I brought our cousin, who lives in a condo in downtown Savannah, to join the family for dinner at Tybee tonight and decided to come home for the evening and clean up some mail and finish this memo I began . I return to Tybee tomorrow morning.
This is a long one but some interesting articles I hope you find worth reading.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I wrote this LTE which was not published several weeks ago:
"The Democrat Party's Far Left Campaign theme is "free stuff."
This free stuff comes with no cost. It is like "manna" from heaven. All this stuff grows on the cherry blossom trees in D.C. If you doubt listen to one of Ocasio-Cortez's speeches or other assorted Democrat-Socialists who want to open our borders, set up sanctuary cities, and believe everyone is entitled to have free health care, education and more stuff..
It is a great concept and should have significant appeal because the wealthy and compassionate Hollywooder's are more than willing to give everything they have, worked for, inherited to those who do not have what they want. If you doubt this just ask Peter Fonda and his assorted friends.
Envy politics is alive and well and gaining momentum. If radical socialists win it will not take long for America to look like Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and/or Nicaragua, These are thriving countries if you believe in chaos. If you do not believe go and visit and try and buy something basic, like food.
Will Far Left insanity taking over the Democrat Party energize those to vote for Republicans even though Republicans seem unable to get their own house in order?
If you cannot connect what is happening in America to Obama's quest to change/transform America you must have bat blood in your family.
Meanwhile, with what is happening to our nation if you want to the enjoy the 4th, maybe you should imbibe a 5th.
Dick Berkowitz
6 Pineside Lane
Savannah, Ga. 31411
912 598 9251
(Others seem to be embracing my thoughts.)
|
and 1a below.)
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Israel- START UP NATION continues to progress. .(See 2 Below.)
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Davidson's Basketball Team going to Auschwitz. (See 3 below.)
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Iran could implode. (See 4 below.)
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Iran could implode. (See 4 below.)
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Putin revives infiltrating America's soft underbelly where poverty makes for fertile radicalization. (See 5 below.)
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My son is a real estate developer in Pittsburgh and he was telling me of a new way that Trump is incentivizing trillions to be pumped mainly into lower socio-economic neighborhoods.
Daniel can explain it far better than I but it goes something like this and he is working with a DC developer to do just this in a neighborhood in Pittsburgh involving 1500 homes.
Developers are encouraged to come into blighted neighborhoods and refurbish them , in the hope, it will entice more upscale developments so that the neighborhoods will accomplish multi-economic levels living together in secure, attractive areas.
A certain amount of money used for re-development is placed in a secure fund and all profits and enhanced values after a specified period, I believe 10 years, can be withdrawn totally tax free.
Very little is being written about this because it is Trump's subtle way, with Dr. Carson, to put developer's money where Trump and Carson's mouths are all paid through our tax system.
Trump is a doer, he is a developer and his ideas are outside the box. At the same time he also is not your typical politician and has proven to be faithful when it comes to doing what he commits to do and that, too, is refreshing.
In many instances Trump is a braggart, sometimes beyond the facts but he and Carson are not talking about this program, as of yet. I suspect they will eventually and it will turn out to be just one more reason why Trump told the black community: "What have you got to lose." and now is about to show them why.
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My son is a real estate developer in Pittsburgh and he was telling me of a new way that Trump is incentivizing trillions to be pumped mainly into lower socio-economic neighborhoods.
Daniel can explain it far better than I but it goes something like this and he is working with a DC developer to do just this in a neighborhood in Pittsburgh involving 1500 homes.
Developers are encouraged to come into blighted neighborhoods and refurbish them , in the hope, it will entice more upscale developments so that the neighborhoods will accomplish multi-economic levels living together in secure, attractive areas.
A certain amount of money used for re-development is placed in a secure fund and all profits and enhanced values after a specified period, I believe 10 years, can be withdrawn totally tax free.
Very little is being written about this because it is Trump's subtle way, with Dr. Carson, to put developer's money where Trump and Carson's mouths are all paid through our tax system.
Trump is a doer, he is a developer and his ideas are outside the box. At the same time he also is not your typical politician and has proven to be faithful when it comes to doing what he commits to do and that, too, is refreshing.
In many instances Trump is a braggart, sometimes beyond the facts but he and Carson are not talking about this program, as of yet. I suspect they will eventually and it will turn out to be just one more reason why Trump told the black community: "What have you got to lose." and now is about to show them why.
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So, You Think You're Tolerant?
Are you tolerant? You probably think so. But who is tolerant in America today? Is it those on the left, or those on the right? In this week's video, Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report analyzes this question and shares his experience.
And:
Finally:
New York Times and burn baby burn! (See 6 below.)
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Erdogan is dangerous. (See 7 below.)
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Another Rant. (See 8 below.)
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Dick
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1) Democratic Socialism Is Dem Doom
A political novice who calls herself a “democratic socialist” wins an unexpected Democratic Party primary victory, and now political taxonomists are racing to explain just what the term means. Here’s my definition: political hemlock for the Democratic Party.
I write, of course, of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s the onetime Bernie Sanders organizer whose victory last month over long-term New York congressman and party boss Joe Crowley is being compared to Tea Partyer Dave Brat’s 2014 primary defeat of the Republican House majority leader, Eric Cantor — a sign of what’s to come, both for the Democratic Party and the country at large.
Well, maybe. It wasn’t long ago — March — that Marine reservist and former federal prosecutor Conor Lamb was feted as the Democratic future for winning a House seat in a Pennsylvania district that Donald Trump had carried by 20 points. The shared secret of Lamb’s and Ocasio-Cortez’s success is that they ran energetic campaigns, reflected the values of the people they sought to represent, and faced lackluster or entitled opponents.
Not every political contest is a battle of ideas. Sometimes it’s just a matter of showing up.
Still, it should be said: “Democratic socialism” is awful as a slogan and catastrophic as a policy. And “social democracy” — a term that better fits the belief of more ordinary liberals who want, say, Medicare for all — is a politically dying force. Democrats who aren’t yet sick of all their losing should feel free to embrace them both.
Start with democratic socialism. The Democratic Socialists of America, of which Ocasio-Cortez is a member, believe in economies defined by state-owned enterprises and worker-owned cooperatives. Versions of this have been tried to varying degrees before: Israel in its first decades; post-independence India; Sweden in the 1960s and ’70s.
It always led to crisis: hyperinflation for Israel in 1980s; an I.M.F. bailout for India in 1991; a banking meltdown for Sweden in 1992. It’s usually a recipe for corruption: State-owned enterprises such as Pemex in Mexico, Eskom in South Africa or Petrobas in Brazil are local bywords for graft and mismanagement. It frequently leads to dictatorship. Hugo Chávez was also a democratic socialist.
People used to know this stuff. That someone like Ocasio-Cortez apparently doesn’t is a fresh reminder that, in politics as in life, the most obvious lessons are the ones you can least afford to stop teaching.
What about social democracy? Isn’t it the norm in Europe, and isn’t it working pretty well? You wouldn’t know it by the way Europeans are voting. France’s Socialists ran a left-wing candidate in last year’s presidential election, and crawled away with barely 6 percent of the vote. Germany’s Social Democrats had their worst electoral result since 1933. Italy’s center-left was trounced by a combination of populists and right-wingers in March.
You can argue that the major goals of social democracy — universal health care and other social provisions — were achieved long ago in Europe. But they aren’t so fully realized, and are thus potentially popular, in America, never mind our own robust welfare state.
Trump gets this, as does the far right in Europe, which is why they attract such powerful working-class support. Want to preserve the welfare state? Build a wall — or, in Europe’s case, reinstate border controls. Want more immigrants and amnesty? Lower the minimum wage and abolish the closed shop.
