Week of July 6, 2018
Week of July 6, 2018 Read More »
July 3, 2018
Iranian General Blames Israel for Drought
Iranian Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali is blaming Israel for Iran’s water shortage, claiming that the Jewish state is stealing clouds from Iran.
Seriously.
According to the Times of Israel, Jalali said in a July 2 press conference, “Israel and another country in the region have joint teams which work to ensure clouds entering Iranian skies are unable to release rain. On top of that, we are facing the issue of cloud and snow theft.”
However, Ahad Vazife, who leads Iran’s meteorological service, acknowledged the obvious reality that “it is not possible for a country to steal snow or clouds.”
“Iran has suffered a prolonged drought, and this is a global trend that does not apply only to Iran,” Vazife said. “Raising such questions not only does not solve any of our problems, but will deter us from finding the right solutions.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously offered to share Israeli technology with Iran to alleviate the water shortage. He blamed the Iranian regime for depriving its people of much-needed water.
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime has been struggling to deal with ongoing protests stemming from the dearth of water and an ailing economy. The U.S. and Israel are working to capitalize on the protests and strongarming the regime in Tehran into reining in its nuclear capabilities.
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Poland Nixes Prison Sentence in Holocaust Law
Poland’s controversial Holocaust law has been amended to nix jail time for those who claim that Poland deserves some blame for the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Originally the law, which into effect in February, threatened to impose a three-year prison sentence on violators. After Polish President Andrezj Duda signed an amendment into law on June 27, the offense is now civil instead of criminal.
“We believe that there is a common responsibility to conduct free research, to promote understanding and to preserve the memory of the history of the Holocaust,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a joint statement. “We have always agreed that the term ‘Polish concentration/death camps’ is blatantly erroneous and diminishes the responsibility of Germans for establishing those camps.”
However, Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper argued that the law should have been repealed altogether.
“The Wiesenthal Center urges the Polish government to rescind a law that never should have been introduced in the first place,” Cooper said in a statement. “It only succeeded in creating a global outcry against a heavy-handed attempt to rewrite the history of the Nazi Shoah and the well-documented virulent anti-Semitism that existed in Poland before during and after WWII.”
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Israel, Australia Cut Payments to Palestinian Authority
Israel and Australia are joining the United States in cutting payments to the Palestinian Authority (PA) over the body’s financial incentives for Palestinians to commit acts of terror against Israelis.
The Knesset passed a bipartisan bill by a margin of 87-15 that would deduct each shekel used by the PA to pay Palestinian terrorists and their families to a fund allocated toward providing aid for victims of terror attacks.
“We must stop the economic inventive the Palestinian Authority provides to terrorists, an incentive that encourages others to commit terror,” Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, a co-sponsor of the law, said. “Every Palestinian youth will understand it doesn’t pay to choose the path of terror.”
Similarly, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced on July 2 that Australia would cease its funding to the PA altogether.
“I am concerned that in providing funds for this aspect of the PA’s operations there is an opportunity for it to use its own budget to (fund) activities that Australia would never support,” Bishop said in a statement. “Any assistance provided by the Palestine Liberation Organization to those convicted of politically motivated violence is an affront to Australian values and undermines the prospect.”
In response, PA spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh called the Israeli law a “declaration of war against the Palestinian people” that would result in “serious repercussions.”
According to the Times of Israel, the PA gave $198 million the families of terrorists in 2017 as well as $160 million to terrorists serving in prison in the same year.
On March 23, President Trump signed the Taylor Force Act into law, which ceases funding to the PA until ends its financial support of terrorism.
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Episode 96 – Privacy: What’s the Big Deal
Undoubtedly, over the past several weeks, you’ve received countless emails from services ranging from Spotify to that restaurant in Ashburn, Virginia whose app you once downloaded to get 10% off their late night delivery, updating you on their new privacy policy. This was due to a little regulation recently passed into law by the EU called GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation.
It can be easy to get lost in the conversation about privacy but it is an important conversation to have. In fact, it is extremely relevant to our everyday lives. In a time when your every step is recorded trough your phone’s GPS and your voice is recorded by smart speakers or even your phone’s microphone, the question of who looks after our privacy becomes more crucial than ever.
Luckily for us, we have with us today Jules Polonetsky, THE go-to-guy when it comes to privacy. He is the CEO of the Future Privacy Forum, a non-for-profit think tank based in DC, that helps hundreds of companies by consulting with them on their privacy policies. The Forum is supported by AT&T, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and many other including corporations and foundations. Before his work at the Forum Jules served on boards of numerous privacy and consumer protection organizations, and he’s a regular speaker at privacy and technology events. He joins today to help us to understand if there’s anything left of our privacy.
Jules Polonetsky on Twitter, Facebook and the Future of Privacy Forum website
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