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Zionist Nationalist wrote:Depends on where you buy it
coffee shops are selling for about 4$
a kiosk will sell for about 1.3$
Eight more Jews walk out on ‘Birthright,’ saying tour has no place for Palestinians
Wildcat Birthright! Yesterday two more Birthright tours of Israel were struck by walkouts in Jerusalem. Two from one group, six from another group– making 13 in all to stage these walkouts (and the dissidents are overwhelmingly women).
Birthright offers free trips to Israel for Jews 18-26, paid for by Israel supporters. One of these tours was about to visit the “City of David,” the settlement just south of the Old City walls that is confiscating Palestinian properties in Silwan. The young people refused to take part in the settlement tour, preferring to meet the Sumarin family, which has faced endless eviction threats from the settler-state, and then to meet Palestinians at the great Wadi Hilweh information center in Silwan.
A member of the Sumarin family honors the solidarity: “Truly this is something important for us and this house, your coming here.”
The dissenters have posted a two-hour video on Facebook. The walkout this time was a lot more tranquil than the last one, in which the dissenters were all but threatened with their lives for wanting to see the occupation.
The highlights of the video are when a young dissident says they were told that, “If you think Birthright has an agenda, then why are you here? Which made me wonder whether Birthright has any place for someone like me who is curious about the occupation and wants to hear about Palestinians as well as Israelis.”
Later this same dissident confesses, “I was shaking” when the group announced the decision to walk out to their friends. “It felt like a big risk.” Then they met the Palestinians and the feeling of risk vanished when the young Jews saw what these people are experiencing. A transcendent moment of empathy and personal transformation (at 1:20; and P.S. I would love to put a name on these important comments).
A leader of the walkout relates the propaganda view of Palestinians from inside Birthright:
Something we’ve been hearing on our trip is that Palestinians do suffer and they pay a really high cost, but it’s in the name of Israel and the name of security for Israel… We know that that cost is too high, and the occupation is a moral disaster.
More highlights from the video:
–One participant knew there was something obviously wrong with the Birthright trip when the group was given maps depicting the West Bank as Judea and Samaria– “which is very disturbing to me, it literally covers up the occupation that is happening.” More: “I came on Birthright to connect with my Judaism and experience Israel. For me what that meant was learning the whole truth about Israel, which meant the occupation and meeting Palestinians. [But I was told] I would be getting the Israeli perspective, and that would be it. Unfortunately for me that was a heartbreaking moment.”
–A young leader of the breakaway of six dissidents speaks with emotion about how difficult but important the rupture is. “[This] is really hard for us. But we’ve had a hard time with some of the misinformation and some of the generalizations we’ve been hearing… This is a real opportunity for us to take a stand… against endless occupation and for freedom and equality… I can’t be more clear about what a difficult decision this is for us to make…. [but] I’ve never felt more Jewish…. Something we’ve been hearing on our trip is that Palestinians do suffer and they pay a really high cost, but it’s in the name of Israel and the name of security for Israel… We know that that cost is too high, and the occupation is a moral disaster and that as Jews it’s so important for us to stand with the people that we know are also oppressed.”
–A dissident from the second breakaway group, of two: “After being invited to ask hard questions and then trying to do that and being told no– we were told if you think Birthright has an agenda, then why are you here? Which made me wonder whether Birthright has any place for someone like me who is curious about the occupation and wants to hear about Palestinians as well as Israelis…. I couldn’t imagine going into that building [the city of David] and touring around. As if that wasn’t a political thing to do, a complicit thing to do. I was shaking when I talked about that. I felt like breaking away like that was a big risk to take. But when we came here and met up with other people who also wanted to see the whole truth and hear from people who were living under occupation, it felt — [different/unintelligible].”
–A dissident was most struck by the lengths that Birthright had to go not to show the young people the occupation, when it was so close at hand, a short walk away. “It was pulling teeth to say occupation, pulling teeth to even say West Bank.”
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/07/birthrig ... estinians/
Speaking at the EU Parliament in Brussels, the Jerusalem-based Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid criticized Europe for turning a blind eye, for centuries, on the economic plight of Gaza, saying that "dignity can be achieved only via economic prosperity." Accusing the BDS movement of "trying to use the Palestinians in order to gain power and money," Eid said that if Europe cut its funding, like Trump was cutting the funding of UNRWA, the BDS movement would cease to exist within six months. Europe should give the money directly to the Palestinians, he said, adding that the slogans uttered by BDS members that short-term suffering was necessary in order to gain long-term benefits were similar to slogans uttered by Arab leaders in 1948. He criticized the Palestinian Authority for preventing activists from participating in coexistence events. Eid's address was posted on his YouTube channel on September 5, 2018.
skinster wrote:Europe is funding the BDS movement?