But please choose. It’s one or the other.
It’s possible Democrats will surrender to the illusion that they can have both, puffing the sails of Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow travelers. But a Democratic Party seriously interested in defeating congressional Republicans in the fall and Trump in 2020 isn’t going to win by turning itself into a right-wing caricature of the left, complete with a smug embrace of whatever it conceives to be “socialism.”
If Trump is the new Nixon, the right way to oppose him isn’t to summon the ghost of George McGovern. Try some version of Bill Clinton (minus the grossness) for a change: working-class affect, middle-class politics, upper-class aspirations.
I’ve written elsewhere that a chief danger to democracy is a politics in which the center bends toward the fringe instead of the fringe bending toward the center. It’s the way Trump became president. But the antidote to one extreme isn’t another, and Democrats will only win once they reclaim the vital center of American politics.
The center is Dayton and Denver, not Berkeley and Burlington. The center is Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, not Eugene Debs and Michael Harrington. Democrats who want to win should know this.
1a) Democratic socialism – the new name for slavery
The political philosophy of democratic socialism is ascendant in the Democrat Party, even though no one seems to know what it is or be able to explain it beyond "free stuff."
As Senator Bernie Sanders challenged the witch from Chappaqua for the Democrat nomination in 2015, some media outlets sought to get an explanation of social democracy or democratic socialism from him. His explanation fell short, according some political science professors.
"When you call your fire department or the police department, what do you think you're calling?" Sanders babbled to the crowd in one of his stump speeches. "These are socialist institutions."
"If he were to write this on an exam for me? That's an F," Andrei Markovits, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, said.
Nor is the latest darling of the movement, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez any better at telling us what she believes beyond basic platitudes of "free stuff" for everyone.
When asked by "The View's" Meghan McCain whether the future of the Democrat Party is socialism, Ocasio-Cortez responded:
That vacuous response is all it took for the biddies in the audience to erupt in cheers and applause worthy a sport team's championship victory. And perhaps that's what it is, because there is no substance at all to what she said... it's all bread and circus.
No less than the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, called Ocasio-Cortez the "future of our party." And Sanders insists Democrats can't win 2018 midterms without him and a push for "universal health care, tuition-free public college, [and] a $15-an-hour minimum wage."
So what is democratic socialism? Samuel Goldman, an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University says it is "achieving collective control of the economy."
The previously-mentioned Professor Markovits said democratic socialism is an attempt to create, "a property–free, socialist society."
Making the rounds on social media is a meme that purports to explain it that seems to coincide with Goldman's and Markovits' description:
Perhaps someone should send this meme to Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders. At least they wouldn't sound like blithering idiots when pressed to describe their belief system.
Now when we look closely we see that democratic socialism is nothing new after all. It's merely an old system with a new name. It's the addition of the code word "democratic" to the old system of collectivism – previously called national socialism (Nazism), communism and Marxism – in order to put lipstick on a pig.
But even this is not new. Hitler referred to his National Socialism as "the great democracy." Nazism or National Socialism was only a generic form of collectivism exactly as Italian Fascism, Russian Communism or American democracy.
What's that you say Bob? That's right, both socialism and democracy are anathema to human liberty. Democracy is an esoteric belief system that manipulates the people in such a way that all power flows to the state. As with pure dictatorships, power flows from the top down.
Democracy implies freedom in the public's mind while power and wealth is constantly channeled to the federal government. Human liberty is regressively crushed under the one simple word, "democracy."
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and their ilk see their fight as one between capitalism and something else, with their something else being a form of mob rule collectivism. They falsely believe – or at least claim to believe -- that America is a capitalist society. It's not, and hasn't been for 150-plus years.
Capitalism is a social system in which an individual's rights, including his rights to own property, are recognized and all property is privately owned. In a capitalistic society, governments acknowledge that individuals and companies can and should compete for their own economic gain, and the prices of goods and services are determined by the free market. The role of government in capitalistic societies is to ensure that markets function without interference and to protect individuals from fraud and/or the use of physical force by others.
What we have is crony capitalism or corporatism, which is a form of fascism. It's a marriage of business and government that involves government passing legislation and enabling federal alphabet soup regulatory agencies to create rules favorable to certain businesses and unfavorable to others. Congressweasels pass tax laws to encourage and discourage behaviors – exactly what democratic socialists are advocating.
Like all statists, democratic socialists want to grow government to solve a problem created by government, and to do so under cover of mob rule (the vote).
Socialism is a philosophy of envy. When one sees something another has and decides he wants it, rather than earn it on his own merits he wants the power of government to take it and either give it to him or redistribute it to the masses. Often the socialist doesn't want that something for himself as much as he doesn't want someone else to have it.
Socialism is also a philosophy of racism, weakness, ineptitude and collectivism in that it assumes one gained what he has by way of special privilege not afforded everyone if they are of a different race or creed or social standing; and that one cannot obtain a thing or advance economically without the assistance of government or the collective.
Manipulating minorities who are naturally drawn to socialism is a basic political strategy to justify government politics and plunder.
Who are minorities? They are, of course, the racial minorities. But there are a whole lot more than that. There are homosexual minorities, feminine minorities, so-called "civil rights" minorities, cultural minorities and all the minorities that make up the "diversity" of the nation.
Democratic socialism is a disguised system of stealing the wealth and production of the producers of wealth with spurious laws under the legitimacy of the vote. Stealing or taking from producers and transferring it to nonproducers is very sophisticated and concealed class warfare.
Democratic socialism is anathema to human liberty and is a concealed form of slavery.
However, it's naïve and wholly inaccurate to ascribe this philosophy only to Democrats. Almost all politicians, Democrat and Republican, embrace socialism in many forms.
Always remember: The government has nothing good or nice to give to you. The government is in the business of shrinking freedom (and wealth), not expanding it.
Socialism is by no means limited to a political system. The definition of socialism under any masquerade is the pseudo-morality of groupism over the individual.
All political power is derived from this. This definition must be understood.
Yours for the truth,
1a) Democratic socialism – the new name for slavery
The political philosophy of democratic socialism is ascendant in the Democrat Party, even though no one seems to know what it is or be able to explain it beyond "free stuff."
As Senator Bernie Sanders challenged the witch from Chappaqua for the Democrat nomination in 2015, some media outlets sought to get an explanation of social democracy or democratic socialism from him. His explanation fell short, according some political science professors.
"When you call your fire department or the police department, what do you think you're calling?" Sanders babbled to the crowd in one of his stump speeches. "These are socialist institutions."
"If he were to write this on an exam for me? That's an F," Andrei Markovits, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, said.
Nor is the latest darling of the movement, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez any better at telling us what she believes beyond basic platitudes of "free stuff" for everyone.
When asked by "The View's" Meghan McCain whether the future of the Democrat Party is socialism, Ocasio-Cortez responded:
| First of all, there's a huge difference between socialism and Democratic socialism. Democratic socialism, and really what that boils down to me, is the basic belief that I believe that in a moral and wealthy America and a moral and modern America, no person should be too poor to live in this country. |
That vacuous response is all it took for the biddies in the audience to erupt in cheers and applause worthy a sport team's championship victory. And perhaps that's what it is, because there is no substance at all to what she said... it's all bread and circus.
No less than the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, called Ocasio-Cortez the "future of our party." And Sanders insists Democrats can't win 2018 midterms without him and a push for "universal health care, tuition-free public college, [and] a $15-an-hour minimum wage."
So what is democratic socialism? Samuel Goldman, an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University says it is "achieving collective control of the economy."
The previously-mentioned Professor Markovits said democratic socialism is an attempt to create, "a property–free, socialist society."
