‎(Video) Knicks' Amar'e Stroudemire in Israel

Amazing who you run into at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market: the Knicks' Amar'e Stroudemire: http://www.davebrianbender.com/

Israel Unwraps Major Museum Facelift (photo series)

Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum: home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the world's oldest Biblical documents. (Dave Bender: All Rights Reserved)

After three years and 100 million U.S. dollars, the Israel Museum, founded in 1965, is about to pull the wraps off a near-total renovation.

The project, which covered every segment of the 20-acre (some 80,937 square meters) campus, "is the largest collective philanthropic effort ever undertaken for a single cultural institution in Israel," museum officials said in a statement.

Read more and view more photos here.

(Exclusive Audio) Gaza Flotilla: Catching the Next Wave

So-called activists from Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Germany and several other countries are planning on sending waves of blockade-busting sea craft towards Gaza in coming days and weeks.

In an exclusive interview, Dave Bender speaks with an American-Israeli maritime security expert who says Israel must take a harder, clearer tack in averting a humanitarian disaster in the Hamas-led Palestinian enclave - and a possible military one on the high seas between Israel and its sworn enemies.

Listen in: http://www.davebrianbender.com

'A Terrorist's Guide to Improving Israel's Media Coverage'

A wickedly delicious, satirical, Machiavellian romp through the media looking glass in A Terrorist's Guide to Improving Israel's Media Coverage:

"If Israel wants the same supportive coverage that Fatah and Hamas get, it needs to play by their rules. Press credentials would then go to those who provide positive coverage. Those reporters who want to take pictures of wall graffiti and stage photos of Muslim children throwing stones at Israeli tanks need not apply. If the New York Times or NBC News can't find anyone willing to play by those rules, the way they do in Gaza and Ramallah, then they can stay home and they won't be able to do their jobs.

"The mainstream media will be outraged, you say. There will be even more negative coverage. As if there isn't heaps of it now. And what will the negative media coverage be of? Reporters forced to stay home. Foreign correspondents who have to cover an election in Hungary, instead of eating caviar in a Jerusalem hotel and writing vicious articles about Jewish Middle Eastern refugees living in East Jerusalem.

Ha'aretz reporters will have to move to London to write biting columns in the Guardian about how racist the country they used to live in, is. Before they move on to the inevitable theater reviews and finally begin writing ad copy for insurance agencies. Oh the pathos, the pity. No one will care."

Read the rest.

'Israel Okays Plan to Raze Palestinian Squatters' Homes'

Palestinian nationalistic graffiti at the entrance to a home in Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood. (Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved)

By Dave Bender
The Jerusalem Municipality says it wants to move the residents temporarily during construction, and then relocate them at the same location, but in better housing. The master plan includes replacing roads, water and sewer infrastructure, adding municipal services, hotels, and an archaeological park. Palestinians are skeptical of Israel's promises and intentions. Read more.

Israel: Chillin' on a Blisterin' Day

Acre sunset (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

It's been far, far too hot yesterday and today, so I offer a virtual chiller of a photo I shot at the Crusader-era Old City of Acre (Acco). Enjoy.

'Novartis, Israeli Startup Ink Pharma Deal'

By Dave Bender
Biopharmaceutical firm NasVax has signed a deal with Swiss pharma giant Norvartis to develop new vaccines together, including influenza-fighting strains. "What's significant is that Novartis is one of the five largest vaccine companies in the world," Dr. Ronald Ellis, NasVax senior vice president and chief technical officer, tells ISRAEL21c, "and they found it attractive to work with us." Read the rest.

'Israel Eases Gaza Aid Blockade, Naval Siege Continues'

By Dave Bender, Geng Xuepeng

JERUSALEM, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Israel on Monday began allowing more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, while promising continued enforcement of its naval blockade on the enclave, a spokesman with Israeli Prime Minister's office said. Read more.

Tel Aviv: Extreme Sports Are Hoppin'

'Jumping for Joy' on the Tel Aviv beach (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Athletic jumpers, using stilt-like springs (so, does this qualify as an 'extreme sport?') wow the crowd, on a late afternoon alongside the Tel Aviv beach.

BREAKING: Helen Thomas Quits WH, Retires

From the Huffington Post:

"Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately," a Hearst Newspapers statement said. "Her decision came after her controversial comments about Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet."

Oddly enough, "doyen" (as in, 'The doyen' of the Washington press corps.") is pure Biblical Hebrew for "judge." Wonder what Helen would think of that ("Oh - cackle - the irony! It burns!").

So burn, baby, burn (in the Florida sun, in retirement, with all those Jewish bubbies and zaydies all around).

Bridge of Size: Jerusalem's Light Rail

'Bridge of Size' (Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

This dramatic Calatrava-designed cantilever bridge post buoys a curving cable matrix over Jerusalem's long-delayed light rail project.

This means, as long as you just look up, and it's at this sort of abstract B&W image, it's ok - otherwise it's a frikin' uglificious, soul-killing mess for residents, businesses, and private and public transportation along the route):


(Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)


(Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

...and from the driver's POV:

(Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

Israeli Apartheid: Proof!!!

Give it up for 34-year-old Nikia Brown, an American singer on the Israeli version of American Idol:


She and her husband converted, and up and moved to Israel, and say they are very happy here.

(Geez' peeps, we have just GOT to work harder on that haterz' stuff, huh? And yeah, and that was a bait and switch headline... so sue me)

Gaza flotilla: both sides vow new confrontations

By Dave Bender, Gur Salomon, Yuan Zhenyu

JERUSALEM, June 1 (Xinhua) -- A day after the Israeli commando' s deadly raid on the Gaza aid convoy, there is no sign of an end to the hype. Both Israeli officials and international activists are standing their ground and say they're preparing for the next round.

