From David Hocking newsletter

US STATE DEPARTMENT WEBPAGE ERASES ISRAEL By Arutz Sheva Staff US visa application website lists other countries by name including Iran, but avoids any mention of Israel. While the US State Department's refusal to recognize Jerusalem as being part of the State of Israel is well-known and was even the subject of a US Supreme Court case, it seems that the official US visa information and appointment services website has erased Israel completely. Elder of Ziyon notes that the visa application website is run by a private firm, Computer Sciences Corporation, on behalf of the US State Department, and is the only officially authorized website for completing visa applications. Curiously, while the website lists dozens of nations around the world, including rogue states like Iran, with their flags, there is no mention of Israel or the Israeli flag. Instead, two separate listings are made under the Middle East section: one for Jerusalem and one for Tel Aviv. Israel is, in fact, the only country whose reference is avoided and replaced with the names of cities. Despite the separate links, both connect to the same page which services both the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and Consulate General in Jerusalem. Even here there is no mention or reference to the State of Israel and no image of the Israeli flag. The failure to mention Israel even in connection to Tel Aviv has led to complaints to the State Department and US Embassy in Israel, but neither have responded to the complaints nor has the visa website yet been changed.   NETANYAHU: EVEN IF YOU GIVE UP BRUSSELS, TERROR WILL CONTINUE!  By Arutz Sheva Staff Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivered a speech in a live broadcast to the AIPAC conference in Washington DC this past week. Responding to the horrific attacks in Brussels earlier in the day, Netanyahu said, "terrorists have no resolvable grievances, it's not as if we could offer them Brussels, or Istanbul, or the West Bank. That won't resolve their grievances." "Their basic demand is that we simply should disappear," he said, emphasizing "that won't happen." Elaborating on Israel's technological breakthroughs, Netanyahu said, "the world is coming to Israel," noting the country's expanding economic and technological ties worldwide. However, he pointed out that while individual nations embrace Israel, the United Nations submits Israel to "systematic discrimination," working to "delegitimize its very existence." He said he was glad to hear candidates from both parties in the US presidential race backing the basic principle of direct negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as opposed to supporting unilateral moves to pressure Israel at the UN. Calling on the Palestinians to accept the Jewish state of Israel, he reiterated that he is open to start negotiations "anytime, anywhere," emphasizing that Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is not ready to negotiate.   Netanyahu also noted the incitement by the PA teaching children to stab Jews, and their vision to establish a state on the ruins of all of Israel. He then showed the "daily pledge of allegiance" among the Palestinians, playing a video revealing the rampant incitement to terror on official PA TV and social media.   "This is sick," he said, after showing a video of an infant Arab girl waving a knife while shouting "stab!" Netanyahu also mentioned how Abbas' Fatah faction called the terrorist who murdered American tourist Taylor Force in Jaffa (Yafo) several weeks ago a "hero," and said peace can only be advanced by the international community if it demands that the Palestinian Authority ends incitement against Israel. Turning his attention to Iran, he said the nation "remains fully committed to genocide.   Our genocide."  He explained Tehran's leaders openly declare that they plan to destroy Israel, before enumerating its actions to strengthen a Hezbollah terror front on Israel's north, its funding of Palestinian terror inside Israel, and other steps against Israel. He noted that Iran recently sent off a ballistic missile in a test in defiance of US and UN sanctions, and on the side of the missile was written a message in Hebrew reading: "Israel must be wiped out." He quipped  "the writing is not on the wall, it's on the missile." UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA STANDS AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM by Arutz Sheva News Staff "StandWithUs.com" hails University of California Regents for recognizing the anti-Semitism inherent in campus assaults on Israel. In the new UC document the governing board likewise addressed the various forms of bigotry such as the disruption of speakers, vandalism, and discrimination within the student government that has plagued Jewish students in recent years. "Denying Israel's right to exist and opposing the rights of the Jewish people to self-determination in their homeland is racism, pure and simple," said StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein. "I commend the Regents for hearing the voices of Jewish students and recognizing that anti-Semitism manifests itself in relation to Israel far too often within the UC system." Max Samarov, StandWithUs Director of Research & Campus Strategy, also commended the university, saying, "as someone who graduated from a UC school, I'm incredibly proud of UC students who stood up for their rights and their community." Noting the challenges of limiting anti-Semitism, he said, "it is not always easy to balance protecting Jews and other minority groups from racism with upholding the 1st amendment and academic freedom, but I believe the Regents were able to do that successfully." Illustrating the important statement made in the UC Regents decision, the document included the following: "opposition to Zionism often is expressed in ways that are not simply statements of disagreement over politics and policy, but also assertions of prejudice and intolerance toward Jewish people and culture." At the Public Comments part of the UC Regents' decision, Noa Raman, StandWithUs Pacific-Northwest-Northern California Campus Coordinator, gave a speech urging action against the rampant anti-Zionism stifling free speech on campus. "I speak before you today as an American-Israeli Jew, a California resident, and the current Pacific Northwest Campus Coordinator at StandWithUs.  Working with UC students on a day-to-day basis I know firsthand the impact and pervasiveness of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism within the UC system," said Raman. "From swastikas being keyed on cars and spray-painted on Jewish fraternities, to a pro-divestment student senator calling for Israel's demise, to Jews being overtly discriminated against in student government because of their identity, to the most recent attempt to disrupt an Israeli diplomat speaking at UC Davis, it is clear that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are linked and have no place on UC campuses. "I applaud the working group for crafting a strong policy which successfully balances the crucial fight against all forms of bigotry in the UC system with upholding free speech and academic freedom.  I urge you to recognize the experiences of Jewish students and other targeted communities on campus, and fully endorse the Principles of Tolerance."

David Hocking HFT Connect