Making the rounds on social media is a meme that purports to explain it that seems to coincide with Goldman's and Markovits' description:
| A Democratic Socialist is not a Marxist Socialist or a Communist. A Democratic Socialist is one who seeks to restrain the self-destructive excess of capitalism and channel the Government's use of our tax money into creating opportunities for everyone. Democratic Socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically – to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. A Democratic Socialist does not want to destroy private corporations but does want to bring them under greater democratic control. The government could use regulations and tax incentives to encourage companies to act in the public interest and outlaw destructive activities such as exporting jobs to low-wage countries and polluting our environment. Most of all, socialists look to unions to make private business more accountable. |
Perhaps someone should send this meme to Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders. At least they wouldn't sound like blithering idiots when pressed to describe their belief system.
Now when we look closely we see that democratic socialism is nothing new after all. It's merely an old system with a new name. It's the addition of the code word "democratic" to the old system of collectivism – previously called national socialism (Nazism), communism and Marxism – in order to put lipstick on a pig.
But even this is not new. Hitler referred to his National Socialism as "the great democracy." Nazism or National Socialism was only a generic form of collectivism exactly as Italian Fascism, Russian Communism or American democracy.
What's that you say Bob? That's right, both socialism and democracy are anathema to human liberty. Democracy is an esoteric belief system that manipulates the people in such a way that all power flows to the state. As with pure dictatorships, power flows from the top down.
Democracy implies freedom in the public's mind while power and wealth is constantly channeled to the federal government. Human liberty is regressively crushed under the one simple word, "democracy."
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and their ilk see their fight as one between capitalism and something else, with their something else being a form of mob rule collectivism. They falsely believe – or at least claim to believe -- that America is a capitalist society. It's not, and hasn't been for 150-plus years.
Capitalism is a social system in which an individual's rights, including his rights to own property, are recognized and all property is privately owned. In a capitalistic society, governments acknowledge that individuals and companies can and should compete for their own economic gain, and the prices of goods and services are determined by the free market. The role of government in capitalistic societies is to ensure that markets function without interference and to protect individuals from fraud and/or the use of physical force by others.
What we have is crony capitalism or corporatism, which is a form of fascism. It's a marriage of business and government that involves government passing legislation and enabling federal alphabet soup regulatory agencies to create rules favorable to certain businesses and unfavorable to others. Congressweasels pass tax laws to encourage and discourage behaviors – exactly what democratic socialists are advocating.
Like all statists, democratic socialists want to grow government to solve a problem created by government, and to do so under cover of mob rule (the vote).
Socialism is a philosophy of envy. When one sees something another has and decides he wants it, rather than earn it on his own merits he wants the power of government to take it and either give it to him or redistribute it to the masses. Often the socialist doesn't want that something for himself as much as he doesn't want someone else to have it.
Socialism is also a philosophy of racism, weakness, ineptitude and collectivism in that it assumes one gained what he has by way of special privilege not afforded everyone if they are of a different race or creed or social standing; and that one cannot obtain a thing or advance economically without the assistance of government or the collective.
Manipulating minorities who are naturally drawn to socialism is a basic political strategy to justify government politics and plunder.
Who are minorities? They are, of course, the racial minorities. But there are a whole lot more than that. There are homosexual minorities, feminine minorities, so-called "civil rights" minorities, cultural minorities and all the minorities that make up the "diversity" of the nation.
Democratic socialism is a disguised system of stealing the wealth and production of the producers of wealth with spurious laws under the legitimacy of the vote. Stealing or taking from producers and transferring it to nonproducers is very sophisticated and concealed class warfare.
Democratic socialism is anathema to human liberty and is a concealed form of slavery.
However, it's naïve and wholly inaccurate to ascribe this philosophy only to Democrats. Almost all politicians, Democrat and Republican, embrace socialism in many forms.
Always remember: The government has nothing good or nice to give to you. The government is in the business of shrinking freedom (and wealth), not expanding it.
Socialism is by no means limited to a political system. The definition of socialism under any masquerade is the pseudo-morality of groupism over the individual.
All political power is derived from this. This definition must be understood.
Yours for the truth,
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2)There are many news stories this week about recent superfast advances in Israeli technology.
I am visiting family in the UK for the next 3 weeks. I hope to publish my next newsletter on Monday 23rd July.
Please recommend www.verygoodnewsisrael.
Don't forget to visit www.IsraelActive.com and use the SEARCH box to retrieve any of the 12,500+ archived articles on subjects that are of interest to you. If this email went to your Spam folder, please click on the "not spam" button and let me know. Thanks.
Best regards
Michael
-
In the 8th July 18 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
- An Israeli model of the immune system is a major medical breakthrough.
- Israeli technology helps locate boys missing in Thailand caves.
- Israeli education project doubles the number of advanced math students.
- An Israeli company boosts the world’s three fastest supercomputers.
- Three multinationals select Israeli self-driving car technologies.
- Israel enjoys a good helping of American Pie, care of Don McLean.
- The first ever blue whale to visit the modern Jewish State.
- Please click here, to donate (a small or large amount) to help me expand the reach of VeryGoodNewsIsrael.
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Mapping the immune system. Israel’s Technion scientists have built a tool to help treat patients with immune system diseases. “ImmuneXpresso” scans millions of scientific publications to construct a computerized model of the immune system, showing the interactions between immune cells and the human body, across thousands of diseases. https://www.technion.ac.il/en/
Automatic analysis of chest X-rays. (TY Atid-EDI) I’ve reported (see here) on the artificial intelligent (AI) image analysis systems developed by Israel’s Zebra Medical. Now Zebra’s technology extends to chest X-rays with “Textray”, that can identify 40 different common clinical findings. Zebra also raised $30 million of funds.
https://zebramedblog.
Europe and Canada approve Israeli bone regeneration. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Datum Dental has developed OSSIX Bone – an innovative solution for bone and tissue regeneration for dentistry. It has just received the CE Mark in Europe and Health Canada approval. OSSIX Bone already has FDA clearance.
http://www.ossixdental.com/
US approval for knee cartilage repair system. (TY Atid-EDI) Meniscus (knee cartilage) tears are common for athletes, those engaged in daily sport activities, the elderly, and anyone with cartilage problems. Israel’s Arcuro Medical has developed the SuperBall™ meniscus repair system and has just received FDA clearance.
http://trendlines.com/
https://www.prnewswire.com/
Go-ahead for bio-ink. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s CollPlant (see here) is developing a proprietary rhCollagen-based formulations intended for use as bio-ink for the 3D printing of tissues and life savings organs. It has now received grant approval (up to $1.2 million) of additional finance from the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA).
https://ir.collplant.com/
Israeli algae antioxidant protects the skin. I’ve reported previously (see here) on AstaPure - Israel-based Algatech’s algae-derived Astaxanthin, produced at Kibbutz Ketura. A new clinical trial in Japan provides evidence of Astaxanthin’s protective role against skin deterioration caused by ultraviolet (UV) light.
https://www.nutraingredients-
Advanced security and medical training. Israel’s Advanced Security Training Institute (ASTI) has just completed its latest course, providing 30 US first responders with practical security and medical training. Since 2003, these skills have been passed on to more than 7,000 emergency personnel in the USA.
https://www.jns.org/training-
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
IDF’s first female tank commanders. (TY UWI) Following a successful pilot of all-women tank crews, four women made history when they were appointed commanders of IDF tank units. The four were chosen, from the original 15 women tank trainees, to enroll in the Caracal Battalion’s grueling tank commander program.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-
The first Israeli President to host Arab policewomen. (TY Hazel) Israeli President Rivlin made history when he hosted 29 Muslim and Christian Arab policewomen at his Residence. Over the past two years, 728 Arabs have joined the Israeli police force, including 74 women, of whom nearly 50 are Muslim.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-
Israel trains Yazidis to treat Iraqi trauma victims. A group of five Yazidis from Iraq recently received training in Israel in medical clowning to help them treat children in their home country, in need of medical treatment or post-traumatic stress disorder. The Yazidis were brought to Israel by UK NGO “Road to Peace”.
https://worldisraelnews.com/
http://www.israelnationalnews.
