German bank to determine whether Jewish peace group is anti-Semitic

The pressure on both Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, began in 2016, after the Jerusalem Post published an article on several Jewish German groups that had demanded the bank shut down the organization’s account over the latter’s support for BDS. The bank gave in and the account was shut down — the first time a German bank had shut down a Jewish organization’s account since the fall of the Nazi regime — only to be re-opened in 2017.

Bank für Sozialwirtschaft says it will conduct a ‘scientific review’ of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East after the group was accused anti-Semitism by a leading Jewish organization over its support for the BDS movement.

Activists from the 'International Block', hold a BDS sign, during the annual May Day demonstration, Berlin, Germany, May 1, 2017. (Activestills.org)

Activists from the ‘International Block’, hold a BDS sign, during the annual May Day demonstration, Berlin, Germany, May 1, 2017. (Activestills.org)

A German bank is trying to determine whether a German-Jewish group that supports Palestinian rights is anti-Semitic.

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In December of last year, Bank für Sozialwirtschaft (Bank for Social Economy) said it would conduct a “scientific review” of German-Jewish group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East after the latter was accused of anti-Semitism by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the most well-known Jewish human rights organizations, placed the group at number seven in its annual “Top 10 Most anti-Semitic Incidents List” over its support for the BDS movement.

The list, published late last year, includes the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and the appearance of swastikas across university campuses in the U.S. It also lists Bank für Sozialwirtschaft for providing services to Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which operates in Germany. The bank decided to appoint an expert on anti-Semitism to determine whether the Jewish organization is in fact anti-Semitic.

The pressure on both Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, began in 2016, after the Jerusalem Post published an article on several Jewish German groups that had demanded the bank shut down the organization’s account over the latter’s support for BDS. The bank gave in and the account was shut down — the first time a German bank had shut down a Jewish organization’s account since the fall of the Nazi regime — only to be re-opened in 2017.

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The pressure from pro-Israel groups, however, did not cease.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list includes not only anti-Semitic incidents, but also organizations, figures, and political decisions — including Airbnb’s decision to pull listings in West Bank settlements, UNRWA’s activities in the Gaza Strip, and UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. According to the list, Bank für Sozialwirtschaft earned the number seven spot because it “insists on doing business with the radical ‘Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East,’ which strongly endorses boycotting the Jewish state.”

Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which consists of a few dozen members, was first established in the early 2000s. All members of the group are volunteers; some of them are German-Jews, while others are Israelis who now live in Germany.

The pressure worked. Following the publishing of the list, Bank für Sozialwirtschaft pledged to carry out a “scientific review” to determine whether the Wiesenthal Center’s claims are true. To do so, the bank appointed Juliane Wetsel, a German historian from the Centre for Research on Antisemitism, to investigate the matter and submit an expert “scientific” opinion. The results are expected to be published in March.

A statement published by Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, which has been under criticism from both the right and the left, laid out the sensitivity of the current situation: “During the discussion on hosting the Jewish Voice bank account, we realized that we were in a lose-lose situation. Both shutting down as well as the opening of the account have brought renewed accusations of anti-Semitism.”

“We know that no matter what we decide, we will be forced to deal with accusations of anti-Semitism. This is regrettable, and we hope to contribute to a fact-based discussion with a scientific assessment of the issue,” the bank concluded.

The bank says Westel’s review will be conducted according to the working definition of anti-Semitism as laid out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental organization founded in 1998. The definition, which was formulated in 2016 and has recently been at the center of controversy, is made up of 11 guidelines — four of which are directly related to criticism of Israel.

<p>Protesters carry Palestinian flags during a Black Lives Matter protest march, Berlin, Germany, June 29, 2018. (Activestills.org)

Protesters carry Palestinian flags during a Black Lives Matter protest march, Berlin, Germany, June 29, 2018. (Activestills.org)

“The [anti-Semitism] definition has been manipulated by Israel,” says Iris Hefets, a former Israeli and member of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East. “They want to turn anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism.”

While Bank für Sozialwirtschaft has no qualms shutting down a bank account of an organization dedicated to human rights and peace, it maintains an account for the German branch of the Jewish National Fund, an organization that is complicit in the removal of Bedouins from their land in the Negev-Naqab Desert in southern Israel. Recently, the branch moved its account to a different bank.

Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East has roundly rejected the bank’s decision. “They are looking into whether the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are anti-Semites,” says Hefets. “The review is illegitimate because it uses a definition designed to protect us as Jews against anti-Semitism, which is now directed at the minority group it is supposed to defend.”

