Today’s Top Stories
1. Airbnb’s statement Monday that the company would be removing some 200 listings of rental properties in the disputed territories is getting considerable push-back from the Israeli government. HR’s Simon Plosker was at the Jerusalem Post’s Diplomatic Conference to hear Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan’s reaction.
Minister @giladerdan1 on @Airbnb’s boycott of Jews in the disputed territories: appalling, hypocritical and counterproductive. #jpostdiplo18 pic.twitter.com/LkyVjwJH7S
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 21, 2018
Slamming Airbnb’s policy as “appalling, hypocritical and outrageous, discriminatory and counterproductive,” Erdan called on countries to adopt anti-BDS legislation, saying “there is no difference between discriminating against Jews or the Jewish state.”
“We won’t allow anyone to deter us, not Iran, not the UN, which condemns us for defending ourselves, and not the BDS campaign,” he said.
2. Are Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s days numbered? It would seem so judging by Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Galant, a retired IDF major general, who said on Sunday that Hamas “is in trouble.” Gallant expanded with some comments at the aforementioned JPost conference. “Let me say it to be clear: Yahya Sinwar’s time is limited. He won’t finish his life in an old-age home,” Galant said while also expressing certainty that “there will be another large campaign in Gaza,” but that Israel will determine when and how it will happen, not Hamas.
“I won’t say what we’re going to do,” he added. “It’s better to talk about operations after you launch them, not before… We will prevail, Hamas will pay the price.”
3. Linda Sarsour released a statement apologizing on behalf of the Women’s March for causing harm to the movement’s Jewish members and for being too slow to show its commitment to fighting antisemitism.
“We should have been faster and clearer in helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting anti-Semitism. We regret that,” said the statement, issued Tuesday afternoon. “Every member of our movement matters to us — including our incredible Jewish and LGBTQ members. We are deeply sorry for the harm we have caused, but we see you, we love you, and we are fighting with you.”
We certainly won’t be apologizing for taking this “apology” with a grain of salt.
In the News
• Quakers in Britain are banning investment in companies that profit from the “military occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli government.” It is the first instance of a British church adopting a bar on investment in the region and has been viewed by Jewish groups as an endorsement of BDS.
• Hamas has reportedly sent a delegation to Cairo in a bid to reach a truce with Israel and restore its relationship with the P.A. in the West Bank. This comes as Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported that Hamas is preparing for a large-scale military operation by Israel. With Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh believed to be due to set out on a tour of Arab states, it’s possible that Hamas is focusing efforts on securing funding and weapons for the next big round of the conflict.
• Palestinian flags were banned from the stadium for a crucial soccer match as Israel traveled to Scotland. While the Israelis lost 3-2, they still did the nation proud, protecting the mascots from the frigid Scottish weather.
On a chilly night in Glasgow, Israel players made sure the mascots were warm. pic.twitter.com/DdEr42j3V2
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) November 20, 2018
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Commentary
• David Harsanyi in the New York Post on Airbnb:
No, the worst part is that Airbnb has singled out Jews, and only Jews, as the one group in the world that is worthy of such censure. That’s what makes its boycott a naked act of corporate anti-Semitism.
Airbnb says an entire team “struggled to come up with the right approach.” And the right approach evidently was to bar Jews from listing the apartments and homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Airbnb is only targeting Jews — not the present government of Israel or the “Zionists” or any political entity — who live on disputed land.
“Many in the global community have stated that companies should not do business here because they believe companies should not profit on lands where people have been displaced,” reads an Airbnb blog post that sounds like it was written by some poli-sci freshman who just wrapped up his first Chomsky tome.
The “global community” is a euphemism for a conglomerate of theocrats and authoritarians, who use the Middle East’s sole democratic state as a distraction to deflect from their own transgressions. It also includes various Western Israel obsessives with misleading names like Human Rights Watch.
Bravo, Airbnb! You have now adopted the immoral hypocrisy of that community.
• The Financial Times takes a fascinating look at the next big thing to come out of Israel’s hi-tech industry – computer vision:
Computer vision has become the connecting thread between some of Israel’s most valuable and promising tech companies. And unlike Israel’s traditional strengths— cyber security and mapping — computer vision slides into a broad range of different civilian industries, spawning companies in agriculture, medicine, sports, self-driving cars, the diamond industry and even shopping.
In Israel, this lucrative field has benefited from a large pool of engineers and entrepreneurs trained for that very task in an elite, little-known group in the military — Unit 9900 — where they fine-tuned computer algorithms to digest millions of surveillance photos and sift out actionable intelligence.
Featured image: CC BY-ND chinatown news;
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