Israelis collect toys for Syrian children. Less than 24 hours after a Golan Regional Council request, hundreds of Israelis across Israel volunteered to bring goodie bags for Syrian refugee children living on the Golan border.
http://www.jewishpress.com/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Training Ghanaians in agriculture. (TY Hazel) Ghana’s government is sending 50 students on one-year paid internships in Israel. The students will learn modern agricultural practices in greenhouse vegetable production, then return to help Ghana set up greenhouses and increase its local production and exports.
https://www.ghanaweb.com/
Israelis help find missing boys in Thailand cave. Two Israeli rescuers voluntarily joined the international effort to reach 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for more than a week in a flooded cave in Thailand. The Israelis brought innovative radios from Israel’s Maxtech networks that enabled the divers to locate the boys.
http://nocamels.com/2018/07/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Numbers of advanced math students double. In just three years, Israel has doubled the number of advanced math students in Israeli high schools, particularly in the periphery. There are now 18,000 students studying math at the highest level – crucial for the future of the State of Israel as the Startup Nation.
https://worldisraelnews.com/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
The Aliya Initiative – training for hi-tech jobs. The Aliya Initiative is a free, four-day workshop in Tel Aviv that provides Olim (immigrants) with the necessary skills to join the Israeli startup scene. The initiative of Israeli venture capital firm Aleph VC helps find work for immigrants, plus addresses the hi-tech skills shortage.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Saving motorcyclist lives. (TY Atid-EDI) Motorcycle crash fatalities are nearly 28 times higher than for car crash occupants. Israel’s Ride Vision has developed collision aversion technology (CAT), giving any motorcyclist 360-degree predictive vision protection. Ride Vision has just raised $2.5 million of funds.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
A personal trainer in your ears. The VI wireless earphones from Israel’s VI Technologies provide you with a real-time fitness coach, biometrics (heart rate, SPO2 rate, speed and step rate) and premium sounding music in time with your step rate. The company, previously known as LifeBeam (see here), has just raised $20 million.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Motivating you to practice. I’ve reported previously (see here) about Israel’s Tonara and its interactive app to help learn how to play and practice a musical instrument. In the latest version (360), the teacher can assign practice sessions of either time or musical pieces, after which the app uses algorithms to grade.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
Reducing phosphorus pollution in Brazil. (TY Atid-EDI) Trials prove that Rootella BR mycorrhizal inoculant from Israel’s Groundwork BioAg increases phosphorus absorption of crops, increases yield, reduces fertilizer wastage and its polluting runoff. Rootella BR has just been commercially registered in Brazil.
https://www.prnewswire.com/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
Powering telecom towers in Kenya. I reported recently (17th Jun) on Israel’s Gencell which makes fuel cell-based solutions to create emission-free electricity. Kenyan telecom company Adrian Group Kenya is installing Gencell’s fuel cells to replace the diesel generators powering 800 cell towers in rural Kenya.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Technion inaugurates satellite ground station. I reported previously (14th Jan) that Israel’s Technion Institute is aiming to launch 3 nanosatellites into orbit in late 2018. Israel’s Orbit Communications has just completed building the Technion’s Adelis ground station for monitoring these satellites. An excellent video.
http://orbit-cs.com/?news=
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/
Defending the Internet of Things. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s NanoLock Security has unveiled what it markets as “the industry’s most comprehensive lightweight, unbreakable security and management platform purpose-built for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Connected Devices ecosystem”. (The old NanoLock was renamed Nobio.)
https://www.nanolocksecurity.
Faster and faster. (TY Atid-EDI) The InfiniBand systems from Israel’s Mellanox now support 43% of the World’s 500 fastest supercomputers including the top three. The 216 include Astra, supporting the US Dept of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and Summit – the fastest computer in the US.
http://www.mellanox.com/page/
http://www.mellanox.com/page/
Proving the Concept. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (Jan 2017) on Israel’s ProoV’s service that allow companies to perform Proof of Concept (PoV) testing on new technology. ProoV has now expanded its strategic partnership with Deloitte to become the testing arm of its Innovation Tech Terminal lab.
https://www.prnewswire.com/
https://proov.io/
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
100,000 passengers a day. Up to 100,000 passengers are estimated to pass through Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport during the busiest days of July and August, according to Israel’s Ministry of Transportation. The expected total of 5.3 million summer passengers represents a 15% increase on the same period last year.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Easier US-Israel travel for new business investors. (TY Atid-EDI) The US and Israel have agreed mutual visa arrangements for potential investors to visit each other’s country. The US E-2 Investor visa and the Israeli B-5 equivalent are to be launched imminently.
http://www.israelhayom.com/
Cutting Chinese diamonds. The Shanghai Diamond Exchange has agreed with the Israel Diamond Exchange to transfer the processing of large stones to Israel. Many Chinese diamond processing companies may transfer some of their processing to Israel and some Chinese diamond cutters will relocate to central Israel.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
15 Israel startups pitch to 200 UK corporates. (TY TIP) I previewed (24th Jun) Innovate Israel 2018, hosted by UK Israel Business (UKIB) on 3rd July. The 15 Israeli startups covered the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), vison enhancement, drones, big data, cybersecurity, marketing technologies and nanosatellites.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Where submarine technology is going. (TY Janet C & Tower) I reported previously (May 2017) on Israeli startup Tevva Motors and its UK-based electric trucks that use Israeli submarine technology. Auto component giant Bharat Forge has just invested $13 million in the company, aiming to bring the concept to India.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Round three of Barclays accelerator program. I reported previously (Oct 2015) about multinational bank Barclays and its financial startup accelerator. Barclays has just initiated the 3rd cycle of its RISE program, now mentoring 10 startups from Israel and overseas.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Audi to use Israeli autonomous simulator. I reported previously (29th Oct)that Israel’s Cognata had built a 3D Artificial Intelligent (AI) simulation platform to test autonomous cars. Now German car maker Audi AG is partnering with Cognata to integrate the simulator at all stages of development and production of its vehicles.
http://nocamels.com/2018/06/
Hyundai connects with Autotalks. Korea’s Hyundai Motor and Israel’s Autotalks (see here) are partnering to develop the next generation V2X chipset for connected cars. V2X (Vehicle to external systems) technology improves vehicle and road safety, mobility and is vital for autonomous driving.
https://www.hyundai.com/
Baidu links up with Mobileye. Chinese tech giant Baidu is adding Mobileye as a technology provider to its Apollo autonomous driving platform. Mobileye’s Israeli-developed Responsibility Sensitive Safety model - a set of rules for how cars minimize the chance of an accident - will be integrated into Apollo.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Mindspace expands to Romania. I reported previously (21st May) that Israeli co-working real estate company Mindspace had opened business in a sixth country (the Netherlands). It didn’t take long for Mindspace to move into a seventh country – it has just leased 3 offices in Bucharest, Romania.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Mortgage decision-making for U.S. Bank. (TY Atid-EDI) The fifth largest commercial bank in the US – U.S. Bank – has selected DECISION Manager from Israel’s Sapiens International to help service its mortgage customers. U.S. Bancorp has 74,000 employees and will use DECISION within its Home Mortgage group.
https://www.sapiens.com/news/
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3)The Davidson men's basketball team flies to Poland this Saturday to visit Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp, guided by a victim of Josef Mengele's inhuman experiments and hoping to help strengthen the world's memory of victims of the Holocaust. "The volatility of our world today invites ...