In some areas of Germany, says Hefets, the far-right won over 20 percent of the vote in the last elections, asylum seekers are murdered by right-wing terrorists, and there is a general sense that the state is doing little to protect minorities. “In this kind of atmosphere, it is absurd to choose a Jewish group that deals with human rights and determine whether it is anti-Semitic.”

In mid-January, more than 90 renowned Jewish scholars and intellectuals — including Noam Chomsky, Eva Illouz, and Judith Butler — signed an open letter condemning the attacks against Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East and demanding the bank stop conducting its review: “We call upon the members of German civil society to fight antisemitism relentlessly while maintaining a clear distinction between criticism of the state of Israel, harsh as it may be, and antisemitism, and to preserve free speech for those who reject Israeli repression against the Palestinian people and insist that it comes to an end.”

“We are signed on to the BDS call as laid out by Palestinian civil society, to which we offer our solidarity,” she continues. “We are glad to see a change in the Palestinian struggle, which supports using nonviolence as a way of pushing Israeli Jews to bring about change.”

This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

The post German bank to determine whether Jewish peace group is anti-Semitic appeared first on +972 Magazine.

German bank to determine whether Jewish peace group is anti-Semitic | +972 Magazine

Bank für Sozialwirtschaft says it will conduct a ‘scientific review’ of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East after the group was accused anti-Semitism over its support for the BDS movement.

Source: German bank to determine whether Jewish peace group is anti-Semitic | +972 Magazine

The pressure on both Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, began in 2016, after the Jerusalem Post published an article on several Jewish German groups that had demanded the bank shut down the organization’s account over the latter’s support for BDS. The bank gave in and the account was shut down — the first time a German bank had shut down a Jewish organization’s account since the fall of the Nazi regime — only to be re-opened in 2017.

This study argues genetic modification could help quinoa, millet and other naturally stress-resistant plants become more productive

Translation: genetic manipulation will produce more short-term profit and please ignore that mono-crops raise the risk of total crop failures due to novel but predictable fungus, virus, or rust outbreaks. Notable_AndrewGrains_Main.jpg

Drought, extreme temperatures, salt in the soil: Because of conditions like these — which scientists call abiotic stresses — the fields that feed the planet yield just half the amount of food crops they have the potential to provide. With climate change, some of these stresses are worsening, even as rising population means more mouths to feed.

One solution to this challenge? Naturally stress-resistant plants, or NSRPs, which thrive despite difficult environments and challenging conditions. That’s the argument from a paper by a team of Chinese researchers in the academic journal Nature Plants. People already eat some NSRPs, and the paper contends that genetic modification of these crops could give them the boost they need to be produced more widely.

The researchers point to millets as one example. These edible grasses are a staple crop in parts of Africa and Asia, and they’re adapted well to one of the most formidable abiotic stresses: drought. Plus, millets can usually withstand high soil salinity and grow without much nitrogen fertilizer. An issue with millets, though, is that they often have low yields, the paper says, although scientists are working to change that.

Another NSRP suited for human consumption is quinoa, which tolerates high levels of salt in the soil and can grow in a variety of climates.

Higher yields would allow these and other NSRPs — such as amaranth, kaniwa and buckwheat — to be cultivated more broadly, the researchers argue. They say that advances in gene editing technology, such as CRISPR, can and should be used in conjunction with other techniques to keep the plants’ stress resistance and nutritional value in place while raising yields.

The paper doesn’t address potential limitations to the argument. The authors begin their plea for a turn toward NSRPs by quoting the often cited number that “food production must increase by at least 70%” by 2050, focusing on scientific and technological solutions. They don’t address political dynamics, the reality that government policies influence the distribution of existing food resources and the composition of people’s diets.

And commercialization of plants like quinoa holds the potential to funnel farmers’ resources toward a select few varieties of a given crop, at the expense of the very diversity that helps such crops withstand environmental change. Plus, some people still have concerns over genetic modification and CRISPR.

Still, as the human population climbs and climate change intensifies, the world will be looking for solutions. “For better food security and a healthier diet,” the paper’s authors write, “the world needs many more stress-resistant crops. As both researchers and global citizens, we look forward to a sustainable future with many stress-resistant, resource-efficient and nutrient-diverse grain, vegetable and fruit crops.”