Israeli government on Tuesday began dealing with repercussions of the incident. While most of the pro-Gaza activists are still under detention, Israeli military, after strict security check, delivered several trucks of aid unloaded from the flotilla to the coastal enclave.

Read more.

One-on-One with Israeli Dep. FM on Gaza Flotilla Debacle

Read my one-on-one int'v with Israeli Dep. FM, Danny Ayalon on the Gaza flotilla debacle at http://www.davebrianbender.com. Video on the way...

Single Chinese Woman 'Be-moms' Orphaned Toddler for Israeli Heart Surgery

By Dave Bender, Hao Fangjia
Quan Shiyi, a volunteer of Beijing, China, is caring for a one-year-and-half-old orphan suffering from a life-threatening congenital heart defect.

Gretel, her English name, is 26 years old and unmarried, and had never looked after a baby, even not changed a diaper. But all that changed in 2009 when she met Qian Baoxin at an orphanage in Beijing, where Gretel volunteered as a translator.

There, she learned the meaning of motherhood. Read the rest.

Israel Finds 2000-year-old Bridge, Aqueduct in Jerusalem

Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist, Yehiel Zelinger, stands alongside a Mameluke-era bridge and aqueduct outside Jerusalem's Old City walls. Construction workers uncovered the site two-weeks ago, while laying pipe for new water lines. The structure was built on the ruins of similar water courses that brought water from springs in Bethlehem to Jerusalem's residents since antiquity. (May 11, 2010) (Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved)

By Dave Bender
JERUSALEM, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) on Tuesday announced the discovery of segments of an arched bridge and aqueduct at an excavation site outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Yehiel Zelinger, the IAA archaeologist responsible for the dig, termed the find "spectacular."

He said the bridge was originally part of an ancient aqueduct that brought water to the Temple Mount during the Second Temple period (between 536 BC and 70 AD), when an estimated number of 50,000 Jews returned from the Babylonian exile to build the Second Temple on the site of the destroyed First Temple.

Read the rest.


Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist, Yehiel Zelinger, examines an 1898 topographic map by German archaeologist Konrad Schick of the area outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. Water company construction workers there uncovered a Mameluke-era bridge and aqueduct two-weeks ago. The structure was built on the ruins of similar water courses that brought water from springs in Bethlehem to Jerusalem's residents since antiquity. (May 11, 2010) (Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved)

(Video) Comedy Central: So, Can We Call it Cowardly Antisemitism now?

This is beyond appalling:



Comedy Central website has published an anti-semitic game called "I.S.R.A.E.L. Attacks," in which a murderous robot called Israel is called upon to wipe out every cartoon character on the show. The short animated movie that introduces the premise of the game portrays a "Jew Producer" being "busted" for stealing cartoon characters. "I.S.R.A.E.L" is then sent out to destroy them all. (H-T: Israelinsider)

And that includes consecutively blowing up small kids as part of the action (viewable on the video clip on my site). Y'know, it's just what Jews do.

This slick, Hamas-level toxic Jew-hatred is aimed straight at small children who do not know better, while their parents ignore it, likely assuming it's just another silly online Flash video game. And what's even more galling is that it's from the same major media outlet, Comedy Central, that censored out any visual or verbal reference to Mohammed in a recent South Park episode, after receiving threats from Muslims.

But my post here isn't about or against Muslims or Islam. It's about virulent, poisonous Jew-hatred slowly welling upward into mainstream corporate American media (...and I just wonder how many Jews worked on this production, thinking it was cool and edgy, indie comedy).

Folks, keep your eyes on the ball, here: this isn't an overreaction to a silly animated cartoon for jaded kids. Cultural references like this - bizarre as they are - are also a reasonable barometer of what Jew-haters and their ilk can "get away with" injecting into the public discourse of an increasingly distracted, media-saturated populace under the rubric of "entertainment."

Little kids watch and play this game, imbibe saccharine Jew-hatred between jokes and bad animation, and then Jews and others wonder where the hate's coming from far down the road.
[screen grab appears here]

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/game_player/index.jhtml?game=271497

Wait - I know! Howzabout' we just change the series name to "J.I.H.A.D. Attack" and let's see what happens - just for sh*ts and giggles, you know; let's see who gets death threats first.

Nahhh. On second thought, let's run with it as is, and see who screams first that we're all paranoid and obsessive Yids shutting down valid debate about Israel via important illustrative cartoon metaphors, or some such drivel.

So, again I ask: can we call it cowardly antisemitism now - and do something to stop it?

From Shanghai to Jerusalem: A Jewish Refugee Looks Back

Ninety-four-year-old Sarah Ross of Jerusalem is eyewitness to the birth of two modern nations, both led by ancient peoples: China and Israel. She grew up as a Jewish refugee in Shanghai during World War II, and has lived in Israel since 1948.

Text version.

'Ani Yehudi - I Am a Jew' (music video)

Single Chinese Woman Becomes Orphan's "Mom" in Israel

"Gretel" (Quan Shiyi), comforts one-and-a-half-year-old Xin Bao at the pediatric ICU at Wolfson Hospital in Holon, Israel, 05/04/2010. Xin Bao is recovering from successful open-heart surgery, via the Save A Child's Heart organization. (Photo: Dave Bender - All Rights Reserved).

Single Chinese Woman Becomes Orphan's "Mom" in Israel

By Dave Bender, Hao Fangjia

Quan Shiyi, a volunteer of Beijing, China, is caring for a one-year-and-half-old orphan suffering from a life-threatening congenital heart defect.

Gretel, her English name, is 26 years old and unmarried, and had never looked after a baby, even not changed a diaper.

But all that changed in 2009 when she met Qian Baoxin at an orphanage in Beijing, where Gretel volunteered as a translator. There, she learned the meaning of motherhood.