The Davidson men's basketball team flies to Poland this Saturday to visit Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp, guided by a victim of Josef Mengele's inhuman experiments and hoping to help strengthen the world's memory of victims of the Holocaust.
"The volatility of our world today invites a response," said Davidson men's basketball coach Bob McKillop, who visited Auschwitz years ago. "A trip like this prepares us exceptionally well as ... our coaching staff and our players are [granted a platform to be] out front, leading the charge about the dignity of human life."
The four-day trip, with not a moment of basketball on the itinerary, grew out of an invitation from a Davidson alumna connected to the Maimonides Institute for Medicine, Ethics and the Holocaust (MIMEH), a non-profit focused on Holocaust education and remembrance. MIMEH, which is organizing and supporting the trip, is planning a documentary about the team's experience.
MIMEH partnered with CANDLES, a nonprofit organization founded by Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of Mengele's medical experimentation in Auschwitz. Mozes Kor will help lead the team's visit, sharing her story and mission of healing and forgiveness as they walk through the camp.
"This is a great opportunity for our guys to become coaches in life, to coach themselves through this experience," McKillop said. "And once you're able to coach yourself, you can coach others."
His hope is that the players, through the experience, will have an impact on the lives of their classmates and the Davidson college community, if not all of those they encounter throughout their lives.
"I always say when I'm 40, sitting at the dinner table, I want to be able to talk about things besides basketball," said guard Kellan Grady '21 and 2017-18 Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year. "We have the opportunity to go and learn and not even touch a basketball."
VOICES OF HUMANITY
The idea for the trip started with Amanda Caleb '02, a former Wildcat scholar-athlete, and Stacy Gallin, the founder and director of MIMEH. Gallin and MIMEH proposed that athletes could help tell the story of the Holocaust to young people, for whom the Holocaust is increasingly distant. Just last year, 10-time NBA All-Star Ray Allen visited Auschwitz, penning a moving recollection for the Players Tribune. Gallin and Caleb wondered if it would be possible to send a team instead of a single athlete.
"Davidson just popped in my head immediately," said Caleb, a four-year field hockey player, now an English professor at Misericordia University specializing in literature, medicine and science and MIMEH's educational consultant. "At Davidson, being an athlete was more than sports. It was about more than what happened on the field; it was about who you wanted to be. I remember how special that was."
She reached out to the team and McKillop quickly accepted.
"What keeps me so alive at Davidson is the fact that our players are not just players," he said. "They're human beings and scholar-athletes and they're in an environment here that nurtures, encourages and cultivates that kind of development."
The players embraced the opportunity to travel and learn first-hand about such a cataclysmic period.
"It's so important to learn from something that was so tragic, to make sure that it never happens again," forward Pat Casey '20 said. "We can be among the voices of humanity and of human dignity that can prevent anything like that from happening again."
German Studies professors Burkhard Henke and Scott Denham helped the team prepare for Auschwitz, where more than a million people were killed. Denham, Charles A. Dana Professor of German Studies and E. Craig Wall Jr. Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities, teaches 20th century cultural studies with a focus on the Holocaust and how it is remembered.
"Professor Denham said that everybody breaks down, and it's going to happen at some point," guard Cal Freundlich '20 said. "Whether it's on the plane ride home or immediately, when you're in the actual space, or that night in your hotel room, you're going to break down and you're going to feel it."
The team hopes to return with greater insight into history, humanity–and a deeper bond among the players.
"We are going to have an experience in which we depend upon each other emotionally," McKillop said. "What we will experience, what we will see, how we will respond to it is going to require a tremendous degree of teamwork and emotional togetherness. We want to completely understand this experience. We see it as an experience for our life. We want them to bring it back here and to not just learn it, but to live it."
Though the first concentration camp was liberated more than 74 years ago, he said, the lessons of the past remain as urgent and timely as ever.
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4) Battle raging for the heart and soul of the Islamic Republic
Goldberg said that the demonstrations that began in January were sparked by the revolutionaries who wanted to use them to discredit Rouhani.
“For the first day in January, the protesters shouted slogans against Rouhani and the entire Islamic Republic. That lasted less than a day,” he said. “Within a day the demonstrators all over Iran were shouting slogans against Iranian interventions in foreign countries, against money being spent on that intervention, and against the supreme leader [Ali Khamenei] – who is seen at least at heart to be supporting the Revolutionary Guards.”
This same phenomenon repeated itself in recent demonstrations in southern Iran triggered by the death of 65 villagers because of poisoned water.
“People took to the streets and once again the slogans heard were uniformly against what most Iranians believe to be the foreign policy of the Revolutionary Guards,” he said.
According to Goldberg, Iran is undergoing a battle for its identity: “Rouhani is leader in a cabinet that is not liberal or democratic, but intensely pragmatic and focused on the welfare of the Iranians.”
Rouhani, Goldberg continued, “has the support of large majority of the Iranian public who, even if they are not great fans of the Islamic Republic, look around and consider him to be the only responsible adult there, the only potentially suitable candidate for the supreme leadership.”
The Iranian president has adroitly managed to “rally the troops around him,” Goldberg said, adding that once the US withdrew from the JCPOA in May, many pundits and commentators predicted that the Iranians would immediately turn radical, “rally around the flag, and it would again be a time of heroic resistance and terrorist activity galore.”
But “This does not seem to be what is happening in Iran at the moment,” he said, adding that Iran’s military successes abroad are “losing credibility in Iran and the support of the public, and are unlikely – in my opinion – to regain it.”
4) Battle raging for the heart and soul of the Islamic Republic
By HERB KEINON
The majority of Iranians realize that a battle is currently raging in Iran for the “very heart and soul of the Islamic Republic,” Ori Goldberg, an expert on political theology in the Shi’ite world, said on Sunday.
This battle, which is being played out in the demonstrations that have hit Iran since the beginning of the year, pits President Hassan Rouhani against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But Goldberg, who teaches at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said that Rouhani is not a liberal or reformer as the West often likes to portray him. Rather he is someone who believes that the government should devote most of its efforts and resources to the needs of the Iranians in Iran.
Goldberg told a group of policy shapers from Australia, the US, the UK and Israel taking part in the International Institute for Strategic Leadership Dialogue in Jerusalem, that in 2013 Rouhani ran on a platform “of what he called moderation.”
“That may seem like a loaded word here in the West, but in Iran that word resonated very powerfully among the Iranian public,” he asserted. “Moderation meant less involvement of the Iranian state in the direct lives of the citizens, and it also meant what later became known as republicanism: a government that devotes most of its efforts and resources to regulating the lives of Iranians in Iran.”
Goldberg said this “republicanism” was a crucial part of Rouhani’s electoral platform, “and a very major reason for his resounding and surprising victory.”
Signing the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was for Rouhani first and foremost an attempt to reassert Iran into the world – something Goldberg said “means a lot to the Iranians” – and also a vehicle providing him with the “peace of mind required to stabilize the Iranian economy and Iranian state. The JCPOA was the means to give him the breathing room in order to do that.”
Arrayed against Rouhani’s camp, Goldberg said, are the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
“The military successes in Syria and Lebanon are perceived in Iran as sectorial in nature; they belong to the Revolutionary Guards, [who] are not perceived by what I believe to be a significant majority of the Iranian public as Iranian. They are seen as a sector with its own interests, motives and agendas: mostly related to preserving their power – both executive and economic. They are a network, a clique, a mob – call them what you will. Most Iranians don’t see them as speaking or acting on behalf of the Iranian collective,” he said.