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How a Slovakian neo-Nazi got elected

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In 2013, the far-right politician Marian Kotleba won a shock victory in regional elections. Four years later, he was voted out in a landslide. But now he’s running for president. By Shaun Walker

More from this series: The new populism

In December 2013, Marian Kotleba, a former secondary school teacher who had become Slovakia’s most notorious political extremist, arrived to begin work at his new office – the governor’s mansion in Banská Bystrica, the country’s sixth-largest city. Kotleba venerated Slovakia’s wartime Nazi puppet state, and liked to dress up in the uniforms of its shock troops, who had helped to round up thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Now, in the biggest electoral shock anyone could remember in the two decades since Slovakia’s independence, the people of Banská Bystrica and the surrounding region had voted for the 37-year-old Kotleba to be their governor. The four-storey mansion, with its vaulted ceilings and gilded pillars, would be his workplace for the next four years.

Banská Bystrica is a tranquil kind of place, with a genteel Mitteleuropa charm: the centre has pavement cafes, neat rows of burgher houses and a number of handsome baroque churches. At eight minutes to every hour, a clock in the central square plays a dainty jewellery-box jingle. And now, it had the dubious distinction of being the first place in modern Europe to have elected a person widely regarded as a neo-fascist to a major office.

Continue reading…

Home Office apologises to man, 90, told to fly to US to renew visa

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Authorities refused spousal visa for over two years despite 25-year marriage to UK woman

A 90-year-old man with serious physical and mental health issues who was informed he had to return to the US to apply for a visa to live with his British wife in the UK has been told it was all a mistake.

Albert Dolbec, a US citizen, has been married to his wife Dawn, 84, for 25 years. For the past two and a half years, however, the Home Office had refused to issue him a spousal visa because, it said, he had entered the UK on a visitor’s visa and could not convert it inside the country.

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‘Executed by firing squad’: Video shows police firing a dozen shots at man

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Cellphone footage sparks outrage days after six California officers fired at Willie McCoy, who had been asleep in his car

Video footage of police killing a 20-year-old California man in his car shows a group of officers firing more than a dozen shots at him, prompting his family to say he was “executed by a firing squad”.

Blurry cellphone footage of six officers shooting Willie McCoy, an aspiring rapper who had been sleeping in his car outside a Taco Bell, also revealed that multiple police officers shouted commands at the young man after hitting him with a barrage of bullets.

Continue reading…

Measles: WHO warns cases have jumped 50% | Society | The Guardian

In 2018 measles caused approximately 136,000 deaths around the world, according to the WHO’s preliminary figures. The highly contagious disease can cause severe diarrhoea, pneumonia and vision loss. It can be fatal in some cases and remains “an important cause of death among young children” according to the WHO. The disease can be easily prevented with two doses of a “safe and efficient” vaccine that has been in use since the 1960s, the UN agency says. Facebook under pressure to halt rise of anti-vaccination groups Read more Up until 2016 the number of measles cases had been steadily declining but since 2017 the number had soared, according to Katrina Kretsinger, who heads WHO’s expanded immunisation programme. “There are a number of outbreaks … which are driving some of these increases,” she told reporters, pointing to significant outbreaks in Ukraine, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and Sierra Leone. In Madagascar alone “from October 2018 through 12 February 2019 a total of 66,278 cases and 922 deaths have been reported”, the WHO said.

Source: Measles: WHO warns cases have jumped 50% | Society | The Guardian

H.J.Res. 37: Directing the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.

Passed House (Senate next):
Last Action: On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 248 – 177, 1 Present (Roll no. 83).
Explanation: This resolution passed in the House on February 13, 2019 and goes to the Senate next for consideration.

Inoreader – How the ‘Sunset Route’ Railroad Helped Diversify California

This straight shot to California—fair-weather, year-round—made starting a life there relatively painless, but really, anything was better than the alternative. The number of black Southerners and their descendants in California today reflect this common interest in leaving the shadow of slavery and segregation behind. “The growth of the black population in Los Angeles doubled from 1940 to 1950, and many new residents made their way via the rail lines,” DuCros says. Many of these migrants, who had traveled via the Sunset Route, settled in the central area of the city, which was close to the rail station and jobs. While some of these Southerners were seeking a new lifestyle and planned to find work once they arrived, some of them arrived in California through their work. “The Pullman porters were employed on the railroads and were often the Great Migration pioneers in the families moving westward because they had seen California on their routes,” DuCros notes.

Source: Inoreader – How the ‘Sunset Route’ Railroad Helped Diversify California