Prof. Anne Bayefsky June 5^th 2022   

Institute for Contemporary Affairs

Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

• The Commission of Inquiry created in 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council issued its first report on Tuesday. The three commissioners appointed to conduct the inquiry were on record accusing Israel of apartheid, and urging boycotts and criminal prosecution – in advance of investigating anything. At least two reports annually may be expected to pound a steady drumbeat of modern anti-Semitism, namely, delegitimizing Israel.

• The UN handed the Commission a search warrant unrestricted to any period of time, to seek “all underlying root causes” of the conflict and hunt for “systematic discrimination and repression.”

• Israel itself will not be voluntarily appearing before the firing squad. But when the UN announced it would open the door to submissions, an historic campaign was launched by NGOs to fill the UN inbox with what its Council and inquisitors didn’t expect or want to hear.

• Our Action from the Jeruslaem Centre for Public Affairs

a) we submitted the names of 600,000 Jewish refugees and victims of Arab persecution in Middle East and North African nations in the past 75 years.

b) We submitted the names of 4,220 civilians – Israelis and foreign visitors – killed by unremitting Arab violence from the beginning of modern Zionism until today. We submitted the names of 24,092 Israeli military and security forces who have fallen in defense of their country against the Arab goal to eradicate the modern Jewish state.

c) we gave the Commission documentation that the Palestinian Authority pays bounties for killing Jews – an amount that increases the more deadly the attack. d) d) we presented irrefutable evidence that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza maintain a system of racist indoctrination demonizing Jews and inciting violence against Jews – in schools, official television programming, summer camps, public displays and public honors.

e) Our submissions contained evidence of the ceaseless, unrelenting, violent attacks on Jews prior to Israel’s independence and until today. War after war, terror attack after terror attack, suicide bombing, kidnapping, torture, arson; with rockets, mortars, grenades, pipe bombs, drones, firebombs, stones, bullets, vehicles, and knives, decade after decade; with one goal: the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea – the ultimate violation of human rights. Yet the report finds no Palestinian terrorism.

This UN exercise in historical revisionism seeks to invent a narrative of powerless Arab victims and criminal Jewish perpetrators, invert who violated the rights of whom, and challenge the moral imperative of the modern Jewish state. It is far more than an outrage. Unless stopped, it has and will continue to breathe oxygen into a highly flammable cauldron of modern anti-Semitism.

Read full report here

BDS Doesn’t Care About Palestinians… Its Response to General Mills Jerusalem Factory Closure Proves It

 (Thanks to Rachel O'Donoghue – Honest Reporting)

Boycott, Sanctions and Divestments (BDS) supporters have been celebrating over the past week following an announcement by American food giant General Mills that it had sold its stake in its joint venture in Israel. The BDS movement hailed the decision as a “decisive step towards ending the company’s complicity in Israeli apartheid and violations of Palestinian human rights.”

A statement posted on the group’s official website asserted that the multinational company had moved “following several years of BDS pressure.”

Likewise, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – a Quaker organization that spearheaded the crusade against General Mills – suggested its two-year-long “No Dough for the Occupation” campaign was somehow linked the company’s decision.

Wholly ignored was a statement by General Mills that the decision to close the Pillsbury dough factory had absolutely nothing to do with pressure applied by BDS campaigners.Bottom of Form

 

Indeed, the multinational company, which makes household brands including Pillsbury, Häagen-Dazs and Yoplait, thoroughly debunked claims that BDS had a hand in prompting the closure of its factory in Israel, describing such allegations as “false.”

“We have made clear the global business strategy that drove this decision. Any claims by others taking credit for this decision are false. We continue to sell our products in Israel and look forward to continuing to serve Israeli consumers with our other brands.”

An earlier statement pointed out that the company was also planning on selling its European dough business as part of a new strategy.

‘East Jerusalem’: Media Parroting BDS Falsehoods

True to form, the media have taken the BDS baton and run with it. Numerous reports about General Mills’ decision assert that the company’s factory in the Atarot Industrial Zone is located in “East Jerusalem” (see here, here and here).

Aside from the fact that “East Jerusalem” is a misnomer, which falsely suggests the holy city is divided, the factory is not even located in the eastern part of the city – it is actually in northern Jerusalem.

Furthermore, as attorney Stephen M. Flatow noted, the area is an industrial zone and is not a hub of “settlers” as has been suggested in several reports (see here and here), Indeed, the factory closure will disproportionately affect Arab workers: 

[Atarot] has become one of Israel’s successful industrial zones and, incidentally, has employed quite a few Palestinian Arabs over the years. In a 2017 study it was estimated that 80% of the employees within the Atarot were Palestinian Arabs.”

And this is but the latest example of media outlets uncritically parroting BDS falsehoods.

-        When sportswear giant Nike announced plans to terminate its business relationship with some Israeli retailers last year, outlets such as The Independent  linked the move to BDS.

That Nike had no intention of closing any of its 15 company-owned stores in Israel and encouraged customers in Israel to purchase its products via these outlets mattered not one iota to BDS supporters who declared it a major win for the campaign to turn Israel into a pariah state.

Even more scandalously, BDS advocates, many of whom have openly stated they wish to see the destruction of the Jewish state, gloss over the very real harm the movement has on those it claims to want to protect – Palestinians.

-        When SodaStream capitulated to BDS calls in 2015 and moved its operations from the West Bank to southern Israel it came at a high price, which was the loss of hundreds of jobs held by Palestinians who had been earning approximately three times the average local salary. 

 If BDS really cared about Palestinians – and was not primarily driven by an animus toward the Jewish state – why would it be trying to drive out the employers who pay Palestinian wages? 

Do Palestinians prefer united Jerusalem under Israeli rule?

 THE PALESTINIAN leadership sees all of formerly-Jordanian Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, as territory illegally occupied by Israel and demands recognition of east Jerusalem as its capital, while contending that the status of west Jerusalem is a matter for permanent status peace talks. And although the Palestinians have signaled a theoretical willingness to accept west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, whenever the issue arose in actual negotiations – Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert tabling concrete ideas to redivide the city – such proposals never proved acceptable.

To buttress its position, the Palestinian leadership claims that Jerusalem’s Palestinians are united in demanding an end to Israel’s rule. But though widely accepted across the globe, this narrative is not reflected in a series of public opinion surveys of Palestinian Jerusalemites.

 In December 2021, the Palestine News Network (SHFA) released a poll that found an astonishing 93% of Jerusalem’s Palestinians prefer Israeli to Palestinian rule.

 These results were significantly higher than a previous survey done by the Bethlehem-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion released in August 2015, which found that 52% of Jerusalem Palestinians would choose “Israeli citizenship with equal rights,” while only 42% would want to become citizens of a future Palestinian state.

Do Palestinians want to move to Jerusalem?

 A November 2011 poll by the same organization discovered that an amazing 42% of Jerusalem Palestinians would want to relocate into Israel if their present neighborhood became part of a Palestinian state.

Though by no means Israeli patriots, Jerusalem’s Palestinians – like Arab Israelis – see the advantages of living in a successful, pluralist democracy with a Western standard of living and social services, over those of the authoritarian, corrupt and poorer Palestinian alternative.

In contrast to the much-propagated narrative, while not publicly celebrating 55 years from to the unification of the city, most Palestinian Jerusalemites would nonetheless elect to remain under Israeli jurisdiction. Of course, those who champion Palestinian rights are under no obligation to take into account the views of Jerusalem’s Palestinians.