He added that the Guards’ successes in Syria, “while they serve the staunch revolutionary agenda of the Revolutionary Guards, are not seen as advancing the interests of Iran at large by a great many members of the Iranian public.”
THIS TENSION, according to Goldberg, is important in understanding the demonstrations that have hit the country this year.
These protests reflect “Iranian distress, mostly the distress of lower classes, who suffer tremendously from the sharp rise in the cost of living,” he said.
The domestic battle has “morphed,” he asserted. “It is no longer between conservatives and reformists, [or] hardliners and moderates, but between Rouhani’s republicanism and the revolutionaries. It is between a political camp that wants to devote its resources and capabilities to restarting or upgrading the Islamic Republic, and a political camp heavily invested in the interventionist, aggressive foreign policy we have come to see in Iran.”
This battle, which is being played out in the demonstrations that have hit Iran since the beginning of the year, pits President Hassan Rouhani against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But Goldberg, who teaches at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said that Rouhani is not a liberal or reformer as the West often likes to portray him. Rather he is someone who believes that the government should devote most of its efforts and resources to the needs of the Iranians in Iran.
Goldberg told a group of policy shapers from Australia, the US, the UK and Israel taking part in the International Institute for Strategic Leadership Dialogue in Jerusalem, that in 2013 Rouhani ran on a platform “of what he called moderation.”
“That may seem like a loaded word here in the West, but in Iran that word resonated very powerfully among the Iranian public,” he asserted. “Moderation meant less involvement of the Iranian state in the direct lives of the citizens, and it also meant what later became known as republicanism: a government that devotes most of its efforts and resources to regulating the lives of Iranians in Iran.”
Goldberg said this “republicanism” was a crucial part of Rouhani’s electoral platform, “and a very major reason for his resounding and surprising victory.”
Signing the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was for Rouhani first and foremost an attempt to reassert Iran into the world – something Goldberg said “means a lot to the Iranians” – and also a vehicle providing him with the “peace of mind required to stabilize the Iranian economy and Iranian state. The JCPOA was the means to give him the breathing room in order to do that.”
Arrayed against Rouhani’s camp, Goldberg said, are the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
“The military successes in Syria and Lebanon are perceived in Iran as sectorial in nature; they belong to the Revolutionary Guards, [who] are not perceived by what I believe to be a significant majority of the Iranian public as Iranian. They are seen as a sector with its own interests, motives and agendas: mostly related to preserving their power – both executive and economic. They are a network, a clique, a mob – call them what you will. Most Iranians don’t see them as speaking or acting on behalf of the Iranian collective,” he said.
He added that the Guards’ successes in Syria, “while they serve the staunch revolutionary agenda of the Revolutionary Guards, are not seen as advancing the interests of Iran at large by a great many members of the Iranian public.”
THIS TENSION, according to Goldberg, is important in understanding the demonstrations that have hit the country this year.
These protests reflect “Iranian distress, mostly the distress of lower classes, who suffer tremendously from the sharp rise in the cost of living,” he said.
The domestic battle has “morphed,” he asserted. “It is no longer between conservatives and reformists, [or] hardliners and moderates, but between Rouhani’s republicanism and the revolutionaries. It is between a political camp that wants to devote its resources and capabilities to restarting or upgrading the Islamic Republic, and a political camp heavily invested in the interventionist, aggressive foreign policy we have come to see in Iran.”
Iran protests grow, death toll mounts, January 2, 2018. (REUTERS)
Goldberg said that the demonstrations that began in January were sparked by the revolutionaries who wanted to use them to discredit Rouhani.
“For the first day in January, the protesters shouted slogans against Rouhani and the entire Islamic Republic. That lasted less than a day,” he said. “Within a day the demonstrators all over Iran were shouting slogans against Iranian interventions in foreign countries, against money being spent on that intervention, and against the supreme leader [Ali Khamenei] – who is seen at least at heart to be supporting the Revolutionary Guards.”
This same phenomenon repeated itself in recent demonstrations in southern Iran triggered by the death of 65 villagers because of poisoned water.
“People took to the streets and once again the slogans heard were uniformly against what most Iranians believe to be the foreign policy of the Revolutionary Guards,” he said.
According to Goldberg, Iran is undergoing a battle for its identity: “Rouhani is leader in a cabinet that is not liberal or democratic, but intensely pragmatic and focused on the welfare of the Iranians.”
Rouhani, Goldberg continued, “has the support of large majority of the Iranian public who, even if they are not great fans of the Islamic Republic, look around and consider him to be the only responsible adult there, the only potentially suitable candidate for the supreme leadership.”
The Iranian president has adroitly managed to “rally the troops around him,” Goldberg said, adding that once the US withdrew from the JCPOA in May, many pundits and commentators predicted that the Iranians would immediately turn radical, “rally around the flag, and it would again be a time of heroic resistance and terrorist activity galore.”
But “This does not seem to be what is happening in Iran at the moment,” he said, adding that Iran’s military successes abroad are “losing credibility in Iran and the support of the public, and are unlikely – in my opinion – to regain it.”
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5) Russia in Central America, Again
The Kremlin is up to its old tricks in Daniel Ortega’s corrupt Nicaragua.
By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Sometimes it seems that Central America is unwilling or unable to make the connection between strong institutions and a free and just society. The privation in the northern triangle—Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—that has sent thousands of migrants to the U.S. border in search of work and a better life is ultimately the result of failed institutions.
The bloody upheaval in Nicaragua is another case in point. Since April 19 more than 300 people have been killed while protesting against strongman Daniel Ortega, according to local human-rights groups. The U.S. Treasury last week imposed sanctions on three Ortega henchmen—the national police commissioner and a Sandinista Youth official for human-rights violations, and the head of Nicaragua’s state-owned oil company for corruption.
Central America is strategically important to enemies of the U.S., and Russia’s role is particularly notable. It has a large and secretive satellite compound at the edge of the Nejapa lagoon on the outskirts of Managua, and its Interior Ministry has a large “police training center” in the capital’s Las Colinas neighborhood. The Soviet Union was an Ortega ally in the 1980s, and Russia today has every incentive to help him prosper as a dictator.
Nicaragua hasn’t had a fair, transparent national vote since the one that brought Mr. Ortega to power in 2006. He and his unpopular wife Rosario Murillo, now Nicaragua’s richest couple, are often called “the new Somozas,” a reference to the ruling family Mr. Ortega’s Sandinista movement removed in 1979.
When it’s all over except for carting away the dead, as in Venezuela, U.S. diplomats and legislators are good at tsk-tsking abuses of power. But when something can still be done about it, they are mostly AWOL and sometimes complicit. Witness U.S. funding of the U.N.’s International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG.
CICIG’s abuse of a Russian migrant family, which I have written about several times, is one example of how the commission egregiously tramples rights. But CICIG’s perniciousness goes much deeper. Claims that it has morphed into a tool of power-hungry political and economic interests are credible. By weakening already weak institutions, it threatens Guatemala’s democracy.
Well-known organized-crime groups, like one famous for blatantly stealing electricity to fund its militant, left-wing activism, remain untouched by CICIG. Meanwhile the commission uses its unchecked power to go after center-right business interests that have traditionally backed democratic capitalism. Lead CICIG prosecutor Iván Velásquez has made no secret of his desire to bring down democratically elected center-right President Jimmy Morales.
Nicaragua ought to be a lesson for Guatemalans and the U.S. The checks and balances to contain Mr. Ortega were in place a decade ago. But he gradually eroded them, and his power grab was permitted and even celebrated at home and abroad. He was said to be helping the poor while he shared the spoils of his power grab with the business community. He has also made Russia feel at home.
