#BDS: Pete Seeger: Unless we communicate, mankind will disappear

American folk singer who mentored Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, set to participate in virtual rally for Negev's Arava Institute, but is supportive of commercial ban on Israel. 'The entire world should show Israel it should work non-violently,' he says

"My memory is going," says Pete Seeger during a phone interview conducted from his home in the Hudson River Valley. But the 91-year-old singer's sharpness does not cease to amaze, as he spells out a surname he thinks is important to the conversation or recalls his first visit to Israel in the 1960s. During the conversation it is hard to believe that the speaker is a World War II veteran who performed for Eleanor Roosevelt and marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr.

Then, as now, Seeger whole-heartedly believed that songs can bring change. Seeger, America's most important folk-music singer, says time and again that dialogue and non-violent actions are the only way to solve conflicts. This is why he's participating in a virtual rally in support of the Negev's Arava Institute, whose students include Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and others.

#BDS: Kempinski hotels coming to Israel

Luxury chain to open first hotel in 2013 near US Embassy building in Tel Aviv

Businessman Henry Taic – owner of the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv, Le Meridien Dead Sea, and Grand Court Jerusalem – has signed an agreement to bring the Kempinski luxury hotel chain in Israel.

The agreement was signed through Taic's company, Nahal Group.

The chain's first hotel in Israel will be built on half of a plot located next to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, which currently serves as a parking lot. The hotel is slated to have 23 floors and 220 room and suites. Some NIS 200 million will be invested in the hotel, which is scheduled to open in 2013.

The hotel will be part of a project which will also include the Glass Cube luxury apartments that will connect to the hotel through a glass structure.

The housing project will include a 25-floor building with 60 to 70 apartments measuring 100 to 1,000 square meters (1,076 to 10,764 square feet) in size. The apartment owners will be able to enjoy the hotel services.