Where's my cheque?
Zionist Nationalist wrote:Sometimes I wonder how all those tourists are coming here when everything is so expensive and especially the tourists locations are 2x or 3x more expensive than regular places
Israel is more expensive than western Europe
Rich wrote:Greater population density pushes up prices, particularly property, pushes down standards of living and increases inequality. Israel is terribly overcrowded and is in desperate need of more land. Yet amazingly, rather than looking to expand, most Israeli politicians seem to spend half their time wondering how to give land away to Muslims. As if Muslims hadn't stolen enough land in the last 1400 years and deserved more.
Metoo wrote:...you jest!
Louisiana governor to lead delegation to Israel
John Bel Edwards will bring business leaders and researchers on trip aimed at being a ‘springboard to new partnerships and collaborations’
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards announced Thursday that he will travel to Israel later this month on an economic development trip that includes a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Democratic governor said the 24-person delegation will include business leaders and researchers in water management, logistics, higher education, and cybersecurity. The delegation leaves Louisiana on October 26 and returns November 2, visiting both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The governor will meet with Netanyahu and other government leaders in Jerusalem on October 28. That same day, Edwards and his wife Donna will attend a memorial ceremony at the Holocaust Remembrance Center.
Edwards called the trip a great opportunity to meet one of the nation’s key allies and speak with other officials and business leaders about possible trade prospects.
“I am looking forward to building a framework for Louisiana to connect with Israel in oil and gas exploration and cybersecurity, as well as other fields, and I want to make it possible for Louisiana companies and organizations to follow up on the inroads we make with this trade mission,” the governor said in a statement.
The governor’s office highlighted Edwards’ position as co-chairman of the National Governors Association’s Resource Center for State Cybersecurity, noting that Israel has a high profile in the global cybersecurity industry. The NGA’s national cybersecurity conference will be held in the Shreveport/Bossier City area in May 2019.
Edwards’ office said the group was invited by Gilad Katz, the consul general of Israel to the Southwest United States. In a statement, Katz said he hoped the visit will “be the springboard to new partnerships and collaborations that will have a lasting impact on both Louisiana and Israel.”
Netanyahu Detains 22-Year-Old American for Once Supporting BDS
Netanyahu's government has managed to unify its supporters and its detractors in opposition to its detention of a young Floridian who seems to pose no danger to the state.
TEL AVIV — The latest stage in Lara Alqasem’s strange route to graduate school involved a clutch of men, none of whom appeared to have much familiarity with social media, discussing just what it means to click the “attending” button on a Facebook event.
Alqasem is a 22-year-old American who registered to study human rights at a Hebrew University graduate program in Jerusalem, and obtained a student visa from the Israeli consulate in Miami.
The university semester starts on Sunday, October 14, and had she been allowed into the country Alqasem would have embarked upon her studies unnoticed, like every other year-abroad student.
Instead, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—following a series of decisions that were deeply offensive to the American Jewish community and caused unprecedented Israel-diaspora friction—managed to unify its supporters and its detractors in opposition to its detention of a young Floridian who seems to pose no danger to the state.
On October 2, upon arrival at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Alqasem was barred from entering Israel on the grounds that she supports Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS), the anti-Israel movement with growing popularity on American college campuses.
In the first test of Israel’s 2017 anti-BDS law, Alqasem has been held at an airport facility for nine days as her case is appealed and she refuses reiterated offers to be deported back to the United States.
One fact is not disputed: While a student at the University of Florida, from which she graduated in May, Alqasem served as president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an organization affiliated with BDS, that advocates a wide-ranging boycott of Israel.
One of the Israeli state’s charges is that Alqasem participated in a boycott of Sabra hummus, a brand partly owned by the Israeli food conglomerate Strauss.
In an affidavit filed Thursday, Alqasem claims that her ideas have evolved in the past two years, and she no longer supports a boycott of Israel, pointing to her desire to study at an Israeli university as proof thereof.
But the state was not having it.
At Thursday’s session at the Tel Aviv district court, Yossi Tzadok, the state’s attorney, explained his claim that Alqasem remains a proponent of BDS based on her “clicking ‘attending’ on SJP events,” including on the post about Sabra hummus, which was presented to the court in the form of screenshots of her former Facebook page..