It all began when he made a deal with the corrupt former center-right President Arnoldo Alemán to lower the minimum vote threshold necessary to win a presidential election in the first round to 35%. He won in 2006 with 38%.
Venezuelan oil largess boosted his might from the start. He controlled the army and he had a sizable representation of Sandinista judges on the Supreme Court. Mr. Ortega’s creeping authoritarianism was clear as early as February 2010. He continued dismantling limits on his personal power with little push-back. By 2011 he was running for re-election in defiance of the constitution.
Only when Venezuelan oil dried up in 2016 did things begin to get difficult for him. A slowing economy has made the Somoza-like Ortega dynasty more objectionable. University students are angry about government hints of new social-media restrictions and about a huge fire in an important biological reserve in April.
The tipping point was when retirees, demonstrating on April 18 against a social-security reform decreed by Mr. Ortega, were roughed up by thugs while police watched. Student protests began the next day. Meanwhile Mr. Ortega has lost the support of his business allies. They were already miffed about Ms. Murillo’s increasing power and her heavy-handed style. Not consulting them about the pension reform was a step too far.
Citizens are being indiscriminately gunned down by Ortega police and trained paramilitaries. At a Mother’s Day march May 30, called to show solidarity with victims’ families, 15 people were killed by snipers using Russian Dragunov rifles.
Russia knows how to put down rebellions. The Soviets did it in Cuba in the 1960s for Fidel Castro by quashing the uprising in the Escambray mountains. The Nicaraguan city of Masaya was an opposition stronghold until Mr. Ortega called in police reinforcements from Managua on June 19 and took it back. Without greater international help, that may go down as the turning point in this struggle. Good news for the Kremlin, but heartbreaking for Nicaraguans.
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6)Israel on Fire and The New York Times
6)Israel on Fire and The New York Times
“All the News That’s Fit to Print,” the venerable motto of The New York Times ever since publisher Adolph Ochs made it his newspaper’s pledge in 1896, has become malleable over time. The most egregious violation of its pledge came during World War II when the Holocaust, in the title of Laurel Leff’s scathing indictment, was Buried by the Times. While every newspaper must be selective about what it reports, when it comes to Israel the Times occasionally bends over backward to evade a story that might otherwise challenge its liberal base — and bias.
To the Times, Israelis are now the bad guys, perpetual perpetrators of harm to innocent Palestinians. A prime example is the Times‘ omission of the damage inflicted by Hamas-inspired kite terrorism from Gaza. Last month, it provided four-column front page photo coverage of a dead Gazan baby brought to the border by a family member and reported (falsely) to have died from inhaling tear gas fired by Israel. But its reporting of the damage from Hamas rockets, and fire kites and balloons, to kibbutz farm land and nature preserves has been less than minimal.
Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief David Halbfinger, joined by reporter Isabel Kershner, made their favored story line clear early on. Israel’s security barrier, they wrote (May 15), “fences off the Gaza Strip like an open-air prison.” The “fundamental imbalance — heavily armed soldiers firing on mostly unarmed demonstrators, many of them bent on breaching the fence” drove their narrative. On the perceived apathy of Israelis to the harm their soldiers were inflicting (by defending the border), they cited Etgar Keret, one of the left-wing Israeli writers the Times delights in quoting for criticism of their county. About their own apathy toward Hamas arson inflicted on Israel, they remained silent.
Two weeks later (May 30), a Hamas rocket and mortar attack struck a kindergarten playground shortly before the youngsters arrived, pockmarking school walls with shrapnel. With dozens of incoming projectiles intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, local residents were advised not to stray further than a 15-second run to the nearest shelter. A Gaza political scientist explained to Kershner that Israel had tried to change the rules of the 2014 ceasefire by bombing Hamas attack tunnels. She compliantly noted Israel’s “aggressive action” to deter its enemies.
In an article mostly comprised of his tweets (June 9), Halbfinger reported “vast stretches of scorched earth,” while dismissively noting that the fire kites “seem like child’s play.” Had he interviewed even a single resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, he might have learned how it felt to live surrounded by flaming kites. Instead, he described “a day of peaceful protests, or violent riots, depending on which side you support in the conflict.” For Halbfinger, there was no reality — only competing versions of truth. His tweets described “plumes of smoke billowing from [Israeli] farmland” and “vast stretches of scorched [Israeli] earth.” He reported “repeated efforts to inflict harm on the Israelis” with the qualifier “military officials said.” But “the kites seem like child’s play” — at least until their “flaming tails turn them into weapons.” Halbfinger prudently kept his distance from such “child’s play.”
Since late April, flaming kites and firebomb balloons from Gaza, some connected to explosive devices, have ignited nearly 900 fires, decimating more than 8,000 acres of Israeli forest and agricultural land. Nearly 25% of Israeli nature reserves near the Gaza border have been destroyed. The other Times — The Times of Israel — reported (July 7) that a large fire, caused by incendiary kites, was raging near Kibbutz Or Haner on the Gaza border. Nine firefighting teams, supported by firefighting aircraft, fought the blaze. Given Times reporter Isabel Kershner’s compassionate coverage of grieving Palestinians, readers might expect at least one interview with a resident of Kibbutz Or Haner or Nahal Oz, whose leaders considered evacuating the community in anticipation of cross-border Hamas raids. This reader is still waiting.
Jerold S. Auerbach is author of the forthcoming Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel 1896-2016.
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By Sarah Stern, President & Founder, EMET
On June 25, we awoke to the somber news that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had secured a victory in Turkey’s presidential elections. The reason this news is so grim is because he is a very dangerous man who wants to establish a Turkish Islamist caliphate, as he has simultaneously been eroding human rights inside Turkey and grabbing more power for himself.
On April 17, 2017, Erdoğan held a referendum that greatly expanded and consolidated the powers of the presidency, eliminating the office of prime minister, meaning foreign policy is now part of his portfolio.
In the meantime, he has arbitrarily arrested approximately 50,000 people, including dissidents, intellectuals, professors, journalists and anyone that he might possibly conceive of as being in the opposition. The prisons in Turkey are so full of dissidents that they have released common criminals and convicted felons onto the streets.
A dear friend and colleague, Aykan Erdemir of the Foundations of Defense of Democracies, who had been a member of the opposition in the Turkish Parliament, told me that every Saturday night his friends gets together over Turkish coffee and read the newspaper to see who, among their friends, will be arrested—and whether or not they can make bail.
Among those arrested is Pastor Andrew Brunson, an American who has is in his second year of a seven-year sentence. The Turkish government contends that his evidence is based on the testimony of a “secret witness.” There is absolutely no habious corpus in Turkey, and no attorney working on Brunson’s behalf that can see the “evidence” and defend his client.
Turkey has one of the lowest rankings in the world in terms of freedom of press. The regime continues to trample on the right of its citizens, including freedom of speech, of association, and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. Turkey is also now the world’s No. 1 jailer of journalists.
In particular, the Christians of Turkey, who are a tiny minority, have been under increasing assault. Anyone who cannot trace his roots back to Sunni Islam is under suspicion, which has resulted in a flurry of violent attacks against Christian churches throughout this newly xenophobic country.
In foreign policy, we have seen Erdoğan’s forces enter into Syria and massacre what had been an autonomous Kurdish canton of Afrin. Throughout Europe, we are seeing the emergence of cash-rich Turkish, Islamist parties. Erdoğan is emerging on the continent as a defender of a sense of victimization of Muslims against Islamophobia.
And in Jerusalem, in an attempt to win influence among the Palestinians, the Turkish autocrat has been showering the natives of eastern Jerusalem with funds. In an article in last week’s Haaretz, officials from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority expressed concern that Turkey is trying to establish itself as “the guardian of jerusalem in the eyes of the muslim world.”
