ENGINEERING STUDENT SAYS CANADIAN SCHOOL REJECTED HIM FOR BEING ISRAELI

JPOST.COM STAFF

The flags of Israel and Canada Photo By: REUTERS

A Canadian trade school reportedly turned down an Israeli student applicant simply for being Israeli.

Israeli civil engineering student and amateur carpenter Stav Daron, who initially spoke with Mako News reporter Ido Daniel, said that he applied to study at the Island School of Building Arts, a Canadian trade school specializing in wood construction and design.

The report cited Daron as saying he had wanted to study at the ISBA, located on Gabriola Island in the province of British Columbia, due to its expertise and prominence in the wood construction field.

According to copies of emails received by The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, Daron had been in correspondence with Patricia Rokosh, the ISBA’s manager of the school and student services, since February. He mentioned that he is Israeli and wanted to sign up for a four-week course costing $2,500 CND. He had even purchased a book from the ISBA website by the school’s founder in order to prepare him for the course

However, when the time came to sign up for the course, Rokosh wrote back to Daron on January 25 that the school is “not accepting applications from Israel.” She said the reason was “due to the conflict and illegal settlement activity in the region.”

Screenshot of the email that Israeli student Stav Doron says he recieved from the Island School of Building Arts in Canada (photo credit: COURTESY STAV DORON)

Daron responded to Rokosh that “It’s really sad to hear that a place that takes pride in taking students from across the world would behave like this.”

Rokosh wrote back in response that “It is sad that decisions being made halfway around the world impact us here as we have had a number of students from Israel attend the school in the past.” The email continued: “This is a question of staying in line with our moral compass, which will always be important to us. We are still inclusive and cannot support that which is not inclusive.”

In his final email to the school, Daron wrote that “not taking applications from Israeli students just because they are from Israel is racism, which is basically what you are protesting against.”

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Marijuana on way to being decriminalized after minister backs move

RAOUL WOOTLIFF

Gilad Erdan accepts anti-drug body’s recommendation to cut down on prosecution for recreational use, cabinet likely to make move official

Young Israelis gathered at the Rose Garden in front of the Knesset, to smoke weed, on the international ‘4:20’ marijuana smoking day, in a demonstration to legalize the drug, in Jerusalem, on April 20, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

In a move seen as paving the way for marijuana to be decriminalized, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Thursday he plans to dramatically change the way the Israeli penal code treats private, recreational use of the drug.
Speaking at a press conference to announce his decision, Erdan said he will be adopting proposals put forward by the Anti-Drug Authority to adopt the “Portugal Model,” in which possession and use of the drug would be decriminalized and treated largely as a health issue.
“This would mean moving to administrative fines, and criminal prosecution would only be a last resort,” Erdan said.

The new tack will need to clear the cabinet, but with many lawmakers backing decriminalization, the move is seen as likely to gain ministerial approval.

Under the proposal, home use and possession of marijuana would carry no punishment but those caught smoking in public could be subject to a series of punitive measures.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan announcing new measures to decriminalize marijuana use, January 26, 2017. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

czytaj dalej tu: Marijuana on way to being….

Palestinian UN worker sentenced to 7 months for aiding Hamas

AFP AND TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF

Waheed Borsh convicted of diverting materials to build jetty, aiding Gaza terror group; likely to be released next week under plea deal

Palestinian Waheed Borsh (C), a UN Development Programme employee in Gaza who is accused of aiding the terror group Hamas, looks on during his indictment at Beersheba District Court on August 28, 2016. (AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI)

A Palestinian UN worker accused by Israel of aiding the Hamas terrorist group was sentenced to seven months’ jail on Wednesday, his lawyer said, in a plea deal that will see him released soon.

Waheed Borsh was convicted of “rendering services to an illegal organization without intention,” his lawyer Lea Tsemel told AFP. With time already served, he is expected to be released on January 12.

The case centered on accusations that rubble in Gaza under the responsibility of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was misused by the terrorist group Hamas that controls the enclave.

The engineer from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, who worked for the UNDP, was arrested on July 16.

According to the Shin Bet security service, Borsh was recruited by a Hamas member to “redirect his work for UNDP to serve Hamas’s military interests.”

Palestinian construction laborers work on a water well at a Saudi Arabia-funded housing project executed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 9, 2016. (AFP/Said Khatib)

During his interrogation, Borsh told investigators that in 2014, he was directed by Hamas to “focus on his work in the UNDP in a way that would allow Hamas to extract the greatest possible benefit from him,” the Shin Bet said at the time.

The UNDP has operated in the West Bank and Gaza since the late 1970s. In recent years, its Gaza branch has focused on rebuilding the homes and businesses destroyed in the conflicts between Israel and Hamas.

In August, Borsh was charged with diverting 300 tons of rubble from a UNDP project in the Gaza Strip, run by Hamas, to build a jetty for the Islamist movement’s naval force.

After reviewing the charge sheet, the UNDP challenged Israel’s allegations and said Borsh diverted the rubble under instructions from the Palestinian Authority.

Tsemel stressed that her client had been convicted only of unintentionally aiding Hamas by “moving some rubble.”

“The prosecution claimed that he should have checked better as this could have helped Hamas.”
The UNDP said it had “zero tolerance for wrongdoing”, but that the case did not prove deliberate intent.

“This outcome confirms that there was no wrongdoing by UNDP,” the body said in a statement.
UN officials argued that Borsh, as a UN employee, may qualify for immunity from prosecution and requested that they be allowed to visit him in jail.

Israel however, rejected the UN request, saying “whoever assists a terror organization cannot hide behind a claim of immunity.”
In addition to Borsh, Israel has accused two other Palestinians of infiltrating international aid organizations on behalf of Hamas.

In August, an Israeli court charged Muhammad Halabi with channeling millions of dollars in foreign aid to Hamas and its armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Halabi, who worked for the Christian organization World Vision, was arrested in June and later indicted on a number of charges, including funding terror. The charge sheet said he was recruited by Hamas to infiltrate the aid organization more than a decade ago, rising to become the head of the organization’s Gaza operations.

According to the Shin Bet, Halabi also recruited a Palestinian aid worker from the Britain-based Save the Children to join the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in 2014.

The governments of Britain, Germany and Australia suspended their donations to the charity over Halabi’s alleged links to Hamas.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said at the time the cases were evidence of a “troubling trend of the systematic exploitation by Hamas.”

AFP visited the site of the alleged UNDP misuse last summer and found a new-looking jetty extending around 50 metres (yards) into the sea.

Perhaps 10 feet (three yards) wide, it had wooden slats erected on one side to obscure the view.

Armed Hamas fighters were in nearby fields.

UNDP officials privately accepted that rubble from one of its projects may have been used in the construction of the jetty.

But they stressed the disposal occurred in conjunction with the Ministry of Public Works, which is run by Hamas’s rivals Fatah.

Fatah leads the internationally recognized Palestinian government, and a UNDP probe concluded that there were no signs of Hamas activity in the area at the time the rubble was placed there.

Palestinian Road Trip!

   Ami Horowitz