Since Alqasem deleted her profile before arriving in Israel, Tzadok said, “we have no way of showing it as evidence.
Responding, Alqasem’s attorney, Yotam Ben Hillel, asked “if someone clicks ‘attending’ on Facebook–does it mean she actually participated in the event? Is this the evidence you have?”
This, along with a few other Facebook posts, is pretty much what the state had.
Ben Hillel pointed out that Israel’s anti-boycott law defines actionable activity as “’deliberately avoiding economic, cultural, and academic ties because of its association with Israel.” Alqasem, he said, “came to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was accepted, paid money, and was issued a visa. How does that fit with advocating boycott? The state has not answered this.”
There is a high standard of proof before a visa can be revoked, Ben Hillel said, “which is not the case here. She invested money and time in moving to Israel. She doesn't have a job to return to in the United States and at this point it is too late for her to matriculate to an American academic program.”
Israel’s law blocking foreign BDS activists from entering the country was passed in March 2017. It grants the interior minister a wide breadth of personal discretion in determining who will be allowed in or be kept out.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Aryeh Dery waxed sardonic about Alqasem’s possible motivation for choosing to study in Israel.
“It's about time we show some national pride,” he said on a morning radio news program. “She acted against Jewish students. She remains detained as a matter of her own choice. What’s the deal? Did she finally see the light emanating from Zion? Aren’t there universities in the United States?”
Perhaps underscoring the arbitrary application of Israel’s law, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, who spearheads the Israeli government’s anti-BDS efforts, on Wednesday said that if he heard Alqasem “in her own voice apologize and forsake any belief in BDS, I’d consider letting her in.”
In a highly unusual step, the Hebrew University joined Alqasem’s appeal. Barak Medina, the university rector, asked on Thursday, “Why is the state concerned by this 22-year-old girl? What can possibly happen?”
Alqasem’s case was bolstered by Dror Abend-David, her former UF Hebrew professor, who wrote a letter to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz lauding his former student as someone with an “open and positive attitude toward Judaism, Jews, and the State of Israel.”
Alqasem’s detention has become a cause celebre within Israel and abroad. Two opposition lawmakers who visited her in detention attended Thursday’s court session.
The Israeli Association of University Heads expressed its opposition to Alqasem’s denial of entry, claiming, in a statement signed by Tel Aviv University President Joseph Klafter that, “The damage caused to Israel and Israeli academia as a whole, to the Israeli universities and particularly to Israeli scientists and researchers abroad by decisions of this kind could well exceed the potential damage, if any, of permitting her to enter Israel.”
He further accused the ministry of strategic affairs of reneging on an agreement to “make prior contact with the host academic institution or researcher inviting international students or foreign scientists to Israel–before an order to detain them at the airport is issued.”
Several of Alqasem’s former Florida professors also filed letters on her behalf with the court.
In one, Eric Kligerman, a professor of Jewish and German Studies whose Jewish studies seminars Alqasem attended, wrote that “her predicament is nothing short of the Kafkaesque. Although she has come to Israel to study justice, she now finds herself in limbo and held in custody, accused by faceless individuals by virtue of her presumed associations with the BDS movement.”
In The New York Times, two right-wing columnists, Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss, semi-humorously describing themselves as “Zionist fanatics of unhinged proportions,” noted that Israel is “a state that prides itself on being a liberal democracy.… If liberalism is about anything, it’s about deep tolerance for opinions we find foolish, dangerous, and antithetical to our own.”
“In practice,” they wrote in a joint column, “expelling visitors who favor the B.D.S. movement does little if anything to make Israel more secure. But it powerfully reinforces the prejudice of those visitors (along with their supporters) that Israel is a discriminatory police state. If the Israeli government takes umbrage—and rightly so—when Israeli academics or institutions are boycotted by foreign universities, the least it could do is not replicate their illiberal behavior.”
Back in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Southwest Ranches, Karen Alqasem, Lara’s mother, told the AP that “studying and getting to know the country was Lara’s dream for as long as I can remember. She may have been critical of some of Israel’s policies in the past but she respects Israeli society and culture. To her, this isn’t a contradiction.”
The United States embassy “is following the case,” according to embassy spokesperson Valerie O’Brian, who said that American officials “have visited her and are in continuous contact with her."
On Monday, the court ruled that Alqasem’s detention will continue until a final ruling is made.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/political ... ref=scroll
Hindsite wrote:Omar Barghouti is just another troublemaker that is preventing peace with Israel.
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