He has also called for an “Islamic army to invade Palestine.”
What emerges is a picture of a totalitarian brute with imperialistic designs. What is equally disturbing is that Turkey under Erdoğan has already purchased the all-powerful S-400 long range, anti-aircraft defense system. He has been cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and has worked to prevent the Russian-Iranian constellation from leaving Southern Syria.
All of this does not fit the usual description of an “ally.”
Yet Lockheed Martin plans to sell Turkey 100 F-35 Lighting II fighter jets—one of the most sophisticated stealth fighter jets yet to be developed.
Congress has weighed in, in both chambers. On the House side, the National Defense Authorization Act specified that before the transfer of F-35s is made to Ankara, both the U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense must write a report that Turkey is behaving as an ally. The Senate side seeks to hold up Turkey’s possession of the F-35s unless it revokes its purchase of the S-400s, so it does not threaten NATOs defense capabilities and put an end to detaining American citizens.
The bill has yet to go to Conference Committee to be law.
Because Turkey is a member of NATO, many people would still like to regard it as an “ally.” Yes, it is formally in NATO. However, NATO (which has no mechanism to expel a member), had originally been established during the Cold War for smaller countries to defend one another against the Soviet threat.
From the way things appear now, Turkey appears to be far closer to Russia than to its other NATO partners. And America certainly does not want our most sophisticated stealth jet fighter ending up in Russian hands.
Yet despite the congressional action, on June 21, Lockheed Martin held a roll-out ceremony presenting the Turks with two F 35s. The jets will be remaining on American soil for at least a year while Turkish pilots are trained to use it.
That gives us a bit of time for folks to wake up to sample Erdoğan’s particular brew of Turkish coffee.
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8) Tax idea that you should ask a tax lawyer to opine on. If you sell, or cash out a carried interest, or sell a property, you can invest in Delaware Statutory Trust. The Trust then owns a high credit cash flowing asset against which it borrows the maximum dollars in a normal mortgage. The trust then can pay you 87% of the value of your asset or carried interest in cash, totally tax free. The trust collects rent from the asset it owns and carries on paying the mortgage and operating the asset. You retain you residual interest in the trust net of the 87% payout. So instead of a 1031, you can do this. I am not a tax expert, and was only told about this idea by a very sophisticated real estate CFO who has done several of these transactions with no kickback from the IRS. Don’t take my advice on this. Ask a real tax expert to explain it and opine about your particular situation.
The net effect of the tariffs so far is unclear. Several steel mills have reopened or added workers, and more are on the way. So far it is not clear many people have lost a job due to tariffs vs the number who gained jobs in steel mills. Costs for some things have risen, but it is not yet clear how much impact that has been generally on the economy. It is too early to tell, but so far the net impact on the economy as a whole seems to be minimal to nil, and maybe positive. So far the Fed has seen no impact. We do not have the data yet to know. The real test is the next couple of weeks to see what happens with China and added tariffs, or not. It may only be a short time until the EU settles up if it is true the German auto makers folded and are pushing hard for no tariffs. The EU is now considering a worldwide agreement on autos to be presented to the US in two weeks. That would be a big piece of the resolution if true. Then the other major issue with the EU is farm products which is very politically sensitive in France and a few other countries. The solution to steel and aluminum is China, not the EU or Canada. If Canada concedes on lumber and dairy, that can get resolved very quickly as well, and trade with Canada will be resolved. Since there is no transparency to the trade negotiations, we simply do not know the truth of what is taking place vs all the political rhetoric. Despite all the whining in the US by companies and politicians who have an axe to grind, the cost to the EU and Canada is much worse, so they lose. Many say we need to talk, not issue tariffs. We tried that for decades, and then even under Trump, but before Trump it only made things worse. However bad tariffs are, it took a tough stand to get everyone else to really come to the table, and none of them can afford a trade battle. That is the entire point. Once they realize Trump is not folding, they will have to concede on many of the real issues, but now it is doing it in a face saving way that is the problem. All of them have weakening economies including China, so they cannot afford a major fight with the US, their major market. Credible reports say Xi is under heavy pressure from his own advisors that China cannot afford a trade fight with the US now. That is the entire basis of the Trump strategy.
With China, they cheat in so many ways, and steal so much IP, that tariffs is the least of it. Xi needs to decide to change how China does business with the whole world, or this will get very messy. The EU should be thanking Trump for having the battle, because if he wins, everyone wins. The reason Trump is now attacking the WTO, is that while we do win cases there most of the time, there is no enforcement mechanism being applied in many cases, so these are hollow victories. The WTO has many good rules and attributes, but, like the UN, it sounds good, but in many ways it is totally ineffective. It is a huge decision for China to comply with WTO rules and the general rules most trading lives with, so change will not happen quickly. Now the US and S Korea have begun to pressure Kim to deliver the preliminary plan to denuke, so it will not be long before we see if China uses this as a bargaining chip for trade, which it is assumed they will try to do.
Bottom line, there have been, and are, many monetary and non-tariff barriers to free trade imposed by Canada, Japan, the EU, Japan and China. Until now the US has just accepted these, other than to whine. Everyone prior to Trump was afraid of a trade war, and afraid of the political beating we now see against Trump on this, so nothing changed. This is where Trump’s NY real estate experiences come into play. He will take the hits until the other guy folds. Trudeau, Merkel, Macron and others cannot take the pressure on their economies right now, so whatever international pressure and media frenzy is on Trump, is far worse on them as their economies are slowing. You just do not hear about that. Once the trade issues with the EU and Canada are resolved over the summer, the stock market will take off. Just be patient.
When you shudder about what Trump says, and how he handles foreign crisis situations, I ask you to recall Regan and George Schultz in 1981, in regard to the Russians. Reagan: “Peace through strength” was his public mantra. He rebuilt the military and nuclear weapons. Shultz ”If you do not have any strength, your diplomacy is in the ashcan. You have nothing to bring to the table”. Compare that to Obama. Weaken the military and talk from weakness, and about human rights instead of about real geopolitical issues, and give away the store to Iran. Regan believed starving the Russians would lead to their collapse. Obama paid the Iranians $150 billion and lifted sanctions, saving their collapsing economy and their regime. Reagan publicly called Russia “liars, cheaters and thieves” in a press conference in 1981. The press and the diplomatic establishment gasped and hyperventilated. Reagan did it intentionally to send a clear message to Russia. He famously called the Soviets the evil empire. In his speech in Westminster in May, 1982, he relegated the Soviet Union “to the ash heap of history”. Many British Parliamentarians refused to even attend the speech because they hated Reagan and his geopolitics, and the things he said. The US press was highly critical. The foreign policy establishment went nuts. Thatcher loved it. Days after the speech, 1 million antinuke protestors gathered in NYC demanding Reagan change his position, and stop the military buildup. Reagan was called “dangerous’ by the NY Times and a warmonger by others. When he announced his missile defense initiative in 1983 he was ridiculed by Ted Kennedy and the media. Time and again he was denounced by the establishment and the media as upsetting the diplomatic protocols and risking war. Sounds a lot like Trump 36 years later. There were other protests around the world. Reagan even publicly charged that the Soviets had been using subtle propaganda and infiltration of US peace protestors to try to push for an end to the US military buildup. Using his tough rhetoric and actions, and huge military and nuclear buildup, Reagan and Schultz effectively ended the cold war and caused the dismantling of the Soviet Union. Obama’s weak military and foreign policy approach, failure to support the Iranian uprising in 2009 and the nuke deal, and his failure on the red line in Syria, left the world a far more dangerous place. History teaches, but many are so pinned to their ideology of the left, they refuse to learn.
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